Graduate opportunities

This fully funded PhD studentship focuses on developing an advanced robotic system for medical application. Our goal is to make a step change in medical robotics.

The successful candidate should hold a degree in mechanical, mechatronics, electrical, or robotics engineering, with interest or skills in robotics, computational modelling, and machine learning.

Department: School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering 

Closing date: 30 October 2024

In the North Sea, there are >1,500 offshore oil and gas (O&G) installations. Current environmental regulations prohibit leaving any installations in place, under OSPAR Decision 98/3, which means all infrastructure must be removed when production ceases. However, a considerable number of O&G installations, particularly those installed before the 1998 OSPAR regulations, were not designed with full removal in mind, meaning partial removal and derogation is the only option during decommissioning.

Currently, there is a lack of knowledge on how infrastructure decommissioning shapes benthic microbial and macrofaunal biodiversity and in turn how this affects ecosystem function (e.g. hydrocarbon biodegradation). Such information is crucial for stakeholders when deciding on appropriate decommissioning scenarios.

The overarching aim of this project is to quantify the impact of PAHs from decommissioned infrastructure on sediment microbial and macrofaunal communities.

Lead department: School of Life Sciences

Closing date: 1 February 2025.