PhD Studentships for 2022

The School of Physics and Astronomy is pleased to announce that applications are open for several research projects across our research groups for September 2022.

STFC Application deadline: 19th January 2022 – see this website for how to apply.
NERC/CENTA Application deadline: 7 January 2022 – see this website for how to apply.

The list of advertised projects can be found here, including (but not limited to) topics in Planetary Science, Astrophysics, and Space hardware. STFC projects are listed here, and this is where you’d likely be looking if you are interested in space science and astrophysics. Full details of funding eligibility requirements and the application process are available from the link above.  

The full list should also be available via FindAPhd.

Please do spread the word, and contact our postgraduate admissions team (pgrphys@le.ac.uk), or the supervisors directly, for more information regarding the projects.  

Astrophysics projects

• Professor Richard Alexander – The building blocks of planets (Word doc)   (Project .pdf)
• Professor Andrew Blain – Probing the universe with JWST (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Dr Michael Goad – Mapping the central regions of AGN (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Professor John Lapington – Construction and Characterization of the SST Camera for the Cherenkov Telescope Array Gamma Ray Observatory (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Dr Chris Nixon – Astrophysical accretion: theory and computation (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Professor Paul O’Brien – Gamma-Ray Bursts discovered by the SVOM satellite (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Dr Giovanni Rosotti – A new window into planet formation: kinematical studies of proto-planetary discs with ALMA (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Professor Nial Tanvir – Multi-messenger astrophysics (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Professor Nial Tanvir – Probing the high redshift universe with gamma-ray bursts (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Dr Simon Vaughan – Black hole astrophysics through timing studies (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Professor Mike Watson – The AGN – galaxy connection: utilising the power of large sky surveys (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)

Planetary Science projects

• Professor John Bridges – Water-Rock Reactions in the Solar System  (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Dr Leigh Fletcher –  Giant Planet Origins from the James Webb Space Telescope (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Dr Henrik Melin – The ionosphere of Jupiter in the Juno era (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Professor Steve Milan – Electrodynamics of the solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere-atmosphere coupled system (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Dr Jonathan Nichols – Analysing Jupiter’s polar auroras with the Hubble Space Telescope (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Prof Emma Bunce – Magnetospheres of the Gas Giants:-  Analysing Juno (Jupiter) and Cassini (Saturn) magnetic field data to determine magnetospheric current systems and their internal and external drivers  (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Dr Beatriz Sanchez-Cano – The role of crustal magnetic fields on Mars’ ionospheric dynamics (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)
• Dr Tom Stallard – Traces of Jupiter’s magnetic field: the magnetic silhouette in Jupiter’s ionosphere (Word doc)  (Project .pdf)

Earth Observation Projects

• Dr Robert Parker Attributing causes of extreme fire events with the JULES Land Surface Model and Artificial Intelligence
• Dr Darren Ghent High Resolution Thermal Imaging Data for Earth Observation Research and Services