8 PhD studentships in Mathematical, Computational and Experimental Soft Tissue Mechanics

Application Deadline: 31st January

Start Date: September/October 2016

Funding: Available to cover tuition fees for UK/EU applicants, as well as paying a stipend at the Research Council rate (estimated £14,254 for Session 2016-17).

We seek highly motivated graduates to carry out eight fully-funded exciting PhD research projects at the EPSRC SofTMech Centre (Multiscale Soft Tissue Mechanics - with application to heart & cancer). SofTMech is led by Prof. Ray Ogden, FRS, and is a joint research centre of the Universities of Glasgow, St Andrews, Heriot-Watt and Sheffield. SoftMech aims to accelerate the development of multiscale soft-tissue modelling by constructing a generic mathematical framework. This will provide a common language with which all relevant materials, interactions and evolutions can be portrayed, and it will be designed from a standardised viewpoint to integrate with the totality of the work of the in silico community as a whole. The key elements of the planned scientific advances relate to the feedback loop of the structural adaptations that cells make in response to mechanical and chemical stimuli. A major challenge is the current lack of models that operate across multiple length scales, and it is here that we will focus our developmental activities.

Applicants should hold or expect to get a first-class honours degree (or equivalent) in Mathematics, Statistics, Engineering or a related discipline. Applicants from a mathematical/computational background should demonstrate a willingness to learn about biological processes and biomedical engineering approaches, whilst applicants from an engineering background should display an aptitude for mathematical/computational modelling or experimental study. The PhD students will join a dynamic multidisciplinary environment and work on five integrated work packages with five Postdoctoral Research Assistants and our international collaborators and industrial partners.

The studentships are expected to start from Sept/Oct 2016. SofTMech will provide a week’s training programme for these students from 12 to 16 Sept 2016.

For detailed project descriptions, see the website.

How to apply

To apply, see here and use the reference ‘SofTMech’.