Explore our current postgraduate research degree and PhD opportunities.
Robots have the potential of becoming companions that can assist and collaborate with people in everyday tasks. The embodied multimodal interaction capabilities based on gestures, speech, vision and affect/emotion exhibited by the robot companions can better engage users, physically and socially, compared to digital interfaces such as mobile phones and computers. In most of the cases, the interaction behaviours exhibited by the robots are coded manually or automated to limited extents. For example, by using scripted dialogues or teleoperated gestures. Further, there is also a need to investigate techniques to synchronize the behaviours exhibited across multiple modalities to suit various interaction contexts. For example, the gestures of the robot need to suit its speech and emotional context of the conversation.
We are relying more and more on technology in our everyday life, which exposes us to several serious threats in the cyber-physical space. The relentless evolution of modern technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, and cloud computing played a pivotal role to extend the possibilities offered by the cyber-physical space, which is therefore getting more and more intertwined with our lives. Many benefits have been brought in by cyber-physical technologies in terms of efficiency, opportunities, and connectivity. However, our heavy dependence on the cyber-physical space has been massively exploited by attackers to compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of our devices, data, and services. Attacks are not only limited to cyberspace, indeed the ubiquity of embedded devices means that adversaries can directly access them and can carry out physical and side-channel attacks. The attack surface is further complicated by the significant rise in the level of outsourcing in the integrated circuit supply chain, which has given rise to additional threats, including Hardware Trojan and integrated circuit counterfeits.
Applications are invited for an exciting new PhD studentship funded by Sight Research UK. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a complex blinding disease, where a combination of genetic and non-genetic risk factors, such as an unhealthy diet, results in the irreversible loss of central vision. The project builds on our published work to elucidate the molecular pathways of damage to the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and associated tissues in the outer retina.
Applications are invited for an exciting new PhD studentship by the Gerald Kerkut Charitable Trust and partly funded by the Gift of Sight Appeal. Stargardt disease is an autosomal recessive disorder and the most common macular dystrophy, with onset from childhood, in early or late adult life. It results in the irreversible loss of vision and is solely caused by mutations in the ATP-binding cassette subfamily-A member 4 (ABCA4) gene.
The more frequent extreme conditions and the challenges associated with climate change mean that our structures and infrastructure need to be designed to be efficient, resilient, sustainable and capable of meeting the demands of modern society as well as current and future risks.
A PhD position is available as part of a new centre of excellence launching soon called Light and Electrochemical Activated Processes for Chemical Industries (LEAP). The intention of LEAP is to coordinate the University of Southampton’s distinctive strengths in photonic materials and electrochemistry to tackle the challenge of decarbonising the chemical industry. The initiative brings together academics from chemistry, engineering, chemical engineering, and the Optoelectronics Research Centre that will improve our fundamental understanding of these complex processes and develop engineered solutions that can be applied at scale.
Tooth brushing is essential for the maintenance of oral health and in particular the prevention of caries. The brushing process is a complex tribological contact which is influenced by a number of interrelated variables combining to cause the abrasion which results in the cleaning of the tooth surface.
We are looking for a PhD student to join our group on a project to numerically model, design, and simulate the next generation of fibre lasers.
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas whose emissions have caused about 30% of global heating to date. At COP-26 a multinational alliance of 105 countries pledged to cut their methane emissions by 30% in the next decade, because it is thought to be the most effective way to reduce near-term global warming. One of the most important levers for doing so will be to reduce natural gas leakage from fossil fuel production infrastructure, but to achieve this new low-cost technologies for immediately detecting the leaks will be needed.
Fusion is the process that heats the Sun and all other stars. Atomic nuclei collide together and release energy. The goal of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) is to commercialise fusion, by developing ‘tokamak’ devices. They use magnetic fields to confine fusion fuel as a design for future fusion power plants. This has vast potential as a safe, abundant source of low-carbon electricity.