PhD Scholarship (Industry) – Privacy-Preserving AI for Human-Centric Video Analytics Full-time

PhD Scholarship (Industry) – Privacy-Preserving AI for Human-Centric Video Analytics

An exciting opportunity is available for an outstanding PhD candidate to undertake an Industry Linked PhD at Monash University in collaboration with Aervision Pty Ltd, an Australian AI company developing advanced video analytics solutions for critical infrastructure, public safety and smart environments. The successful candidate will be supervised by Dr Deval Mehta within the Department of Data Science & AI, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University.

This project is funded through the Australian Government National Industry PhD Program and provides a unique opportunity to conduct cutting-edge AI research while working closely with industry to translate research into real-world products. The candidate will spend part of their candidature embedded within Aervision's research and development team, gaining hands-on experience in commercial AI development, product deployment and research translation.

This PhD project aims to develop next-generation foundation models for privacy-preserving human-centric video analytics. Research directions will include human action and activity recognition, individual and group behaviour understanding, long-term behaviour prediction, multi-task learning and foundation models, zero-shot and open-set recognition, privacy-preserving AI using anonymised human representations, efficient AI deployment on edge devices, and real-world AI systems for security, healthcare and smart environments.

The research will utilise anonymised industry datasets and be validated using Aervision's commercial AI platforms, providing a direct pathway from research to deployment. The project will contribute to Australia's capability in trustworthy and responsible AI while advancing commercially deployable video analytics technologies.

We are seeking highly motivated applicants with a strong academic background in computer science, data science and artificial intelligence. Applicants should ideally have experience in deep learning and machine learning, computer vision, Python programming, PyTorch or TensorFlow, strong mathematical and analytical skills. Excellent communication skills and enthusiasm for both academic research and industry collaboration are highly desirable.

This scholarship provides an Australian Government Industry PhD Scholarship, direct collaboration with an innovative Australian AI company, access to large-scale real-world industry datasets, industry placement throughout the PhD, access to Monash University's high-performance computing infrastructure, opportunities to publish in leading AI conferences and journals (CVPR, ICCV, AAAI, NeurIPS, and equivalent), training in research commercialisation and technology translation, and strong employment prospects in both academia and industry.

This position has a two-stage selection process:

Stage 1: Please submit an EOI to deval.mehta@monash.edu. With the EOI please include the documents – CV, academic transcripts and cover letter – and a draft research proposal of up to 5 pages, responding to your proposed plan for building Privacy-Preserving AI for Human-Centric Video Analytics.

Stage 2: Candidates who pass this stage of the selection process will be invited to discuss their ideas with Dr Deval Mehta before developing and submitting a full application.

Enquiries: Dr Deval Mehta, deval.mehta@monash.edu

Applications Close: Sunday 30 August 2026, 11:55pm AEST