Apply

Interested students may contact the CDT Director for informal discussions and with enquiries.

Candidates should apply to the research group which best reflects their interests, indicating their interest in the CDT in their personal statement.

More information on how to apply to each group is available below:

PhD opportunities

We have funded PhD places available for students to join the CDT in October in 2023. The possible projects are listed below.

SO:UK

SO:UK is the newly funded UK contribution to the Simons Observatory that is being deployed to the Atacama desert in Chile this year.

The Simons Observatory will map the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) sky to unprecedented levels of accuracy and resolution over the coming decade. The analysis of the data obtained by the Simons Observatory will reveal new details about the evolution of the Universe. Its results could transform our understanding of the fundamental physics of dark energy and dark matter, the physics of neutrinos, the distribution of matter in the Universe, and the theory of inflation. The UK will build LATs and SATs (Large and Small Aperture Telescopes) for the project. The collaboration involves several institutes that will see the UK take on full partner status in the international project.

SO:UK offers PhD opportunities involving the development and deployment of data-intensive analysis methods. Students will become experts in the theory and observation of the CMB. They will develop novel analysis methods targeting several stages in the analysis of SO data - from time domain data to the production of final science results.

There are opportunities for applying the latest machine learning and artificial intelligence methodologies to the project. As part of Imperial's Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Intensive Science, the studentship also offers the chance of an industrial placement where the expertise developed as part of the PhD can be transferred to applied areas.

For more information please contact Prof. Carlo Contaldi (c.contaldi@imperial.ac.uk).

The research activities of the High Energy Physics group have sufficient data analysis content. The students will have a wide choice and will decide on the precise experiment after carrying out their initial courses.

For more information please contact Prof. David Colling (d.colling@imperial.ac.uk).

 

Computer science applied to the biomedical sciences

The Centre for the Clinical Application of Particles works at the junction between the natural and life sciences. Our ambition is to transform the clinical practice of proton- and ion-beam therapy (IBT) by creating a fully automated, highly flexible system to harness the unique properties of laser-driven ion beams.

Such a facility will be capable of delivering particle-beam therapy in completely new regimens by combining a variety of ion species from proton to carbon in a single treatment, exploiting ultra-high dose rates and novel temporal-, spatial- and spectral-fractionation schemes.

The automated, laser-hybrid system will integrate patient, soft-tissue and dose-deposition imaging with real-time treatment planning to trigger the delivery of dose tailored to the individual patient in real time. The automated, triggerable system we propose has the potential to remove the requirement for a large gantry, thereby reducing the size and therefore the cost, of a clinical IBT facility and to follow movement of patient and tissue, thereby increasing patient throughput and reducing the cost of IBT per patient.

Central to our research programme is the development of new computing techniques by which to:

  • Evaluate the micro-biophysical processes that underpin the impact of ionising radiation on tissue and in clinical applications; and to
  • Track the position of the patient and tissues of interest and to reconstruct the dose profile delivered shot-to-shot in real time.

These techniques each form an essential part of the feedback necessary to realise the fully automated system. Our vision is that the feedback system will be capable of optimising patient position and dose automatically.

You will collaborate with our partners from the CNRS Institut Curie and the collaboration to initiate the development of the robust, reproducable AI system capable that will be at the heart of the feedback and control of a future automated IBT facility. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work with world leaders in the UK and overseas on new and cutting-edge technologies that have the potential not only to transform clinical practice in particle beam therapy but can also be spun back into fundamental science.

For more information please contact Prof. Ken Long (k.long@imperial.ac.uk).