MRC Precision Medicine DTP: Machine- and Deep-Learning Methods for Analysing Complex Health Simulations

Supervisors:
Dr Eric Silverman
Dr Claudio Angione

PhD project summary:
Population health research has made significant strides in recent decades, but some health challenges facing society remain very difficult to study. Issues like the ageing population, increasing obesity, and multi-morbidity are driven not by simple cause-and-effect relationships, but are influenced by behavioural, environmental and social factors. Increasingly, we are turning toward interdisciplinary computational modelling techniques such as agent-based modelling (ABM) to unravel the complex interplay of factors that drive these urgent problems in population health. ABMs are computer simulations that model the behaviours of individual people in complex virtual environments, and consequently help us better understand how the interaction of the individual, the environment, and the social realm lead to poor health.

This project will tackle this exciting area of research head-on by applying ABM to key problems in population health, and using cutting-edge AI techniques to better understand the behavior of these complex models. Machine- and deep-learning methods can improve the theoretical understanding of the ABM, help calibrate the model, and facilitate interpretation of the results relevant to end users. The PhD candidate will develop novel frameworks for the analysis of large simulation models using machine learning and deep neural networks. These innovations will facilitate the development of new techniques, protocols and software for the analysis and dissemination of complex simulation studies in population health, opening up new avenues of research on major health challenges.
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This MRC programme is joint between the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. You will be registered at the host institution of the primary supervisor detailed in your project selection.

All applications should be made via the University of Edinburgh, irrespective of project location:

http://www.ed.ac.uk/studying/postgraduate/degrees/index.php?r=site/view&id=919

Please note, you must apply to one of the projects and you should contact the primary supervisor prior to making your application. Additional information on the application process is available from the links below.

For more information about Precision Medicine visit:

https://www.gla.ac.uk/colleges/mvls/graduateschool/precisionmedicine/

Main programme page: http://www.ed.ac.uk/usher/precision-medicine