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Prof Mauro Mobilia
Prof Alastair Rucklidge
Applications accepted all year round
About the Project
Project title: Monitoring and modelling social networks in the digital economy
Background to research: The rapid evolution of online social media platforms has allowed specialist agencies such as Bloom to capitalise on the gulf that has opened up between digital and traditional media. Agencies like Bloom are built on a new model of personalised, content driven marketing campaigns that integrate feedback from real-time monitoring of social media "buzz".
Social media and other digital platforms are also having a profound impact on scientific endeavour. The availability of large, open-access data sets describing human interactions and behaviour has stimulated high impact scientific research that blurs the boundaries between the social, computational and mathematical sciences.
Aims of the project: The objectives of this project are to develop real-time implementations of continuous-time matrix-valued functions extending and generalising the current "communicability" graph-theory metric used by Bloom to quantify influence in social media, and to develop and analyse statistical and dynamical models of social media interaction with a long-term view to enabling Bloom to create a predictive analytics suite using data-driven models.
Supervisors: Drs Jonathan Ward and Mauro Mobilia, Prof. Alastair Rucklidge (School of Mathematics); Peter Laflin (Head of Data Insight, Bloom Agency).
The student will mainly work on the project at the University of Leeds, but during the course of the project some period of time will be spent at Bloom Agency in Leeds, at mutually convenient times to be agreed by all parties concerned. For extra information, please contact Prof. Alastair Rucklidge email: [Email Address Removed]
PhD candidates must have, or expect to achieve a first or good upper second class honours degree, or equivalent in a subject relevant to the programme of study.
If English is not your first language, you must provide evidence of a language qualification before registration as a postgraduate student. For PhD study the School of Mathematics will accept the following qualifications and scores:
IELTS - an overall band of 6.0 with no individual skill band below 5.5 in all components
Internet Based TOEFL (iBT): Overall 87, with not less than 20 in Listening, 21 in Writing, 20 in Reading and 22 in Speaking
Background to research: The rapid evolution of online social media platforms has allowed specialist agencies such as Bloom to capitalise on the gulf that has opened up between digital and traditional media. Agencies like Bloom are built on a new model of personalised, content driven marketing campaigns that integrate feedback from real-time monitoring of social media "buzz".
Social media and other digital platforms are also having a profound impact on scientific endeavour. The availability of large, open-access data sets describing human interactions and behaviour has stimulated high impact scientific research that blurs the boundaries between the social, computational and mathematical sciences.
Aims of the project: The objectives of this project are to develop real-time implementations of continuous-time matrix-valued functions extending and generalising the current "communicability" graph-theory metric used by Bloom to quantify influence in social media, and to develop and analyse statistical and dynamical models of social media interaction with a long-term view to enabling Bloom to create a predictive analytics suite using data-driven models.
Supervisors: Drs Jonathan Ward and Mauro Mobilia, Prof. Alastair Rucklidge (School of Mathematics); Peter Laflin (Head of Data Insight, Bloom Agency).
The student will mainly work on the project at the University of Leeds, but during the course of the project some period of time will be spent at Bloom Agency in Leeds, at mutually convenient times to be agreed by all parties concerned. For extra information, please contact Prof. Alastair Rucklidge email: [Email Address Removed]
PhD candidates must have, or expect to achieve a first or good upper second class honours degree, or equivalent in a subject relevant to the programme of study.
If English is not your first language, you must provide evidence of a language qualification before registration as a postgraduate student. For PhD study the School of Mathematics will accept the following qualifications and scores:
IELTS - an overall band of 6.0 with no individual skill band below 5.5 in all components
Internet Based TOEFL (iBT): Overall 87, with not less than 20 in Listening, 21 in Writing, 20 in Reading and 22 in Speaking
Funding Notes
PhD project to start Oct 2013 funded by School of Mathematics EPSRC CASE Bloom Scholarship paying fees at full UK/EU rate and maintenance of £13,726pa for 3.5 years + additional maintenance from industrial partner Bloom Agency of £3,000 pa over 3.5 years (total £10,500).
UK applicants are eligible for a full award paying tuition fees and maintenance.
EU applicants are eligible for an award paying tuition fees only. In exceptional circumstances, where residency has been established for more than 3 years prior to the start of the course, they may be eligible for a full award paying fees and maintenance.
UK applicants are eligible for a full award paying tuition fees and maintenance.
EU applicants are eligible for an award paying tuition fees only. In exceptional circumstances, where residency has been established for more than 3 years prior to the start of the course, they may be eligible for a full award paying fees and maintenance.
Project supervisors
Career overview
Professor Mauro Mobilia obtained a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) in 2002, focusing on non-equilibrium statistical physics. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Boston University and Virginia Tech from 2002 to 2005, supported by a research fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). In 2005, he received a Humboldt Research Fellowship, which he held at the University of Munich (LMU) until 2007. Following this, he worked as a research fellow at the Mathematics Institute and Centre for Complexity Science at the University of Warwick from 2007 to 2009 on an Advanced SNSF Fellowship. In June 2008, he accepted a faculty position at the University of Leeds. Since 2009, he has been at the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds, where he is currently a full professor (Chair) of applied mathematics. His academic journey includes roles as a Lecturer, Associate Professor, and Full Professor at the University of Leeds, and he has held various prestigious fellowships throughout his career.
Research interests
Professor Mauro Mobilia''s research primarily focuses on the multidisciplinary applications of non-equilibrium statistical physics to evolutionary dynamics and complex systems within the life and behavioural sciences. Key challenges he addresses include the emergence of cooperative behaviour, maintenance of biodiversity, dynamics of cultural changes, and self-organisation of mobile populations. His work often involves mathematical modelling at the individual-based level, leading to stochastic many-body problems, which he approaches using methods from statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics, and evolutionary game theory. Notable research outcomes include studies on ''rock-paper-scissors'' games that investigate self-organisation and biodiversity in cyclically competing populations, the impact of zealots in opinion dynamics models, and explorations of metastability alongside demographic and environmental fluctuations. Recent highlights involve modelling fluctuating populations influenced by demographic noise and environmental variability, particularly in the context of eco-evolutionary dynamics of microbial communities. His ongoing research includes the EPSRC-NSF funded project “Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics of Fluctuating Populations,” which has applications related to antimicrobial resistance and the effects of varying toxins and nutrients.
Non-Equilibrium Statistical Physics
Evolutionary Dynamics
Mathematical Biology
Complex Systems
Individual-Based Models
Stochastic Processes
Evolutionary Game Theory
Opinion Dynamics
Cooperative Behaviour
Biodiversity
Cultural Dynamics
Mobile Populations
Mathematical Modelling
Stochastic Many-Body Problems
Nonlinear Dynamics
Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics
Antimicrobial Resistance
Demographic Fluctuations
Environmental Variability.
Career overview
Professor Alastair M. Rucklidge holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge (Cantab), a SM from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a BASc from the University of Toronto. He is currently a Professor in the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds. His research interests focus on the formation and stability of regular patterns in nature, which are influenced by the interactions of symmetry, dynamics, and nonlinearity. Professor Rucklidge''s work explores how nonlinear interactions of waves lead to the emergence of quasipatterns in Faraday waves and quasicrystals in soft matter, as well as spatio-temporal chaos in reaction-diffusion systems. He investigates phenomena such as spirals in cyclic competition models and their stability, and he develops new models to understand mode interactions and localized patterns. His research encompasses quantitative explanations of fluid dynamics experiments and new ideas on heteroclinic bifurcations and networks. Professor Rucklidge is affiliated with research groups in Applied Mathematics and Applied Nonlinear Dynamics. He is a member of the London Mathematical Society, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the Royal Astronomical Society.
Research interests
Professor Rucklidge''s research focuses on the formation and stability of regular patterns in nature, governed by the intricate interactions of symmetry, dynamics, and nonlinearity. His work aims to understand how nonlinear interactions of waves in different directions lead to the formation of quasipatterns in Faraday waves and quasicrystals in soft matter, as well as spatio-temporal chaos in reaction-diffusion systems. He is particularly interested in the stability of spirals, such as those found in models of cyclic competition like Rock-Paper-Scissors. His research encompasses quantitative explanations of fluid dynamics experiments, the development of new models for understanding mode interactions and localised patterns, and novel ideas on heteroclinic bifurcations and networks.
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