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This studentship is open to candidates eligible for Home fees only, as defined by .

Campus: South Kensington and Rutherford Appleton Lab (Harwell, Oxford)

Funding Details: 

• Coverage: Home tuition fees, stipend, and up to £2,000 per year will be available for travel and subsistence to support travel to STFC sites and appropriate conferences and workshops.
• Duration: 42 months
• Study mode: Full-time
• Annual stipend: 

Supervisor(s): Sean Collins (³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ), Mohsen Danaie (Diamond Light Source) and Jaehoon Cha (STFC).

Project Description: 

Computer-driven collection of scientific data has allowed datasets to be acquired that are so large it would be impossible for a human being to analyse them. Making use of these vast quantities of data will allow for a step change in the science of new materials known as halide perovskites, a promising building block for solar cells and energy-efficient displays and lighting. As part of the Ada Lovelace Centre PhD studentship programme, this project is a joint PhD project across the Science Technology and Facilities Council (STFC), Diamond Light Source, and ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ. The project will advance artificial intelligence tools to pull out the important scientific details from big datasets covering the chemical composition and structure of materials spanning the scale of a few atoms all the way up to the size of a working device. Learning the physics and chemistry behind the data with artificial intelligence, often otherwise used as a ‘black box’ analysis, requires substantial new development of software and ways of bringing data and scientific interpretation together for new materials science discoveries for tomorrow’s energy needs.

More information:

 Halide perovskites are among a select group of materials defining next-generation semiconductor technologies from photovoltaics for grid-scale energy generation [1] to high-efficiency light emitting diodes [2] and photodetectors for sensors. Despite their transformative potential, limitations on the performance and lifespan of halide perovskite devices originate in disorder (e.g. octahedral tilting [3]) and heterogeneity [4] spanning from the nanometre scale of grain boundaries and crystallographic defects to the centimetre scale of devices. Recent progress in the science of halide perovskites has emerged from spatially resolved nanobeam scanning electron diffraction (SED) and correlated elemental mapping in the STEM. Yet data is acquired under ‘low-dose’ conditions resulting in signals that are noisy—extremely so for weak, simultaneous spectroscopy signals in X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). The imperative with such data is to find low-concentration features within the noise, prompting much larger datasets under automatic control of the stage and microscope, as recently demonstrated at the electron Physical Sciences Imaging Centre (Diamond Light Source) [5].

AI-automated workflows – for both data reduction and, critically, for data interpretation – are poised to realise these gains. This project will be centred on developing autoencoder (AE) workflows [6] (e.g. disentangling, variational AEs), a set of AI neural network structures that make use of two halves: The first half encodes the data to a latent space and the second decodes the data from that space. AEs are powerful as classifiers, but the latent space representation can also be used to ascertain physical parameters, going beyond a ‘black box’ AI classifier. This process requires not a single AE but a well-designed architecture tailored to the types of inputs and outputs sought.

The PhD researcher is expected to spend 50% of the time at Rutherford Appleton Lab (Harwell Oxford) and 50% of the time in the Department of Materials, ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ (South Kensington). The PhD researcher will also participate in ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ-based cohort activities for PhD researchers throughout the degree.

[1]        J.C. Blakesley et al. J. Phys. Energy 6 (2024) 041501.

[2]        Z. Chen et al. J. Phys. Photonics 6 (2024) 032501.

[3]        T.A.S. Doherty et al. Science 374 (2021) 1598–1605.

[4]        K. Frohna et al. Nat. Nanotechnol. 17 (2022) 190–196.

[5]        J. Ryu et al. ScienceOpen Research, 2025: p. e197. https://doi.org/10.14293/APMC13-2025-0197.

[6]        J. Cha et al. Nat. Mach. Intell. 7 (2025) 307–314.

Tuition fees: Will be covered at the UKRI home rate only and overseas candidates would be required to cover the remaining fees for each academic year.

Campus: South Kensington

Funding Details:

• Coverage: Home tuition fees, stipend and consumables
• Duration: 42 months
• Study mode: Full-time
• Annual stipend: £26,305

Supervisor(s): Adrian Najer, Wendy Barclay, SPARTA Biodiscovery (industrial partner)

We invite applications for a fully funded PhD studentship in the Department of Materials and the Department of Infectious Disease at ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ. Applications must be submitted via the official MRC i-case PhD studentship homepage.

Project Description: 

Infectious diseases caused by viruses pose an immense burden on global health. The COVID-19 pandemic is a recent reminder of the devastating effects of any new viral disease, especially in the absence of broadly applicable antiviral therapies. Nanomedicines that function by directly binding to the virus to inhibit host cell entry are upcoming candidates for a broad-spectrum antiviral application. However, completely inactivating the viruses and improving efficacy remain key challenges. In this MRC i-case PhD project, we will tackle this challenge by designing innovative, therapeutic, broadly applicable nanovesicles that are composed of highly dynamic membranes, which we will leverage to completely inactivate the virus.

• Year 1 objective: Formulate, characterise and verify nanovesicle functionality using model virus particles (Najer).
• Year 2 objective: Employ single-particle measurements to decipher nanomedicine heterogeneity and provide mechanistic insight (with SPARTA Biodiscovery).
• Year 3 objective: Perform antiviral testing of nanovesicles against SARS-CoV-2 and influenza viruses (Barclay).

The PhD student will receive extensive training in nanomedicine assembly, advanced materials and biophysical characterisation techniques, single-particle measurements (SPARTA, 3-month internship, White City), and CL2/CL3 work with viral pathogens. Development of our broadly applicable nanomedicines for treating viral infections could have profound future impact by saving lives during ongoing and future epi-/pandemics.

This studentship is open to candidates eligible for Home fees only, as defined by . 

Campus: White City

Funding Details:

• Coverage: Home tuition fees, stipend and consumables (£1,000 per year)
• Duration: 36 months
• Study mode: Full-time
• Annual stipend: 
• Supervisor(s): Reshma R Rao, Ifan E.L Stephens and Mary Ryan

We invite applications for a fully funded PhD studentship in the Department of Materials at ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ.

The successful candidate will join a dynamic and inclusive team committed to world-class research and academic excellence.

Project description:

This PhD project addresses the urgent need to mitigate rising CO₂ levels by developing sustainable electrocatalysts, based on recycled materials, for electrochemical CO₂ reduction (COâ‚‚RR). This approach enables the conversion of CO₂ into value-added fuels and chemicals using renewable electricity, offering a pathway toward carbon-neutral energy systems. The project focuses on understanding how nanoscale structure, composition, and heterogeneity influence catalytic activity and selectivity, particularly toward multi-carbon products. These challenges are significantly exacerbated when using recycled and repurposed materials as catalyst precursors, since their composition can vary significantly from high-purity virgin materials. This work will investigate the atomistic processes underlying catalyst evolution under reaction conditions, including phase transformations and the role of impurities. Advanced characterisation techniques, such as high-resolution electron microscopy and atom probe tomography (in collaboration with project partners at Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) France), will be combined with electrochemical testing, X-ray and surface enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy to establish robust structure–property relationships.

Applicants should have a Master’s degree or (equivalent) with First Class or Upper Second Class in Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, Physics or Chemistry. For information on how to apply, go to:  Application process | Study | ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ.

You will be required to submit:

• Personal statement
• CV
• The contact details of two referees – please note that the prospective supervisor cannot be a referee

Please get in touch with Dr Annalisa Neri for further information on the application process.

For further information or informal discussions about the position, please contact:
Reshma R Rao, Assistant Professor.

Closing date: open until filled

Our values are at the root of everything we do, and everyone in our community is expected to demonstrate ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ:

• Respect
• Collaboration
• Excellence
• Integrity
• Innovation

Students are also required to comply with all ³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ policies and regulations

We are committed to equality of opportunity, to eliminating discrimination and to creating an inclusive working environment for all. We encourage candidates to apply irrespective of age, disability, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion and belief, gender reassignment, sex, or sexual orientation. You can read more about our commitment on our webpages

Campus: South Kensington

Funding Details: 

• Coverage: Home or overseas tuition fees, a stipend, and up to £1,000 per year for travel and consumables.
• Duration: 42 months
• Study mode: Full-time
• Annual stipend: 

Supervisor(s): Ann Huang (³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ)

Project Description: 

Next-generation batteries such as solid-state batteries (SSBs) have great potential to improve the safety and energy storage performance of current lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). However, slow ion diffusion in SSBs currently restricts their performance. This research will focus on two areas relevant to electric automotive applications: (i) development of new electrode and solid-state electrolyte materials for SSBs, and (ii) fabrication of electrodes into batteries using state-of-the-art processing, characterisation and performance testing facilities. The project aims to build a fundamental understanding in chemistry and materials science to produce SSBs with performance surpassing current LIBs, combining processing techniques, characterisation methods and modelling.

For application-related queries, please get in touch with Annalisa Neri.

If you have specific technical or scientific queries about this PhD, we encourage you to contact the lead supervisor, Ann Huang.