University of Auckland, New Zealand invites online application for multiple fully funded PhD Programs in various research areas. Candidates interested in fully funded PhD positions can check the details and may apply as soon as possible.
1. PhD Programs in Electromechanical mapping
Summary of PhD Positions:
Gut motility, or peristalsis, facilitates nutrient uptake and excretion of waste via mixing and breakdown of food. This is accomplished via coordinated mechanical contractions of the gut wall, which are governed by complex muscular, hormonal and neural inputs. In this project multi-modal techniques will be developed and utilised, involving flexible electronics and cameras, to gain an integrated understanding of the control mechanisms of the gut. This project has a strong experimental component, where pharmaceutical and/or electroceuticals will be utilised to increase or suppress gut motility in animal models with potential translation to human experimental studies.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
2. PhD Programs in digestion through imaging and modelling
Summary of PhD Positions:
Once food is ingested, the stomach serves as a reservoir and continues to break down the food into smaller particles until they are small enough to progress into the small intestine. The rate at which different types of foods break down is of great interest to food technologists, pharmaceuticals and bioengineers. Our research group has developed methods to image the contraction of the stomach in an MRI and have used these images to develop subject-specific computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to improve our understanding of how stomach contractions mix and break down food.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
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3. PhD Programs in MRI techniques
Summary of PhD Positions:
This is a new exciting collaborative project between the Auckland Bioengineering Institute and Mātai Medical Research Institute (Gisborne-Tairāwhiti). The main aim of this project is to utilise lung MRI techniques to inform and parameterise computational models of lung tissue mechanics and pulmonary blood flow from healthy children and those with paediatric lung diseases.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
4. PhD Programs in cardiopulmonary computational models
Summary of PhD Positions:
Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a severe progressive disease affecting both the heart and lungs, and a range of imaging techniques are utilised to phenotype PH and direct patient management to improve disease prognosis. A major challenge for implementing the cardiac and pulmonary computational models developed at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute in PH patients is that the current models rely on different imaging modalities. A new exciting collaboration with the Sheffield Pulmonary Vascular Disease Unit, a specialist referral centre for treating PH in the UK, will provide access to a registry of over 1000 PH patients assessed with a variety of standard and novel imaging techniques.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
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5. PhD Programs in intracranial pressure from amplified MRI
Summary of PhD Positions:
Raised intracranial pressure (ICP), or intracranial hypertension, is a common problem in neurological practice, severely compromising brain perfusion, oxygenation and brain ischemia. If left untreated can lead to brain injury, blindness, seizure, coma, stroke, or death. At present, a suspected diagnosis of intracranial hypertension can only be confidently confirmed by invasive measurement (i.e. placement of a pressure catheter via a burr hole). This project aims to determine ICP directly from non-invasive imaging using the novel amplified MRI (aMRI) technique that allows to visualise small strains in the brain along the cardiac cycle.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
6. PhD Programs in brain activity via deep learning
Summary of PhD Positions:
Head-mounted miniaturised microscopes (miniscopes) enable brain activity to be recorded in freely moving rodents. By using miniscopes, we can directly decipher how brain cell activity underlies behaviour as it happens in the awake behaving animal. This project aims to use deep learning techniques to decode brain activity patterns while studying the underlying neuronal connectivity using an inverse modelling approach. We are examining the cellular mechanisms that underlie behavioural deficits in mouse models of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
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7. PhD Programs in brain network disruptions
Summary of PhD Positions:
Mild Traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is a major health challenge which is difficult to diagnose and treat. The major conundrum in mTBI research is that there is often no relationship between the location or extent of the injuries and subsequent symptoms. This project seeks to find the missing link between the brain’s functional deficits and structural damage after mTBI.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
8. PhD Programs in Electrophysiology of menstruation
Summary of PhD Positions:
Contractions of the uterus vary during the different phases of the menstrual cycle. These contractions are thought to facilitate transport of sperm for egg fertilisation during the late follicular phase and to aid the menstruation process during menses. These contractions can also be a cause of pain during menses. Abnormalities in uterine contractions have been hypothesised to contribute to retrograde menstruation: the loss of menstrual debris out of the fallopian tube. Retrograde menstruation, in turn, is thought to be the root cause of endometriosis: a chronic disease affecting 1 in 9 women, in which lesions form when endometrial-like cells grow outside the uterus.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
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9. PhD Programs in agent-based modelling
Summary of PhD Positions:
Agent-based models are a powerful mathematical tool to understand how both individual cell behaviours, and behaviours at different time and space scales, impact biological tissue function. However, many of the current models do not explicitly account for key architectural characteristics of the cell or tissue. For example, anisotropy in shape and mechanics of smooth muscle cells, or cell interactions with vascular and collagen networks. With the increasing quality of biological imaging data in recent years comes an increase in the detail on these morphologies.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
10. PhD Programs in Deep learning
Summary of PhD Positions:
This project aims to: (i) develop robust cutting-edge methods for segmenting breast tissues, tumours and other surrounding torso tissues from MRI; (ii) create the first digital breast atlas capable of mapping population-wide anatomy together with tumour locations and their characteristics to advance our understanding of breast cancer; and (iii) conduct a clinical research study to demonstrate the efficacy of the segmentation methods for automated quantification of tumour position, volume and extent.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
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11. PhD Programs in Artificial intelligence
Summary of PhD Positions:
In this project, we aim to develop a robust, automatic clinical software program for creating 3D reconstructions of cardiac chambers, providing patient-specific key structural factors from clinical CT/MRI to guide diagnosis, disease monitoring, treatment planning and prognosis of atrial fibrillation. This study is made possible through extensive collaboration with overseas clinical centres to utilise the world’s largest set of high-quality cardiac CT/MRIs. This large-scale imaging dataset will provide an ideal testing bed for our approach development.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
12. PhD Programs in Deep Learning
Summary of PhD Positions:
This work aims to use archived data from Auckland Hospital to develop highly-advanced machine-learning algorithms (i.e., deep-learning-based models) to precisely and automatically segment patient-specific brain tumours (e.g., meningiomas), along with their adjacent intracranial structures (including brain tissues, blood vessels, cranial nerves, etc) with an acceptable accuracy compared to human annotators. Results will provide a unique opportunity to build an intelligent computational auto-segmentation platform for pre-surgical assessments, planning and navigation, and finding the most optimal accessible corridors for resection.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
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13. PhD Programs in Robotic fish to enable effective coastal kaitiakitanga
Summary of PhD Positions:
We are part of a large project led by X-craft limited and involving partners from multiple research institutions, including NIWA, UoA, Victoria University, and AUT. The project’s overarching goal is to develop an autonomous fish robot that can observe coastal marine systems in New Zealand to improve ecological management. This is an exciting opportunity and an ambitious project, with novel technology. The successful applicant would be based at the University of Auckland and help develop underwater propulsion based on soft actuators (or artificial muscles).
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
14. PhD Programs in Experiment and modelling
Summary of PhD Positions:
Take a moment to listen to your heart beat. It probably feels like it is ticking along at a constant rate. But that’s not the case. Your heart rate instead varies largely in sync with your breathing. This is called “heart rate variability” (HRV). This project aims to uncover the physiological significance of HRV by answering two major questions:
- What physiological benefits does HRV confer on the heart?
- Without HRV, what makes the heart fail?
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
15. PhD Programs in cardiovascular loads
Summary of PhD Positions:
The heart can be dissected out of the body. Likewise, heart muscles can be dissected out of the heart. These two ‘isolated’ preparations are no longer coupled to the in vivo cardiovascular loads. They are now in your hand to reconnect them to the cardiovascular loads. This represents an opportunity in experimental settings to extend our understanding of the intricate coupling between the heart and its loads.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
16. PhD Programs in lungs
Summary of PhD Positions:
ECs, also known as vaping devices, use heat to aerosolise a liquid, typically containing propylene glycol, glycerine, flavourings and nicotine, that the user inhales. This aerosol has been found to contain toxicants, including carcinogens and heavy metals. In this project, you will contribute to the development of our research programme related to studying the effects of vaping on the lungs.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
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17. PhD Programs in baby development
Summary of PhD Positions:
In our group we are combining state of the art imaging (micro-CT, magnetic resonance imaging) with laboratory experiment’s (e.g. cell culture) and computational modelling of the interactions between mum and baby in pregnancy to provide exciting new insights into how we develop before we are born. We have opportunities across all these areas of research to work with a dynamic and multi-disciplinary team in solving some of the mysteries of what makes a healthy pregnancy.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
18. PhD Programs in Power conversion for wearable devices
Summary of PhD Positions:
All of these exist and have been proven in our Biomimetics Lab at the Auckland Bioengineering Institute. All involve conversion of low voltages (~ 10 V) to high voltages (~ 1 kV) and back. We can use off-the-shelf electronics componentry to interface and control the charge to such elastomer devices, but this is expensive, heavy and not very wearable. We need a PhD student to show us how we to make the electronics that interface the soft polymer systems wearable, economic and portable too.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
19. PhD Programs in modelling of energy flows in dairy cows
Summary of PhD Positions:
Dairy cows are the engines of the dairy industry, an industry critical to the economy of many countries like New Zealand. Climate change is posing significant challenges to this industry; specifically the growing demand to reduce enteric methane emission, to reduce nitrogen losses from farms whilst ensuring productivity as the cows manage thermal stress and adapt to changes in feed composition. Although, mathematical models of the dairy cow are widely used.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
20. PhD Programs in Smooth Muscle Organ Function
Summary of PhD Positions:
Smooth muscle organs exhibit rhythmic electrical activity that helps to coordinate organ function. For example, bio-electrical waves in the stomach muscle wall coordinate the peristalsis responsible for digestion, in the uterus, labour and preparation for labour, while in the bladder, the detrusor muscle remains relaxed during filling, and contracts when emptying. These contractile patterns are coordinated by electrically active pacemaker cells. The patterns of electrical activity in the uterus and bladder are generally poorly understood, however, disordered electrical activity is believed to be associated with a number of clinical disorders such as overactive bladder and endometriosis, and premature labour.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
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21. PhD Programs in AI
Summary of PhD Positions:
Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common heart rhythm disturbance and can lead to stroke and heart failure. AF is a major cause of hospitalisation worldwide. Stubborn forms of AF that cannot be reversed with conventional therapy (drugs and application of defibrillating shock) are treated by ablation in which atrial regions that drive fibrillation are isolated. In the past, ablation has mainly been limited to the left atrium. Recent studies have revealed that most patients with stubborn AF have drivers in the right atrium (RA) which are implicated in their rhythm disturbance. The mechanisms by which the RA structures drive AF are poorly understood.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
22. PhD Programs in stroke motor
Summary of PhD Positions:
Stroke is a leading cause of adult disability. Being able to predict motor recovery and outcomes soon after stroke could support clinicians to set appropriate goals for treatment and rehabilitation. This project will derive and train an automated artificial intelligence platform by using machine learning methods to identify lesions and features of the sensorimotor network and whole brain to classify patients according to expected stroke outcomes. This project has the potential to improve the quality and efficiency of rehabilitation.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
23. PhD Programs in Bioengineering tools
Summary of PhD Positions:
3-D gait analysis (3DGA) is a key assessment to evaluate impairment in children with lower limb movement disorders. It uses an optical motion capture system to evaluate pelvis, hip, knee and ankle movement during walking. It allows critical pre-operative assessment of the specific pathologies of the patient. Postoperatively, it provides an accurate assessment of outcome. However, due to the cost and specialised hardware its use is limited to academic and tertiary clinical centres. Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) have the potential to overcome these issues and determine individual walking parameters, movement asymmetry and kinematics of body segment.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
24. PhD Programs in tibia and femur bone mineral density
Summary of PhD Positions:
Unlike FE models based on adult bone geometry, limited literature is available for paediatric FE modelling. For example, paediatric bone mineral density (BMD) and therefore bone material properties vary with age, the presence of growth plate and cortical thickness. The influence of these parameters have not been studied to date and literature is lacking the required dataset. We have an existing dataset of 333 calibrated CT scans of children aged 4 to 18 years allowing us to extract bone mineral density information for the tibia/fibula, femur and pelvis. The first step will be to create a statistical BMD model of the growing child bone mineral density using machine-learning algorithms.
Application Deadlines: Open until filled
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25. PhD Programs in mapping of the gut
Summary of PhD Positions:
Functional gastrointestinal motility disorders are debilitating and can result in a significantly reduced quality of life. Disordered electrical patterns in the stomach have now been associated with a number of these motility disorders, however most treatment options are pharmaceuticals. The use of electrical stimulation, termed electroceuticals, is an emerging trend in medicine with rapid uptake to treat various clinical disorders in the body.
