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Postgraduate Research
Postgraduate students are an integral part of our research community. They work alongside talented academics and researchers from around the world, contributing to our growing reputation for internationally excellent research.
To help you fund your studies and achieve your career goals, we offer a range of scholarships and funded project-specific studentships across various disciplines, giving you the chance to get involved in some of the exciting research projects taking place at 51²è¹Ýapp. We are also offering exciting opportunities through our doctoral training partnerships and centres, which bring together academic expertise and cutting-edge resources to help deliver innovative and transformative research.
Supervisory Team: Dr Ravi Valluru
This PhD aims to understand the potential nature of sulphur on biological nitrogen fixation in faba beans. Sulphur is an essential mineral nutrient for plant growth and development; important for primary and specialized plant metabolites that are crucial for biotic and abiotic interactions. Sulphur also plays a crucial role in biological nitrogen fixation, a natural process belonging to legumes that symbiosis with bacteria through root nodules to fix atmospheric nitrogen. Root nodules have a high demand for sulphur. In nodulated legumes, biological nitrogen fixation is more sensitive to sulphur deficiency than nitrate uptake. However, the natural sources of gypsum-mine-derived sulphur-containing by-product’s effect on plant growth, development and biological nitrogen fixation is largely unexplored. This 3.5-year project will unveil the functional relationship between sulphur nutrition and biological nitrogen fixation in faba beans using 15N stable isotopes.
Training and Development
The successful candidate will receive comprehensive research training including technical, personal, and professional skills. All researchers at 51²è¹Ýapp are part of the Doctoral College and College of Health and Science wider postgraduate community, which provides support with high quality training and career development opportunities.
Funding
This PhD studentship is fully funded and covers University fees for 3.5 years.
Entry requirements for applicants to PhD
A Master’s (honours) degree in a relevant discipline/subject area with a minimum mark of 60% in the project element (or equivalent), and the potential to engage in innovative research, and to complete the PhD within 3.5 years.
How to Apply
To find out more about the project, please contact Dr Ravi Valluru (rvalluru@lincoln.ac.uk).
Applications will require a two-page CV and a 2000-word supporting statement, showing how the applicant's expertise and interests are relevant to the project.
Supervisory Team: Prof Jeanette Rotchell
This PhD aims to firstly examine the presence, distribution, levels, types, and targeted impacts of microplastics within the human body. A second aim is to relate the findings to a mathematical modelling approach to predict the distribution of microplastics within the body.
It is already established that microplastics are present in many tissues within the body and our earlier work has produced datasets for human lung, blood, and urine. Previous studies have focused on specific tissue types, have used a variety of isolation and characterisation techniques, and this has resulted in a patchwork of datasets. This study will take a holistic approach and use three commonly adopted microplastic characterisation techniques available at the 51²è¹Ýapp; micro-FTIR, Raman and SEM, to calibrate the findings. The techniques will allow polymer, size and shape characterisation which can inform the subsequent stage of biological effects investigation.
The second element involves mathematical modelling to explore the possibility of predicting microplastic particle fate within the body based on their properties and the size dimensions of the various transport systems within the body.
Training and Development
The successful candidate will receive comprehensive research training including technical, personal and professional skills.
All researchers at 51²è¹Ýapp are part of the Doctoral College and College of Health and Science wider postgraduate community, which provides support with high quality training and career development opportunities.
Funding
A tax-free stipend of ca. £18,622 p.a. (in monthly instalments). The fees are £4,712.
Entry requirements for applicants to PhD
A bachelor’s (honours) degree in a relevant discipline/subject area with a minimum classification of 2:1 and a minimum mark of 60% in the project element (or equivalent), and the potential to engage in innovative research, and to complete the PhD within 3.5 years.
How to Apply
To find out more about the project, please contact Professor Jeanette Rotchell, jrotchell@lincoln.ac.uk.
Applications will require a two page CV and a 2000-word supporting statement, showing how the applicant's expertise and interests are relevant to the project.
Supervisors: Prof Oliver Burman and Dr Tom Pike
Project Background
Affective state, and thus animal welfare, is typically measured using proxy behavioural, physiological and/or cognitive indicators assumed to reflect the associated subjective experience. Cognitive indicators of affective state have gained increasing attention in recent years because they appear to have several advantages compared to behavioural and physiological measures. The most established of the cognitive indicators, cognitive bias, is a validated measure of affective valence shown to be effective in assessing both short-term emotions and longer-term moods in a wide variety of (non-human) animal species. In this paradigm, the affective states that animals experience influence their cognition and, by studying their decision-making in different contexts, this opens a window into their otherwise subjective experience. However, this approach has been primarily focused on the welfare assessment of either domesticated companion, laboratory and farm animal species, or captive wild animals, and has not yet been convincingly demonstrated in wild free-living animal populations. This goal is important if the full potential of the approach is to be extended to multiple wild species in varied (natural) contexts without having to either capture and restrain animals or hold them in captivity. This outcome is crucial for addressing urgent contemporary issues such as the impact of anthropogenic and climatic change on wild animal welfare, and to tackle key conservation challenges.
In this PhD, our aim is to validate two novel cognitive approaches to assessing affective valence in wild animals that do not require training, in conjunction with established behavioural and physiological indicators of welfare. Firstly, we will investigate a modified cognitive judgement bias task based on the innate avoidance of naturally occurring aversive prey, using the principle of imperfect Batesian mimicry. Secondly, we will modify and validate a cognitive attention bias task that relies on a spontaneous response to a potential threat. Both tasks will be assessed in populations of wild birds using existing variation in affective valence based on what we call a ‘Landscape of Affect’ – a spatial representation of anthropogenic and physical features of the environment that reflects both negatively and positively valenced situation-related affects. Our anticipated outcome is the development of an effective, validated measure of affective valence applicable to wild birds that can be translated across species; an invaluable tool in the assessment of wild animal welfare in response to a wide variety of environmental challenges.
Person Specification and Entry Requirements
This project requires a range of inter-disciplinary skills including an understanding of animal behaviour and welfare within an ecological context. Data collection will be predominately field-based and so the ideal candidate will have experience in behavioural ecology fieldwork alongside an interest in animal welfare. Applicants must hold a minimum of a 2:1 bachelor’s degree, or equivalent, in an appropriate subject.
The successful candidate will be provided with guidance and supervision from experts in the relevant disciplines from the Animal Behaviour, Cognition and Welfare Research Group (Burman) and Evolutionary & Ecology Research Group (Pike). They will also receive training in a range of key techniques, including habitat mapping, welfare assessment, and statistical analysis.
Funding
The successful candidate will receive a yearly stipend for maintenance set at the UKRI rate, which for 2024/2025 will be £19,237. This four-year Studentship (01/10/2024 - 30/09/2028) will also cover tuition fees for home (UK) students. Non-home students would be required to secure funding for the additional international fees, and should clarify this in their cover letter.
Please submit applications (CV and Covering letter) and/or direct any queries related to the PhD project to both Professor Oliver Burman (oburman@lincoln.ac.uk) and Dr Tom Pike (tpike@lincoln.ac.uk).
The deadline for applications is 1 September 2024, with interviews of shortlisted candidates scheduled to take place in the week of 2 September 2024. Informal enquiries are welcome.
Supervisors: Professor Matt Watkins, School of Mathematics and Physics, 51²è¹Ýapp and Dr Joshua Elliott & Dr Sofia Diaz-Moreno, Department of Physical Science, Diamond Light Source Ltd.
4-year Fully Funded PhD Studentship developing real-time time-dependent density functional theory simulations of photoactive organometallic compounds.
Diamond Light Source is the UK’s national synchrotron science facility. By accelerating electrons to near light-speed, Diamond generates brilliant beams of light from infra-red to X-rays which are used for academic and industry research and development across a range of scientific disciplines including structural biology, physics, chemistry, materials science, engineering, earth and environmental sciences.
Summary
Applications are welcome for a four-year funded PhD studentship jointly held at the School of Mathematics and Physics, 51²è¹Ýapp and the Spectroscopy Group at Diamond Light Source starting October 2023. The Studentship will focus on developing GPU parallelised routines for Real-Time Propagated Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory with the Open Source CP2K software and their application to Pump and Probe spectroscopy data collected at the I18 Microfocus beamline.
Background
Understanding, on an atomic scale, how light-activated processes drive chemical reaction mechanisms, local geometric rearrangements and charge transfer reactions will be pivotal in engineering next-generation devices and overcoming our overreliance on carbon-positive technology. X-ray pump and probe spectroscopy is a critical tool for probing light-induced reaction mechanisms and photo-excited states. However, this type of experiment typically provides data of seldom observed chemical states and therefore, further analysis and characterisation can be highly challenging.
First-principles simulations can be focal in interpreting experimental spectroscopic data collected at Diamond Light Source. Real-Time Propagation Time-Dependent DFT has emerged as a powerful and viable means to investigate the time evolution of excited states subject to a time-dependent electromagnetic field.
Project Description
The studentship targets the acceleration of the RTP-TDDFT routines within the CP2K code through GPU parallelisation. RTP-TDDFT will be deployed to provide insight into the fundamental dynamical excited state properties of organo-transition metal complexes of particular interest to the facilities’ user communities. In addition, it will implement an automated framework for RTP-TDDFT simulations of more generalised materials across different High-Performance Computing facilities available to Diamond Light Source scientists and users.
Further Information
Diamond Light Source Ltd holds an Athena SWAN Bronze Award, demonstrating their commitment to provide equal opportunities and to advance the representation of women in STEM/M subjects: science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine.
How to Apply
We seek a highly motivated student interested in research software development and materials science to join our team. Interested applicants are asked to provide an up-to-date CV and a one to two page cover letter outlining their scientific background, expertise and research interests and the names ad contact details of two references to Joshua.elliott@diamond.ac.uk and MWatkins@lincoln.ac.uk. Informal enquiries are also encouraged.
The position will remain open until a suitable candidate is found.
The 51²è¹Ýapp has joined the South and East Network for Social Sciences (SENSS) Doctoral Training Partnership with a number of other leading UK universities to help train the next generation of social scientists via a range of fully funded research studentships.
Discover More About the Partnership
Research Spotlight
In collaboration with leading partner institutions, the 51²è¹Ýapp has secured £10.6m in funding to establish a transformative Centre for Doctoral Training to support innovative research in the application of Artificial Intelligence to sustainable agri-food. A range of fully funded studentships is now available.