PhD position in plant disease epidemiology (University of Cambridge, United Kingdom)

here is a fully funded PhD position in mathematical biology available for an October 2024 start in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. The funding is not restricted to UK nationals and is accessible by international students.

The project "Modelling regional scale polygenic fungicide resistance and grower behaviour to inform resistance management for sustainable agriculture" focuses on epidemiological modelling and is co-funded by Syngenta. The focus is extending a recent model of polygenic fungicide resistance (see https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010969) to account for spatial spread and grower behaviour. Full details are at https://bbsrcdtp.lifesci.cam.ac.uk/files/ics-plant-nc-2024.pdf.

The supervisor will be Nik Cunniffe https://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/directory/cunniffe-nik. Interested students are encouraged to contact him directly on njc1001@cam.ac.uk. Since all application paperwork must be completed by the start of December 2023, interested students are encouraged to get in touch as soon as possible.

Other projects are also available in Nik's laboratory for a October 2024 start, again with funding accessible to EU and international applicants. See https://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/research/groups/theoretical-and-computational-epidemiology/vacancies-and-phds for a list (although there is some flexibility to also design a project).