Global Environmental Health Research Group, School of Public Health, Imperial College London

October 2022 – LISS DTP’s Collaborative (CASE) PhD Studentship

Characterising inequalities in multi-dimensional neighbourhood environment in Accra, Ghana

Academic Lead: Professor Majid Ezzati (Imperial College London)

We welcome applications for a funded PhD studentship to start in October 2022. This is an exciting opportunity for an ambitious researcher to conduct interdisciplinary research in global environmental health, data analytics and computational social science.

The PhD research will develop and apply cutting-edge methods for measuring neighbourhood level determinants of health and health inequality in cities with focus on expanding cities in Africa. The work will leverage emerging data sources (e.g. high-resolution satellite images and social media data) and deep learning models for measurement and modelling, and combine these with fieldwork to collect ground-truth data.

The studentship will be based in the Global Environmental Health Research Group at Imperial’s School of Public Health, which was ranked as the UK's joint top programme according to the 2014 Research Excellence Framework. The group is internationally renowned for its research on spatiotemporal analysis of complex health and environmental data. The group is highly interdisciplinary, and the student will interact regularly with peers with diverse backgrounds and specialisations. The student will also be interacting with researchers in Africa, other parts of Imperial (e.g., Department of Mathematics and Faculty of Engineering) and at other leading global universities. The research group is part of the MRC Centre for Environment and Health; the Centre has an established training programme for early career researchers, which provides bespoke training and development, pastoral care, and extensive opportunities for networking and collaboration.

Entry requirements

Applicants should have, or expect to receive, a first or upper second-class degree or equivalent in disciplines of interest including mathematics, physics, environmental engineering, economics, neuroscience, demography, sociology and computer science, and have exceptional analytical/computational preparation. The studentship will be for 3 years for those with relevant background in ESRC core research methods areas and 1+3 for those with other academic backgrounds. Regardless of duration, the entire period will be funded.

Funding

The studentship will include tuition fees and a minimum stipend of £17,609 per annum. LISS DTP is allowed to fund only the Home fee, please find the relevant definitions and check your eligibility here.

How to apply

The closing date for application is 15^th February 2022.

To apply, please send the following documents to global.env.health@imperial.ac.uk:

• A CV highlighting your academic qualifications, research and work experience
• A personal statement to answer the following questions (please use Arial 11pt font and do not exceed the maximum of 1 A4 page):
  • What are your current career plans, including why you would like to do a PhD?
  • Tell us which area of research you are interested in and why?
• The names and contact email of two referees.

Due to the high number of applications, we will not be able to respond to individual candidates. Short-listed candidates will be contacted to arrange for interviews, which will take place in February-March 2022.