Student opportunitites

PhD Opportunities

‌Interested in a PhD in Astrophysics for October 2024 entry? 

The open day for October 2024 entry was held on Wednesday, 29th November 2023. You can watch a recording of the open day here. If you are invited to interview, you will have the opportunity to discuss projects with potential supervisors in detail during the interview day. You do not need to contact potential supervisors before you apply; however, you are welcome to. 

Most of our PhD applications are for STFC funded places, so we set up formal deadlines for applications and dates for interviews. The application deadline for STFC funded places is 5th February 2024 - please note that it can take several weeks for your application to reach us from Registry, if you are submitting shortly before the deadline please send a copy of your application directly to us via astro@imperial.ac.uk. We are able to support one overseas candidate with an STFC place.

If you are an overseas candidate who would need funding from a scholarship you must apply earlier than the deadline for STFC funded places. To be considered for main round of the Imperial College President's PhD Scholarships you must apply before the 8th January 2024. To be eligible for the full range of Imperial Scholarships you must apply before 31st January 2024, you will then be considered for all scholarships as part of the assessment process. If you are interested in applying for one of these please apply as soon as possible, you are welcome to discuss your application with potential supervisors before you apply. If you are a candidate who does not require funding please indicate this on the application form. 

Interviews will be held on the 5th and 6th March 2023, offers will be made shortly after.

Applying

Applications must be made online via the Postgraduate Prospectus, we cannot process applications sent directly to us. You should apply for a Physics Research (PhD). In order to apply for astrophysics PhDs, under research details, enter Astrophysics when asked for your proposed group.

The application form will ask for a "research proposal" if you want to be considered for the President's Scholarship, we do not require a detailed proposal (you may disregard less specific advice you read elsewhere), please use this to describe which topics and/or projects you're interested in applying for. You are welcome to contact our staff members to discuss potential projects before making your application.  For further information, please see frequently asked questions. Find out more about the application process.  

Funding

A PhD normally takes 3.5 years to complete. We accept around 4-6 PhD students each year, mainly funded by STFC. Please see the STFC website to check your eligibility for these.

Visit the following link to find out further information on postgraduate fees and funding.

PhD Projects

PhD projects for 2024 entry can be found here. Projects will be continually added throughout the 2023-2024 application period. You are free to contact our staff members to discuss potential projects in our research areas that match your interests.

 

Information for current PhD students

PG lecture courses

The programme for this year will be posted on this page nearer the time.

In addition, the Graduate School offers a range of transferable skills courses. All postgraduate students will need to attend a minimum set of these in order to progress.

Welfare & questions

Physics Department PG pages - for procedural timetable, forms and PG information from the College and Physics Department

Astro PG representative: 

Ellie Gleave  (e.gleave20@imperial.ac.uk) Room 1003 Tel 47543 & Kimeel Sooknunan (k.sooknunan19@imperial.ac.uk). Rooms 1014

Astro PG Coordinator: Dr Jonathan Pritchard
Room 1018c Blackett, email j.pritchard@imperial.ac.uk  tel 47557

Physics Department PG Advisor: Dr Arnaud Czaja
Room 726 Huxley, a.czajal@imperial.ac.uk, tel 41789

Physics Department PG Administrator: Loli Sanchez
Room 316 Blackett , l.sanchez@imperial.ac.uk, tel 47512

 
Current Students
StudentResearch AreaSupervisor/s
 Tze-An (Blake) Chang        Dr Yvonne Unruh                                
 Alfred Curry Interior and Surface Physics of Hot, Evaporating Rocky Exoplanets Dr Subhanjoy Mohanty                             
 Yifan Ding High redshift dusty star forming galaxies Dr David Clements                
 Eleanor Gleave Cosmology from the Cosmic Microwave Background with the Simons Observator Prof Andrew Jaffe                                
 Laura Harbach Origin and evolution of exoplanet secondary atmospheres Dr Subhanjoy Mohanty, Dr James Owen                         
 Yordan Ignatov               Astrophysics and cosmology from the epoch of reionization with SKA and REACH Dr Jonathan Pritchard                                 
 Lena Lenz Searching for the most distant quasars Dr Daniel Mortlock , Dr Boris Leistedt                          
 Lucas Makinen          Prof Alan Heavens                                 
 Andrew Martin Cosmology from the Cosmic Microwave Background with the Simons Observat Prof Andrew Jaffe                
 William Martin  The first quasars and super-massive black holes Dr Daniel Mortlock                                
Carina Norregaard   Dr Jonathan Pritchard
 Ayushi Parmar   Dusty Star-Forming Galaxies Across Cosmic Time Dr David Clements       
 Francesco Petri     Cosmology Dr Boris Leistedt , Dr Daniel Mortlock 
 James Prideaux-Ghee Bayesian analysis of the dynamic Universe  Dr Florent Leclercq , Prof Alan Heavens 
 Alfie Robinson Protoplanetary Disc Structure and Evolution Dr James Owen                              
Ethan Schreyer   Dr James Owen 
Kimeel Sooknunan  Applications of Machine Learning to 21cm Cosmology Dr Daniel Mortlock,  Dr Jonathan Pritchard, Dr Emma Chapman
Wei Tang     Dr David Clements 
James Thorne    Dr James Kirk, Dr Yvonne Unruh 
Morgan Williams   Dr Subhanjoy Mohanty
Yoshie Yoshimoto    Dr Boris Leistedt 
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Summary of the table's contents

 

Masters

We do not currently offer an Astrophysics Master's course, only PhDs (postgraduate research degrees). However, the Physics Department does offer other Master's courses.

Information for Undergraduates

Summer Internships

Summer Internships can only start after the summer teaching term has ended. In 2022 this ends on 1 July so the earliest date an internship can be considered for summer 2022 is 4 July.

Earlier dates are not possible because of staff UG teaching commitments.

The Astrophysics group does not have any internal funds to pay for summer internships. You must therefore seek funding yourself. If you are an Imperial student this might be via the UROP scheme. Other funding possibilities include the RAS internship schemes.

Register your interest in a UROP placement in the group

Imperial College UG Research Opportunities

Find out more about the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme.

Other UG Opportunities

Opportunities arise outside Imperial College for UGs to undertake research activities in astrophysics. These are listed here as and when they become available.

 

Work experience: placement opportunities for school students

The Physics Department at Imperial College has a central scheme for work placement students from schools. If you are interested in seeing what the work of a physics department, including the astrophysics group, is like during a placement, you can find out more on the Physics Outreach pages.