Blog: New PhD studentship opportunity with Ronni Bowman, Dstl
The Distributed Algorithms CDT has a new PhD project partnered with Dstl and co-supervised by Ronni Bowman
Distributed Algorithms CDT PhD – new studentship opportunity with Ronni Bowman, Dstl
Professor Veronica (Ronni) Bowman is Senior Principal Statistician at Dstl and has recently been awarded an OBE for her work on Covid-19 as well as becoming the recipient of a ‘Women in Defence’ award for the work she did to help combat COVID-19. The award was in the Innovation and Creativity category and ‘involved creating a methodology to pull together models and data into one coherent statistically rigorous viewpoint’.
You can watch the video relating to Ronni’ work on Covid-19 here.
Ronni specialises in uncertainty calculation and communication and Bayesian inference and her interests include Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and Sequential Monte Carlo samplers. Ronni’s route into data science started with a PhD in Statistical Modelling.
Apply for a fully funded studentship co-sponsored by Dstl
CDT students work at the interface of academia and industry. The successful student will work with Professor Leszek Gasieniec, algorithm and computing expert; Dr Luke Mason, HPC and hydrocode expert; Dr Brianna Haezelwood, domain and physics expert and Professor Veronica Bowman and her team at Dstl to work on complex, real-world issues. Partners of the CDT act as industrial supervisors and also offer students a 3-6 month placement during their PhD.
This new PhD project is focused on emulating hydrocode simulations of fluid dynamical systems. Hydrocodes are large computer programs that can be used to simulate highly dynamic events (e.g. shock waves). They are high-fidelity (and highly optimised) and require computationally expensive calculations that account for the chemistry and physics of the system.
The aim of the project is to explore the application of machine learning, statistical techniques, and Gaussian processes to emulate a specific hydrocode. This will lead to the development of a single integrated approach to analysing and speeding up uncertainty quantification in complex systems that is underpinned by a synergistic understanding of computer science and statistics. The anticipation is that this integrated approach would be sufficiently generic and transferable that it could be readily applied to other problems of interest.
The project will be of interest to undergraduate or masters students with a background and/or interest in physics, mathematics, engineering and/or computing.
Set your career on a similar trajectory
The CDT PhDs are more than a PhD. We have regular student stories that describe a day in the life of a CDT PhD. If this has inspired you and you would like to work on tough data challenges then take a look at the Hydrocodes project in more detail here. The project’s closing date for applications is 18 April 2022.
The CDT and its working environment
The CDT is a ‘centre for doctoral training’ and unlike solo PhD endeavours you will be supported by a community of PhD students and will have access to a wealth and breadth of postdoc researchers and university academics. No two days are the same and you can discover more about life at the CDT here.
Follow this link for more PhD projects and application guidance and eligibility details.
Why study for a PhD with the Distributed Algorithms CDT?
Further links & reading
DA CDT Website – review our research programme and the people we work with!
DA CDT PhD Projects in Progress – what type of projects are our current students working on?
DA CDT News – what have out students and researchers been up too?
“Be ambitious, believe, make a difference.”
Simon Maskell, CDT Director