Current PhD topics and studentships

Fully Funded Full-time PhD Studentship

• Human-AI collaboration - This funded studentship is open to UK students only. If you are interested in this project, please contact Dr Amel Bennaceur for a discussion and advice on application. 

The application procedure can be found here. Application cut-off date: 31 January 2024 (extended).

Other PhD opportunities

The following is a list of topics our academics proposed for PhD projects. If you are interested in a project, please contact the relevant academic directly for advice. The application procedure can be found here. 

These projects are open to both full-time and part-time PhD study. Please contact the relevant academic for further information and advice.

Funding for a full-time PhD studentship starting in October 2024 is available. This studentship is open to both UK and international students. Application will close on 31 January 2024.

Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing

• Statistical Models for Analysing and Generating Music Contact: Dr Robin Charles Laney
• Collaborative Environments for Creative Uses of Musical Information Retrieval Contact: Dr Robin Charles Laney
• Algorithmic Generation of Computer Game Music Contact: Dr Robin Charles Laney
• Musical Contrast and Similarity Contact: Dr Robin Charles Laney
• Automatic Generation of Dialogue Acts: Understanding Dialogue through Computational Modelling Contact: Dr Paul Piwek
• From data to questions and stories: inclusive technologies for data exploration Contact: Dr Paul Piwek
• Dialogue Games, Argumentation and Meaning: Computational modelling of Brandom's inferentialism Contact: Dr Paul Piwek
• Explainable machine learning and natural language processing for automatic assessment Contact: Dr Alistair Willis
• Lightweight semantics for text similarity Contact: Dr Alistair Willis
• Semantics of ambiguity Contact: Dr Alistair Willis
• Exploring Quantum Models for Contextual Classification and Decision Making over Online Information Spaces Contact: Prof. Dawei Song
• Incorporating Domain-specific Knowledge into Pre-trained Language Model based Controllable Text Generation Contact: Prof. Dawei Song
• Simulation Models for Theoretical Life Science Research Contact: Dr Adam Linson
• ADAPTIVE CONTINUOUS LEARNING Contact: Dr Ian Kenny, Dr Dhouha Kbaier
• EXPLORING MACHINE LEARNING AND COMPUTATIONAL TECHNIQUES TO INFORM RAPID ADAPTIVE CLIMATE CHANGE Contact: Dr Ian Kenny, Dr Dhouha Kbaier
• HOW DO YOU HAVE AN AI FORGET - RESPONSIBLY? Contact: Dr Ian Kenny, Dr Dhouha Kbaier

Critical information studies

• Decolonial Computing Contact: Dr Mustafa Ali
• Examining the historical roots and social aspects of the nature of information Contact: Dr Magnus Ramage

Interaction design

• Interfacing with complex data: Interactive pattern exploration and discovery by domain experts Contact: Dr Adam Linson
• Interfaces for life logging mood and affect Contact: Dr Daniel Gooch, Professor Blaine Price
• Music and Human Centred Computing Contact: Dr Simon Holland
• Digital Health and Interaction Design Contact: Dr Simon Holland, Professor Blaine Price
• Animal-Computer Interaction Contact: Dr Clara Mancini
• Socialised Exploration and Sense-Making over Online Information Spaces Contact: Prof. Dawei Song
• Decision dashboards for clinicians to make sense of patient-collected data Contact: Dr Daniel Gooch, Professor Blaine Price
• Digital Civics Contact: Dr Daniel Gooch

Next generation multimedia and networking

• Deepfake images detection for forensic purposes Contact: Dr Patrick Wong
• eXplainable Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing for Satellite Deepfake Images Detection Contact: Dr. Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui
• 6G ubiquitous wireless networks Contact:Prof Laurence Dooley
• 3D-imaging paradigms for 6G networks Contact:Prof Laurence Dooley
• Future trends in wireless communications: Exploring new structures of turbo codes Contact: Dr Dhouha Kbaier
• A hardware module for Robust and Resilient UAVs Communications Contact: Dr Dhouha Kbaier
• Game-Theoretic Approaches to Environmental Risk Contact: Dr Dhouha Kbaier
• Developing geographical understanding through 3D immersive environments Contact: Professor Shailey Minocha, Dr David Morse
• Participatory Machine Learning - Rethinking the Power Dynamics Contact: Dr. Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui
• Explainable Machine Learning to Reverse Inequalities in Healthcare Provision Contact: Dr. Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui
• Unbiased by Design - ‘Towards a Fair Machine Learning’ Contact: Dr. Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui

Software engineering and design

• Sustainable software engineering Contact: Dr Chris.Douce, Professor Arosha Bandara 
• Security by design: Trust, Reliability and Resilience for IoT devices in Healthcare Contact: Dr Chitra Balakrishna
• Machine Learning for Emergent Middleware Contact: Dr Amel Bennaceur, Professor Arosha Bandara
• Participatory Security: Self-protecting Communities On the fly Contact: Dr Amel Bennaceur
• The role of storytelling in software engineering practice Contact: Dr Chris.Douce, Dr Tamara Lopez
• Business analytics as organisational problem solving Contact: Dr Lucia Rapanotti
• Facilitating the Maintenance and Evolution of Software Contact: Dr Michel Wermelinger
• Analysing the Complexity of Software with (Social) Network Metrics Contact: Dr Michel Wermelinger, Dr Christopher Douce
• Automating Online to Offline Services using Smart Contracts Contact: Dr Yijun Yu
• Live Forensics for Drones Contact: Dr Yijun Yu
• Engineering Adaptive IoT-based Software for Food Security Contact: Professor Andrea Zisman, Dr Amel Bennaceur
• Software Adoption to Solve Multi-Domain Integration Problems Contact: Dr Michel Wermelinger
• Delivering full-fibre connectivity broadband in the UK Contact: Dr Advait Deshpande
• Business agility in an era of hybrid working Contact: Dr Advait Deshpande
• Mobilising artificial intelligence to identify patterns of criminal behaviour on digital devices Contact: Dr Ian Kennedy

Technology and education

• MOOCs for professional development of school teachers Contact: Professor Shailey Minocha
• Education and training for globally distributed virtual teams: preparing the workforce for the future Contact: Dr David Morse
• A Novel Language and Environment for Teaching Programming Contact: Dr Michel Wermelinger
• Teaching programming at a distance Contact: Dr Michel Wermelinger, Dr Christopher Douce