PhD Studentship: AI System for Detecting Emerging Mood Problems in Young People using Digital Phenotypes

Summary:

Applications are invited for a fully-funded PhD (fees + stipend) to begin October 2026 on a research project co-developing an AI to predict emerging mood problems (e.g., anxiety and depression) in students using smartphone data. The successful candidate will be based at University of Warwick and will be co-supervised by Dr Sagar Jilka and Dr Vivek Furtado.

Project description:

Clinical decisions in mental health are subjective, which limits clinicians’ ability to provide care when anxiety or depressive symptoms start. Smartphones offer unique opportunities to address this, as they unobtrusively provide a continuous stream of unbiased, objective data called ‘digital phenotypes’ (DPs). Over the past decade, smartphone use among young people has increased, concurrently with depressive symptoms in the same age group, with discouraging implications for long-term mental health. AI can use these DPs to characterise complex behaviours to prevent, treat and manage depression.

Depression is highly prevalent, resulting in significant functional impairment, increased risk of suicide and comorbid physical health problems. Mental illness (mainly depression) cost the UK government £117.9 billion, approximately 5% of UK GDP in 2019 through lost productivity.

Previous work has (a) focused on older adults despite young people at greatest risk of depression, (b) been unable to solve data privacy issues, and (c) used invasive and expensive methods. We plan to address these shortcomings to predict mental health risk in university students, an under-researched population, using passively collected DPs.

With your application, please provide a one-page proposed methodology for the PhD, outlining a plan for your PhD research within this area.

The candidate:

The successful applicant will use a mixed-methods approach to the research. They may also conduct relevant systematic and/or meta-analytic reviews to describe the current literature and inform their research. They will undertake qualitative data collection and analysis to understand student perceptions of AI and mental health and acceptability and feasibility of using smartphone data and AI to predict anxiety and depression. They will then use advanced statistical analyses to develop machine learning models using smartphone data collected during the PhD, focusing on privacy preserving AI such as federated learning. They will undertake work with stakeholders to develop their research and ensure it is meaningful and acceptable to the communities the work benefits. They will communicate with young people and stakeholders to ensure effective dissemination of the work. The successful applicant will join a team of post-doctoral researchers, PhD students, and undergraduate students at the University of Warwick and work closely with relevant networks including the Midlands Mental Health and Neuroscience PhD Programme for Healthcare Professionals.

This award, funded by University of Warwick, provides annual funding to cover UK tuition fees, a tax-free stipend and a one-off research training grant of up to £5,000. The funding is provided as contribution to the Midlands Mental Health and Neuroscience PhD Programme for Healthcare Professionals.

The studentship will be awarded on the basis of merit for 3 years of full-time study to commence on 5 October 2026.

To apply, candidates must submit a research proposal, a CV, two references, and a transcript of grades via the University of Warwick online portal, this can be found via the 'Apply' button above. Informal enquiries are welcomed by Dr. Sagar Jilka (Sagar.Jilka@warwick.ac.uk).

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