PhD Opportunities
Read about the varied and exciting opportunities to study a PhD in the School of Engineering.
Academic staff across the School of Engineering are always working on a wide variety of research projects, and you can become part of this groundbreaking work by studying a PhD with us.
Please check back on these pages regularly as new opportunities, both funded and self-funded, will be added as they become available.
Chemical Engineering
- Development of a novel biocomposite-integrated thin film reactor for the intensification of biosolar energy-driven gas clean-up processing - Prof. Kamelia Boodhoo
- Investigation of hydrogen embrittlement of steels for the hydrogen transport energy future - Dr Alasdair Charles
- Bioelectronic materials - Prof. Mark Geoghegan
- Using particle simulations to optimise battery structures - Dr Colin Hare
- Converting CO2 into Useful Products using Non-thermal Plasmas - Prof. Adam Harvey
- Techno-economic assessment of renewable hydrogen production via chemical-looping reforming of biogas - Dr Wenting Hu
- New Nuclear, the solution to Net Zero? - Miss Sharon Joyce
- Intensified thermal management of electronic devices - Dr Richard Law
- FunPrint: Recipes for Functional 3D Printable resins for heat transfer - Dr Jonathan McDonough
- Direct air capture of carbon dioxide; new materials and processes - Dr Greg Mutch
- Advanced biomaterials for future-proof pharmaceutical formulations - Dr Katarina Novakovic
- High Entropy Alloys - Dr Adrian Oila
- Innovative direct air capture and utilisation system for the production of renewable fuel - Dr Eni Oko
- Developing a Suite of Models for Integrated Dynamic Simulation of Chemical Process Plant (Digital Twins) - Dr Christopher O'Malley
- Scaling up next generation immortal catalysts for the chemical industry - Dr Evangelos Papaioannou
- Development of mixed ionic-electronic oxide ceramics for energy conversion and storage devices - Dr Stevin Pramana
- Integrating 2D Materials into 1D Systems for Wearable Applications - Dr Shayan Seyedin
- Graphene composites from recycling lithium-ion batteries - Prof. Lidija Siller
- Technoeconomic and environmental investigation of novel pathways to recover metals from lithium ion batteries - Dr Sharon Velasquez Orta
- Mobile gasification unit for pharmaceutical waste - Dr Marija Vicevic
- Stoichiometric and kinetic modelling of multiple chemical reactions from labratory data - Dr Mark Willis
- Real-time optimisation control of batch processes - Dr Jie Zhang
- Miniaturized fluidized bed bioreactor for bioprocessing - Dr Vladimir Zivkovic
- Understanding the impacy of ordering and modulation in energy conversion oxide ceramics - Dr Stevin Pramana
- Novel Hydrogen Energy Materials - Dr Adrian Oila
- Ceramic 3D printing for reactor engineering - Dr Jonathan McDonough
- Biochar-amended soil for resilient agriculture, soil health and climate change mitigation - an integrated assessment - Dr Anjali Jayakumar
- Hydrogen generation from wastewater, solid waste, treatment - Dr Sharon Velasquez-Orta
- Next-generation Lateral Flow Assays for Cardiovascular Disease Diagnosis - Dr Jake McClements
- 3D Printed Thermal Energy Stores - Dr Richard Law
- Photocatalytic Conversion of Carbon Dioxide to Renewable Chemicals and Fuels - Dr Fernando Russo-Abegao
- Understanding the changing nature of electrolyser catalysts - Prof. Marc Secanell
- Fuel cells for life – Developing computational tools for assessing fuel cell degradation - Prof. Marc Secanell
Civil and Geospatial Engineering
- Modelling urban development to satisfy the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - Prof. Stuart Barr
- Alignment consistency, forward visibility and road safety on undesigned roads - Mr Roger Bird
- Concrete under fire - Dr Colin Davie
- Modelling Community Resilience to Natural Hazards using an Agent-Based Approach - Dr Sarah Dunn
- The Concrete Jungle: what impact is creeping urbanisation having on flood risk and sewer overflows? - Dr Alistair Ford
- New early warning and forecasting systems for unprecedented rainstorms - Prof. Hayley Fowler
- Achieving Material Efficiency in Modern Floor Design based on Human Acceptability - Dr Haoyu Huang
- The intersection between industrialised construction, digitilisation and automation: evaluating successes, failures, and everything in between - Prof. Mohamad Kassem
- Nature-based solution to mitigate subsidence hazards - Dr Bruna Lopes
- Autonomous reality capture: from 3D data acquisition to digital twin creation - Prof. Jonathan Mills
- Enhanced particle characterisation technique to enable zero-emission solutions - Dr Sadegh Nadimi Shahraki
- Optimzing plant microbiome for pollution control - Dr Lucia Rodriguez Freire
- Investigation of thermal properties of soils for offshore wind power cable design - Dr Mohamed Rouainia
- Energy-SuDS: The potential of urban Green Infrastructure for decarbonising heating and cooling - Dr Ross Stirling
- Biological self-healing for advanced and sustainable masonry materials - Dr Magdalini Theodoridou
- Monitoring the Impact of Green Infrastructure using Citizen Science in Urban and Rural Catchments - Dr Claire Walsh
- Quantifying the impacts and consequences of future climate, super-events - Prof. Sean Wilkinson
- Development of Cognitive Digital Twin for Predictive Maintenance of Building Facilities - Dr Xiang Xie
- Modelling Human-Structure Dynamic Interaction on Lightweight Structures - Dr Sigong Zhang
- International supply chain resilience to climate change - Prof. Richard Dawson
- Resilient Levees: The impact of changing climate on the performance of UK Flood Embankments - Dr Ross Stirling
- Water quality monitory and forecasting through integration of geopsatial and remotely sensed data - Dr Maria-Valasia Peppa
- New design methodologies for open pit mines of reduced carbon footprint for the extraction of green economy metals - Prof. Stefano Utili
- Future-Proofing Urban Water Supply: Antifragile Design for Flood Resilience - Dr Manuel Herrera
- Weighing the Antarctic Ice Sheet: using GNSS observations of solid Earth deformation to understand contributions to sea level change - Prof. Peter Clarke
- An agent-based cellular automata model for analysing climate change risks to rapidly growing cities - Prof. Stuart Barr
- Integrated Food and Water Planning for the Blue Nile Basin - Prof. Anna Murgatroyd
- A generative AI flood vulnerability model for a changing world - Prof. Richard Dawson
- Integrating BIM and Drone for Automated Inspection of Utility Tunnels - Dr Xiang Xie
- Accessible and resilient transport systems for a net-zero transition - Dr Craig Robson
- Adaptation strategies, environmental impacts, raw materials and costs of infrastructure systems - Prof. Oliver Heidrich
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
- Integrating Electrical Machines into Wave Energy Converters - Dr Nick Baker
- Enabling intermittent computing for the Internet of Things (IoT) - Dr Domenico Balsamo
- Tree-partitioning to prevent cascading wide-area blackouts - Prof. Janusz Bialek
- Next-Generation Spiking Neural Networks Architectures and Machine Learning Algorithms - Prof. Daniel Coca
- Modular, Reconfigurable and Adaptive Power Converters for Future Electric Vehicles Charging Infrastructure - Dr Mohamed Dahidah
- Biomedical Neuroprosthetics - Prof. Patrick Degenaar
- A data-driven uncertainty-aware investment planning model in low-inertia power systems under security constraints - Dr Shahab Dehghan
- Self-Optimised Power Converters for Grid-Scale Battery Energy Storage Systems - Dr Mohammed Elgendy
- Unified Control of Hybrid Energy Smart Grids using Graph Theory, Automata and Multi Agent Systems - Prof. Damian Giaouris
- Design of Non-Binary Error-Correcting Codes for Free-Space Optical Communications - Dr Martin Johnston
- Error-control coding in DNA sequences - Dr Stephane Le Goff
- Low energy passive acoustic detection of marine mammals - Prof. Jeff Neasham
- Silicon Carbide MOSFETs - Prof. Anthony O'Neill
- Advanced cooling techniques for photovoltaic systems - Prof. Volker Pickert
- Segmented Outer Rotor Synchronous Reluctance Generator with Integrated Electronics for Renewable Generation - Dr Andrew Smith
- AIoT based structural health monitoring and diagnostics - Prof. Gui Yan Tian
- Modelling of High Frequency Power Circuits - Prof. Nicholas Wright
- Explainable AI for Digital Healthcare - Dr Jingjing Zhang
- Bionic Vision - Prof. Patrick Degenaar
Mechanical Engineering and Marine Technology
- Investigation of convective and conjugate heat transfer for different jet configurations using Direct Numerical Simulations - Dr Umair Ahmed
- Thermodiffusively-unstable lean premixed hydrogen flames - Dr Andy Aspden
- Predicting whipping induced failure in a cyclic progressive collapse analysis of ship structures - Dr Simon Benson
- Antibacterial scaffolds - Dr Oana Bretcanu
- Numerical investigation of conjugate heat transfer during interaction of high-Hydrogen content flames with cooled walls using Direct Numerical Simulations - Prof. Nilanjan Chakraborty
- Engineering theraputic immune-biomaterials for tissue engineering applications - Dr Ana Ferreira-Duarte
- Sensorimotor Augmentation through Supernumerary Robotics Limbs - Prof. Domenico Formica
- Surface Acoustic Wave Sensors - Dr Barry Gallacher
- Human factors for digital transport operations - Dr David Golightly
- Real-time prediction of in-service ship seakeeping - Dr Maryam Haroutunian
- Autonomous Mobile Robots - Dr John Hedley
- AI-based Rigid-Flexible Coupled Dynamic Performance Analysis of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines - Prof. Zhiqiang Hu
- 3D Vibration Assisted Micro Machining of Sculptured Surfaces on Hard-to-machine Materials - Dr Dehong Huo
- Aeroelasticity of wind turbines under extreme weather condition - Dr Mohsen Lahooti
- Development of bioinks to bioprinit an in vitro model of the gut mucosa - Dr Priscila Melo
- Microgrids in Maritime Applications - Dr Rosemary Norman
- A systems approach to urban mobility: The role of micro-mobility in achieving net zero - Prof. Roberto Palacin
- Phenomenological Modelling of Nature-Inspired Energy Extraction - Dr Narakorn Srinil
- A new shipbuilding strategy - Dr Paul Stott
- Design and Operation of Autonomous Wind Powered Ships - Dr David Trodden
- Risk and Consequence Analysis of CO2 Transportation - Dr Benjamin Wetenhall
- Project CHLOE: Sustainable energy reduction through innovative aerodynamic flow control in the Cloud - Dr Richard Whalley
- Investigation the gut immune response in IBD related to mucus integrity and permeability using microfluidics - Dr Priscila Melo
- Prediction of dynamic behaviour of lightweight alloys in extreme conditions for sustainable mobility - Dr Yuan Xu
Electrical and Electronic Engineering
- Federated Multi-task Learning under Dyamic Sensor Networks for Edge-enabled Sleep Management - Dr Jingjing Zhang, Prof Patrick Degenaar, Dr Ilke Turkmendag
- Accelerating Sustainable Electric Machine Design for Net-Zero Emissions with Life Cycle Assessment - Dr Libing Cao, Prof Barrie Mecrow
- Improving Reliability in Vision-Language Models: Reducing Hallucination in Multimodal AI Systems - Prof Rishad Shafik
- Advancing Net-Zero Manufacturing: Physics-Informed Digital Twin for Real-Time Fault Diagnosis and Prognosis in Complex Mechatronic Systems - Dr Zepeng Liu, Dr Dehong Huo
- Machine Learning-driven fusion of drone-mounted ground-penetrating radar and Smart Meter data for advanced leak detection in Water Networks - Dr Oktay Cetinkaya, Prof Rishad Shafik
- Quantum-Uplifted Advanced Resilient Topology Optimisation for Net-Zero Electricity Networks - Dr Shahab Dehghan, Dr David Greenwood, Prof Vladimir Terzija
Mechanical Engineering and Marine Technology
- DEPTHS: Data-driven Evaluation of Pollutant Dispersion in Urban Areas by Detached Eddy Simulation and Experiment - Dr Amir Fard
- Human Motor Learning in Augmentation - Dr Alessia Noccaro
- UMBRELA - Understanding of Multiaxial Behaviour of Emerging Lightweight Alloys for sustainable mobility - Dr Yuan Xu