Postgraduate Projects

Abhirup Banerjee

• Deep Generative Models for 3D/4D Cardiac Anatomy

• AI-driven Personalised Cardiac Digital Twins

• Geometric Deep Learning for Generative Modelling of Cardiac Shape and Electrophysiology

Liang He

• Soft Robotic Organs for Next-Generation Medical Device Testing (co-supervisor Ryman Hashem)

• Anthropomorphic Robotic Hands with Artificial Muscles for Pathology-Informed Human Function Modelling

• Anthropomorphic Robotic Foot-Leg Systems for High-Fidelity Wearable Device Testing

Molly Stevens

• Smart Biomaterials for Next-Generation Neural Interfaces: Bridging Biology and Technology

• AI-powered Design of Precision Nanomedicine Delivery Systems

• AI and Quantum Approaches for Ultra-Sensitive Diagnostic Tools

• High-Throughput Engineering and Characterization of Advanced In Vitro Models for Biomedical Research and Drug Discovery

Tingting Zhu

• Representation Learning for Medical Time-Series

• Foundation and Generative Models for Digital Health

• Disease Phenotyping and Subtyping

• Treatment Effect Modelling and Treatment Recommendation

• Explainable and Trustworthy AI for Digital Health

• Robust AI for Real-World Digital Health

Paul Shearing

• Quantifying state of safety in high energy density batteries for the energy transition: a combined modelling and experimental approach

• Rational design of cathode materials for multi-phase mass transport in metal-air batteries 

Aidong Yang

• Technology and systems innovation for decarbonising iron and steel making (in connection with Inter-task 52 of IEA Hydrogen TCP)

• Engineering solutions for atmospheric CO2 removal

• CO2 utilisation in energy systems

Thomas Adcock

• Physics informed machine learning for coastal flood prediction using Oxford’s RTide package

• Rogue waves in the ocean—how big can they grow?

• Ocean wave forecasting using machine learning

Alfonso Castrejon-Pita

• Dynamics of Droplet Interactions: Collision, Transport, and Multiphase Flow Phenomena – Experiments and Numerical Simulations (co-supervisor Wouter Mostert)

• Droplet Aerobreakup in High-Velocity Airflows: Dynamics, Regimes, and Spray Formation (co-supervisor Wouter Mostert)

• Experiments and Numerical Modelling of the Dynamics of Droplets and Bubbles in Cryogenic Multiphase Flows (co-supervisor Konstantina Vogiatzaki)

• The Impact and Splashing Dynamics of Non-Newtonian and/or Surfactant-laden Drops

Chris Martin

• Adaptive mesh refinement techniques for finite element analysis of complex 3D domains

• Numerical analysis of multi-footing support structures for offshore wind turbines

• Modelling of pore fluid behaviour in soils around offshore wind turbine foundations

• Computational methods for simulating extreme plastic deformations of seabed soils

Emilio Martínez-Pañeda

• A new generation of models to predict corrosion-fatigue and extend the service life of offshore wind turbines

• Advanced computational fracture methods to predict concrete crushing and enable new recycling technologies

Barbara Rossi

• Resilient and sustainable use of advanced metal alloys in critical infrastructure

• Additive manufacturing for next-generation structural capabilities

• Ai-augmented design and equation discovery for performance prediction in complex structural systems

• Structures in extreme environments where fatigue and corrosion pose reliability issues

• Structural optimization under performance and sustainability constraints based on whole life assessment

• Climate-positive building aligning with sustainability agendas (e.g., PAS  2080, Net Zero policies)

Christopher Vogel

• Predicting the regional-scale aerodynamic interactions between wind farms

• Uncertainty quantification in wind and tidal turbine yield and loading prediction

• Multi-rotor wind turbine aerodynamics

Antonis Papachristodoulou

• Scalable optimisation-based methods for nonlinear control

• Designing safe and stable learning-based control schemes

Luca Furieri

• Scale-free design of linear and neural network control policies for networked systems

• Reinforcement learning with safety and robustness guarantees

• Designing optimisation algorithms for control and machine learning

Jean-Baptiste Lugagne

• Data-driven control and reinforcement learning to manipulate intracellular processes

• Microfluidics, microscopy, computer vision, and optogenetics for real time cell-machine interfaces

• Optimisation and active learning for bioproduction strain engineering with pipetting robots

Kostas Margellos

• Project title: Probabilistically safe control synthesis (Areas of research: Control theory; Control barrier functions; Optimization; Data-driven control; Statistical learning theory)

• Project title: Learning with corrupted data (Areas of research: Optimization; Distributional robustness; Optimal transport; Robust control and optimization; Statistical learning theory)

• Project title: Probabilistic operating envelopes in power systems (Areas of research: Power systems; Data-driven control; Scenario Approach; Optimal Power Flow)

Harrison Steel

• Combining synthetic biology and Artificial Intelligence for high-throughput engineering of Bacteria for sustainability applications.
• Developing machine learning methods for predicting Antibiotic Resistance Evolution (AMR) with new robotic experimental platforms.

David Howey

• Hyper-local forecasting of solar power generation using irradiance sensor data, weather forecasts, and machine learning

• Optimisation of energy storage connected to solar generation for cost and carbon savings

• Solar forecasting, low cost irradiance sensing, and the influence of solar forecasts on control of battery energy storage systems

• Unsupervised data-driven fault detection in battery systems.

• Battery passports and the circular economy 

• Sodium-ion battery continuum modelling (co-supervisor Charles Monroe)

Thomas Morstyn

• Safe Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Grid-Edge Power System Flexibility

• Hybrid Quantum-Classical Computing for Power System Optimisation

• Power Grid Intelligence for AI Data Centres

• Net-Zero Electricity Market Design

• Integrating National Security into Power Grid Planning

Noa Zilberman

• Sustainable and resilient computing infrastructure (hardware focused)

• Sustainable and resilient networking infrastructure (hardware or software focused)

• Networking for Frontier AI Systems (hardware focused)

• Next-generation network-switch architectures (hardware focused)

• In-network computing for health applications (hardware or software focused) (co-supervisor: Yvonne Lu)

Natalia Ares

• Accelerating Quantum Technologies with Machine Learning  – Quantum technologies and AI

• Nanoscale Thermodynamics – Quantum technologies and out-of-equilibrium thermodynamics

• Quantum hardware for efficient learning (co-supervisor Federico Fedele) – Quantum technologies

Maurice Fallon

• Long term change detection with lidar-visual 3D reconstruction on construction and industrial sites

• Be one with the robot: building a joint visual map combining a robot's sensors with AR headsets (e.g. Meta Aria glasses)

• Motion tracking from vision and radar to see through smoke

• Monitoring crop yield with 4D Radiance Fields (Gaussian Splatting or NeRF)

Liang He

• Generative AI-Enhanced Gamified Virtual Rehabilitation for Neuromuscular Disorder Therapy

• Human–Robot–AI Collaboration for Personalised Assisted Physical Therapy

• Human–Robot–AI Collaboration for Adaptive Soft Exoskeleton Control

Perla Maiolino

• Task-driven co-design of body and control for Soft Robots

• Design and control of a Soft Hand for robot manipulation

• Control of a soft modular arm in cluttered environment using proprioceptive and exteroceptive sensors.

• Design of Soft artificial skin for robot

• Using proxi-tactile artificial skin for robots in industrial applications.

Laurence Brassart

• Multiphysics modelling of solid state batteries: from fundemental understanding of chemo-mechanial failure mechanisms to improved battery design

• Mechanics of soft materials: bridging the gap between statistical mechanics and solid mechanics.

• Chemo-mechanics of biodegradable polymers: understanding the couplings between mechanics and chemistry in biodegradable and sustainable plastics

• Rate-dependent fracture of soft materials: experiments and multiscale modelling

Antonio Forte

• Granular robots: design, fabrication, and simulation of active robotic grains to explore emergent cluster dynamics.

• Fluidic robotic oscillators: probing the dynamics of bifurcations, chaos, and Hopf oscillations.

• Mechanical metamaterials: unlocking shape-shifting wearable technologies.

• One input, many outputs: harnessing mechanics to simplify control.

• Environmental soft robotics: designing with sustainable and biodegradable materials.

• Bio-inspired robotic swimmers with architected flexible skin

• Deployable metastructures for targeted, programmed drug delivery

Tim Hageman

• Computational multi-physics modelling to predict environment-induced failures

• Combining traditional and machine-learning based computational methods for parameter identification

• Linking physics-informed neural networks and standard finite elements for efficient and robust predictions of material failures

• Multi-scale computational modelling to capture ice-cliff fracture and collapse in a changing climate

Felix Hofmann

• Rapid Measurement of Deep Earth Seismic Properties using Laser Transient Grating Spectroscopy in the Diamond Anvil Cell (co-supervisor Hauke Marquardt) 

• Understanding the evolution of thermal transport properties in fusion reactor armour materials using using Laser Transient Grating Spectroscopy (co-supervised by UKAEA)

• Designing highly radiation resistant alloys for fusion power by optimising properties in the high irradiation dose limit (co-supervised by UKAEA)

• Deformation behaviour of highly irradiated structural materials for fusion power (co-supervised by Edmund Tarleton)

• Understanding hydrogen embrittlement at the micro-scale by combining crystal plasticity and insitu micro-scale hydrogen charging experiments 

• Quantifying hydrogen-induced lattice strain using optical interferometry and insitu X-ray diffraction experiments

• How does hydrogen alter the structure and behaviour of atomic scale defects? Leveraging combined X-ray Bragg Coherent Diffraction Imaging and Atomistic Simulations

John Huber

• Optimizing piezoelectric composites for sonar and ultrasound applications

• Energy harvesting using piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials

• Development of a wear model for dry contacts

• Models for acoustic metamaterials

Antoine Jérusalem

• Stochastic resonance in neurons: modelling of neuronal network communications through noise

• AI driven mechanical design at scale: how do we create large structures made of metamaterials or multiphysics materials for a target function (not necessarily structural!)

• Stochastic numerical predictions: how do we transform the way we simulate to incorporate uncertainties (e.g., APFEM, GSFEM, etc.)

Dong (Lilly) Liu

• Damage Tolerance of Alloys in Cryogenic Conditions

Emilio Martínez-Pañeda

• Critical experiments to unravel hydrogen-material interactions holding back hydrogen’s decarbonization potential

• A new class of multi-physics finite element models to accelerate the energy transition: from Li-Ion batteries to hydrogen

Reece Oosterbeek

• Fatigue and degradation in bioresorbable lattice materials

• Mechanics and degradation of additively manufactured foams

• Manufacturing complex components from bioresorbable composites using powder bed fusion

• Water absorption under mechanical load in bioresorbable particulate composites

• A 3D printed, bioresorbable osteotomy wedge

Edmund Tarleton

• Materials Modelling for Fusion Energy

• Micromechanical Assessment of Low Cycle Fatigue in CuCrZr for Nuclear Fusion Applications Using Nanoindentation (co-supervisor Anna Kareer, Materials)

Tobias Hermann

• Experimental investigation of high-temperature materials for hypersonic flight

• Flows around hypersonic glide vehicles in ground testing facilities

• Gas surface interaction of decomposing re-entry capsules

• Optical measurement of plasma temperatures using physics informed machine learning (co-supervisor Joao Henriques)

Jesus Lizana

• Development and integration of advanced thermochemical heat storage materials for net-zero buildings.

• Novel HVAC systems to maximise the potential of AI-driven smart control for net-zero buildings.

• Next-generation urban climate diagnostics and modelling to support city climate adaptation.

• Climate risk assessment: transitioning from qualitative to quantitative cost evaluation.

• Ultra-low-cost cooling technologies for climate adaptation.

Thomas Povey

• Reducing uncertainty in aerodynamic probe measurements for transonic flows

• Machine learning applied to supersonic nozzle optimisation

• Superposition methods for film cooling applications in gas turbines

• Improving overall cooling effectiveness measurement accuracy in gas turbine experiments

Sarah Sparrow

• Using machine learning to improve landslide and flash flood warnings (co-supervision from the UK Met Office and CEMADEN in Brazil)

• Estimating the causal impact of climate change on infectious diseases (co-supervisor Moritz Kraemer)

Konstantina Vogiatzaki

• Innovative Liquid Hydrogen Injection and Combustion for Aerospace Applications

• AI-Enhanced CFD Modelling of Cryogenic Jets (co-supervisor Steve Roberts)

• Next-Generation Electronic Cooling Design Using Simulation and Machine Learning (co-supervisor Noa Zilberman)

• Cryogenic Droplet Impact Dynamics 

• Advanced Turbulence Modelling for Cryogenic Flows

• Phase-Change Dynamics in Cryogenic Carbon Capture Units

Ryan Walker

• Sensor Fusion and ML for Robust Condition Monitoring (Tidal, Wind and Automotive, AI & Mechanical – co-supervisor TBC)

• Spray Cooling for Rotating Machinery in High-Performance Applications (Thermofluids & Mechanical – co-supervisor TBC)