PhD Studentship: Sensing Wastewater for Real-time Public Health

Start Date

28/6/2024 

Eligibility & Related Project Details 

Fee status of eligible applicants: Any Fee Status (Uk/EU & RoW) 

Duration of Award: 3 years 

1st Supervisor: Prof Zhugen Yang    

Sponsorship

5-year Leverhulme Trust Leadership Award, this will provide a bursary up to £18,000 (tax free) plus tuition fees for three years for UK students (the total funds can be converted to cover oversee students’ tuition and stipends subjective to discuss with the supervisor for excellent oversea candidate or attracting extra funding for top-up).

The PhD opportunity funded by 5-year Leverhulme Trust Leadership Award, which aims on sensing wastewater for real-time public health, particularly on the development of novel low-cost and rapid sensors for rapid and on-site wastewater surveillance. We are offering fully funded national PhD studentship covering tuition fees, competitive stipend, research and consumables, and travel for international conference. The candidate will be working with a highly interdisciplinary and international team to develop the advanced sensors technology for wastewater surveillance (wastewater-based epidemiology) to provide new understanding for real-time public health by monitoring of chemical and biological biomarkers in wastewater and advancing sample preparation method for complex matrix.

Fully-funded studentship - Opportunities which are fully funded (e.g. covers all fees and stipend) 

The candidate will conduct research project and be trained with skills sets including biosensing, microfluidic, wastewater surveillance, signal amplification strategy, CRISPR/Cas assay, and biocomputing experiments using state-of-the-art facilities in the UKCRIC-funded advanced sensors laboratory at Cranfield and national and international collaborators from academics, industry and governmental sectors. 

The student will be widely engaging with a multidisciplinary team to learn advanced sensor technology and interact with stakeholders (e.g., UKHSA, Water utilities etc) to disseminate the research output. The funding supports travel throughout the project to meet with the collaborators, along with opportunities to attend and present results at international conferences (e.g., Biosensors Congress). Cranfield University are leading a UK water and wastewater network, as well as involved water sensors network, involving academic, industrial and public sector organisations; It is expected that the PhD researcher will become involved in this network, enabling the researcher to develop their profile in the sector and engage with experts in related areas. 

This PhD opportunity provides the researcher with exposure to working in a large multi-national and multi-disciplinary project as part of a wider team. The area of research is a rapidly growing area of national importance, and the candidate will have opportunity to engage with both world-class academic and industry; therefore, it is anticipated that this PhD would allow the successful candidate to pursue an exciting career upon completion.

Entry requirements

Applicants should have a first- or second-class UK honours degree or equivalent in a related discipline. This project would suit students with a background biosensor, microfluidics, synthetic biology, analytical chemistry, molecular biology, microbiology or engineering background.  

Funding

To be eligible for funding, applicants can be a UK citizenship or elsewhere. for oversea applicants, it will need an extra fund to top up the international tuition fees on the top of the UK tuition fees.  

How to apply  

For further information please contact: Zhugen Yang
Name: Zhugen Yang
Email: [email protected]
T: (0)1234 758 310 

Academic profile:  https://www.cranfield.ac.uk/people/dr-zhugen-yang-23276478