PhD Scholarships in Earth, Environmental or Biological Sciences - [Archived Advertisement]

Exciting opportunity to study for a PhD in Earth, Environmental or Biological Sciences at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.

QUT is offering competitive out of round APA Scholarships to domestic applicants who have Honours 1 or equivalent qualifications. The offer will remain open until 30 June 2015, however, anyone interested in applying should contact the School of Earth, Environmental and Biological Sciences as soon as possible.

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is well known as ‘a university for the real world’ because of its industry related applied research. Aligning with its real world status, QUT places strong emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) research, which underpins the current and future education and skill development in Australia. This emphasis is reflected in the $250M Science and Engineering Centre (SEC) and $50M refurbishment of research and higher degree research (HDR) support facilities. QUT also houses multidisciplinary institutes, a diverse range of research disciplines and state-of-the-art Central Analytical Research Facility (CARF).

The School of Earth, Environmental and Biological Sciences (EEBS) at QUT conducts research in the areas including food security, soil science, geology, water sustainability, biodiversity, evolutionary biology, climate change, energy and minerals. Staff within EEBS are a mix of new and experienced academics, with both strong disciplinary and cross-disciplinary interests.

A core strategic goal of EEBS is to grow its postgraduate student cohort. To facilitate this, we invite interested future postgraduate students to apply for domestic APA scholarships in partnership with our staff. A list of projects on offer is below. If you are interested in joining our school as a PhD (doctoral) student, please register your interest by emailing your CV, a copy of your unofficial academic transcript, and a list of the projects you would be interested in researching to Dr. Prasanna Egodawatta , higher degree research director for EEBS.

List of projects

Earth Sciences:

Principal Supervisor:  Associate Professor Scott Bryan

Project Title: The missing link in the Tasmanides of eastern Australia: Evaluating tectonic evolution of the Southern Thomson Orogen

Contact email address: scott.bryan@qut.edu.au

Principal supervisor: Dr. Luke Nothdurft

Project Title:  Diagenesis of Holocene coral reef systems: the role of submarine diagenesis in reef building and palaeoclimate analysis

Contact email address:  l.nothdurft@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Craig Sloss

Project Title: Sedimentology, stratigraphy, biostratigraphy and geochronology of contourite depositional systems in the Gulf of Cadiz: MIS7 to Holocene

Contact email address: c.sloss@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Christoph Schrank

Project Title: Finite strain with large rotations: A new hybrid numerical/experimental approach

Contact email address:  christoph.schrank@qut.edu.au

Environmental Systems:

Principal Supervisor:  Professor Malcolm Cox  

Project Title: Stable isotope character and controls in surface waters and young groundwaters in sub-tropical southeast Queensland

Contact email address:  m.cox@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Professor Peter Grace

Project Title:  Denitrification bioreactors to reduce nitrate pollution in agricultural waterways

Contact email address: pr.grace@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Professor Peter Grace

Project Title: Increasing profitability of irrigated cotton systems through improved nitrogen use efficiency and reducing losses of nitrogen

Contact email address:  pr.grace@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Dr. David Rowlings

Project Title: Using climate forecasts for predicting nitrogen availability and losses to improve fertiliser use efficiency in Australian pastures

Contact email address: d.rowlings@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor:  Dr. Clemens Scheer

Project Title:  Impact of rainfall variability on soil carbon and nitrogen cycling in Australian forests

Contact email address:  clemens.scheer@qut.edu.au

Biological Sciences:

Principal Supervisor: Associate Professor Stephen Cameron

Project Title:  Breaking genomic stability: What links nuclear and mitochondrial genome evolution in insects?

Contact email address: sl.cameron@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Professor Tony Clarke

Project Title: Interactions between fruit flies: competition, facilitation or neither?

Contact email address:  a.clarke@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Melody de Laat

Project Title: Insulin dysregulation: Comparative physiological studies on the origin of metabolic syndrome

Contact email address:  melody.delaat@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Grant Hamilton

Project Title:  Thermal imaging cryptic species

Contact email address:  g.hamilton@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Matt Krosch

Project Title: The origin of species: exploring the diversification of regional fruit flies through phylogenomics

Contact email address:   m.krosch@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Mark Schutze

Project Title: In the footsteps of Wallace: the biogeography of Tephritid fruit flies across the Indo-Malay Archipelago

Contact email address: m.schutze@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Professor Stuart Parsons

Project Title: Assessing the bioprotection value of bats in agricultural and urban landscapes

Contact email address: stuart.parsons@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Matt Phillips

Project Title:Modelling the morphological evolution of living and fossil marsupials

Contact email address: m9.phillips@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Matt Phillips

Project Title: Bioinformatic analysis of marsupial evolutionary ecology

Contact email address: m9.phillips@qut.edu.au

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Peter Prentis

Project Title: Comparative proteomic analysis of intertidal sea anemones across a tidal cycle: can anemones sense changes in tide?

Contact email address: p.prentis@qut.edu.au