PhD Studentship: Computational Modelling and Mental Health a Unique Interdisciplinary

We provide a fully funded 4-year PhD studentship at the University of Birmingham.

It covers tuition fees and stipend at UKRI rates (for 25/26 this will be £20,780, paid monthly) for home students only (UK citizens, Irish citizens and those with settled status in the UK).

The project includes collaboration with public sector and policy makers.

To apply, please click on the 'Apply' button above.

Candidate Requirements

• A strong academic background in Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Architecture or Computer Science.
• An undergraduate degree with at least 2.1 in one of the above subjects is essential.
• Previous experience in computational modelling, air quality or psychology is desirable.

The Research Project

The overall aim of this PhD project is to understand how indoor air quality (IAQ) affects the health of children and adolescents, including their mental health, with the aim of creating healthier spaces and habits for them. This is a highly interdisciplinary project that combines computational modelling and behavioural science.

The first part will be based on the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to diagnose the air quality of indoor spaces where people live and work (presence of pollutants, damp, ventilations). We will use these simulations to propose real-life measures to improve living and working conditions. Such measures might be recommendations on how to design or retrofit indoor spaces, or behavioural changes such as changing habits regarding ventilation or use of heating.

The second part revolves around understanding the impact of such measures on the mental health of the people who occupy those spaces, and how to effectively communicate to them the risks that poor air quality poses to their health and how to mitigate it. We will employ existing datasets to explore the associations between air quality and cognition, sleep and mental health in childhood and adolescence.

This Studentship provides the opportunity of liaising with Hertfordshire County Council to get first-hand data of indoor spaces and work with real-life scenarios. 

Informal enquiries can be directed to Dr Bruño Fraga (b.fraga@bham.ac.uk) and Dr Isabel Morales-Muñoz (i.morales-munoz@bham.ac.uk).

Application Deadline

The deadline for applications is 5pm on the 19th November with interviews scheduled to take place on 25th November.

Advert information