PhD in Physical Geography
There are many opportunities for carrying out a PhD in Physical Geography in the School of Geographical Sciences, with several different funding routes.
A list of currently available projects is shown below. This list is not exhaustive, so if you have another idea or project in mind, please contact one of the supervisors listed below, other potential supervisors or the postgraduate admissions tutors to discuss and develop further.
NERC GW4+ DTP Projects 2022
The application deadline is 11:59pm on Monday 10th January 2022. When applying for GW4+ DTP projects in the School of Geographical Sciences please choose 'Geographical Sciences: Physical (PhD)' in the 'find a programme' box. You should refer to the project title and supervisor in your application. You will need to make a separate application for each project you wish to be considered for. It is important that you follow the detailed instructions provided in 'How to apply for the GW4+ DTP NERC (PhD)' and read the Admissions Statement in the prospectus when applying. The prospectus also shows other Bristol Schools offering projects under this DTP.
Please note that although an applicant may be successful in being nominated by a supervisor for a particular project, they are not guaranteed a studentship until they have been successful following an interview. Further particulars of the programme including eligibility for international applicants (including EU) can be found here.
| Project title | Supervisor(s) |
|---|---|
| Antarctic mass trends from satellite data and machine learning | Professor Jonathan Bamber |
| Catastrophic flooding under climate change | Professor Paul Bates |
| Deep learning - risk of extreme sea level events in the Caribbean | Dr Rory Bingham |
| Tropical cyclones in the Mozambique Channel in climate simulations | Dr Rachel James |
| Assessing the impact of climate change on sport using a combined modelling, statistics, and artificial intelligence approach | Professor Dan Lunt |
| Rainstorm-scale predictions of climate impacts on the water balance in East African drylands | Dr Katerina Michaelides |
| Exploring the future of the marine N2O cycle | Dr Fanny Monteiro |
| Impact of meltwater Antarctic ice shelves and future sea level rise | Professor Tony Payne |
| Assessing coastal pollution in the last century using new 210pb techniques | Professor David Richards |
| Snowball Earth and the origin of life in extreme cold environments | Dr Patricia Sanchez-Baracaldo |
| Climate change’s impact on extreme European rainfall | Dr Peter Watson |
| Frozen-in - characterising the micro-environment of ice inhabiting microbes | Dr Christopher Williamson |
Other PhD projects (including China Scholarship Council studentships)
These are suggested projects for which we currently have no funding. They would be ideal for holders of scholarships (including the China Scholarship Council), or self-funded students. This list is not exhaustive, so if you have another idea or project in mind, please contact one of the supervisors listed below, other potential supervisors or the postgraduate admissions tutors to discuss and develop further.
| Project title | Supervisor(s) |
|---|---|
| Closing the Ocean Carbon Cycle | Professor Paul Valdes |
| Caves as a window on land-atmosphere coupling in the carbon cycle | Dr David Richards |
|
Evolution and diversity of novel marine nitrogen-fixing organisms and their impact on global climate |
Dr Fanny Monteiro |
| Developing regional scale hydrodynamic models | Dr Jeff Neal |
|
The impacts of land use change on climate, data and model analysis |
Dr Jo House |
| Atmospheric methane on the rise: investigating the drivers of methane’s abrupt changes | Dr Anita Ganesan |
| Palaeoenvironmental controls on the accumulation of hydrocarbon source rocks in Paratethys | Dr Rachel Flecker |