Joint Doctoral Program of the University of St Andrews and the University of Bonn

Ultracold atoms provide an excellent platform to understand many-body quantum systems. This has allowed the study of many material properties, such as transitions between conducting and insulating states, magnetic order, and transport. In particular it has not been possible to model how electrons in a solid interact with phonons. Several groups have developed experiments with cold atoms (both bosons and fermions) in cavities. Our experimental collaborator Prof. Lev is unique in using cavities which support many nearly degenerate modes of light. This crucially yields controllable-range atomic interaction, necessary to realistically model phonons. Experiments with fermionic atoms in such cavities are now being built.

This project will identify ways to stimulate superconductivity using fermionic atoms in multimode cavities. To realise superconductivity, we must use the cavity to engineer density-density interactions between atoms. This contrasts with most existing work, where interactions occur between atomic density waves, due to recoil from scattering photons. Preliminary work indicates that by trapping the atoms in a two dimensional later, recoil can be suppressed, producing a direct density-density interaction, as recently used to realise density-density interactions in a one-dimensional chain.

After demonstrating the possibility of superconducting pairing, we will build on recent work, to explore heating and cooling rates induced by the cavity. Understanding such heating is key to identifying how experiments must be defined: if heating rates are too high, it will be necessary to consider experiments that measure transient signals. This question requires new theoretical approaches, since exact simulation of the experiments is not practical. We will compare cumulant-based and adiabatic elimination approaches developed by our groups.

The project will be managed jointly between the School of Physics at St Andrews and the Institute for Physics at Bonn. The student will be supervised by Prof J. Keeling (St Andrews) and Prof. Dr. C. Kollath (Bonn). Informal enquiries regarding this scholarship may be addressed to the co-supervisors.

Study level
Postgraduate Research (Doctoral)

Geographical criteria
No restrictions

Domicile for fee status
No restrictions

Year of entry
2024

The anticipated workplan is the students will spend the first 21 months in St Andrews, and the subsequent 21 months in Bonn.

Additional criteria
Applicants must not already (i) hold a doctoral degree; or (ii) be matriculated for a doctoral degree at either the University of St Andrews or the University of Bonn (or another institution).

Duration of award
Up to 3.5 years. The student will be expected to spend approximately half of the award term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn. The successful candidate will be expected to have completed the doctorate degree by the end of the award term. The award term excludes the continuation period and any extension periods.

Value of award
The funding comprises a scholarship equivalent of a full-fees award and stipend for a period of up to 3.5 years. It is expected that the student will spend half of the scholarship term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn:

• For the period spent at the University of St Andrews, the scholarship will comprise a full fees award and a stipend paid at the current UK Research Council rate (£18,622 each year in 2023–2024).
• For the period spent at the University of Bonn, the scholarship will comprise a monthly maintenance grant of €1,500. The University of Bonn does not charge any tuition fees, but students must pay a so-called social contribution once per semester (currently €315 per semester).

Tuition or maintenance award
Tuition and maintenance

Applicants should submit their application to the co-supervisors by January 31, 2024.                Please send your application to Prof J. Keeling (St Andrews) and Prof. Dr. C. Kollath (Bonn) at the following email addresses:

• Prof J. Keeling: jjmjk@st-andrews.ac.uk
• Prof. Dr. C. Kollath: corinna.kollath@uni-bonn.de

Your application should include the following:

• Statement why you are the right candidate for the project (half a page to one page)
• CV
• Name of two referees
• Transcript of previous degrees

Please indicate in your application that you wish to be considered for this Global St Andrews scholarship (reference Keeling_Kollath).

Terms and conditions

Please read the University of St Andrews scholarships terms and conditions (opens in new tab). These are applicable during the St Andrews duration of the award; please consult the partner institution for their terms and conditions relating to scholarships.

Contact

Please contact us should you have any questions regarding the scholarship: pgscholarships@st-andrews.ac.uk

The student will be supervised by Prof J. Keeling (St Andrews) and Prof. Dr. C. Kollath (Bonn). Informal enquiries regarding this scholarship may be addressed to the co-supervisors.

You will be notified of the outcome of your application by April 30, 2024. Awards are subject to final signatures of contractual relationships between the parties, and are not an indication of admission to the doctoral programme. Successful scholarship applicants must apply to both institutions and meet all relevant entry requirements for admission including any immigration requirements that may be in place.

Next steps
Once notified, successful candidates should proceed to fulfill the application requirements for each University and must meet all normal entry requirements for admission – please see the advice on applying for research degree programmes. Applications should indicate that the applicant is the recipient of a Global PhD Scholarship St Andrews and Bonn (reference Keeling_Kollath).

Infections caused by bacteria are becoming more difficult to treat on a global scale due to increasing antimicrobial resistance. Infections in native or prosthetic large joints, such as the hip and knee are largely dealt with via antibiotic therapy and adjunct surgery. Surgery is normally needed to the native joint or where a joint has been resected and replaced with an artificial joint.

In order to address the two-fold problem of antimicrobial resistance and joint infections we propose the use of a novel diagnostic technology: SLIC (Scattered Light Integrating Collector). SLIC can detect tiny numbers of bacteria and deduce whether they are resistant to common antibiotics. Importantly, SLIC can do this in a very short timeframe, typically less than 30 minutes.

Hip and knee replacement surgery for infected artificial joints typically can take over 2 hours to complete, meaning a window of time exists where samples from patients can be taken and analysed in SLIC and data returned during surgery. This development is not only game-changing for orthopaedic surgery but also for the way in which we use antibiotics; so-called antimicrobial stewardship.

We have already carried out an initial joint pilot project with the University departments of St Andrews and Bonn using both fresh joint fluid from a small number of clinical cases, where the organism was known in advance from conventional testing and culture methods as a proof of concept. The current Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) takes a trained SLIC user approximately 15 minutes to prepare a sample, 10 minutes for testing to positivity and a further 15 mins to complete antibiotic sensitivity testing.

This PhD project aims to investigate the use of SLIC as a point of care diagnostic test for synovial samples from joint infections involving joints in the lower limb. The project will begin with training in the use of SLIC and performing detailed analysis using laboratory strain bacterial cultures. This would then progress to patient strains and finally the use of synovial fluid. The student will use the SLIC machine to analyse fresh and frozen archival synovial fluid samples to determine if they can be successfully detected and to run antibiotic sensitivity testing of commonly used antibiotics using a previously generated robust, site-specific SOP for both fresh and frozen samples. This would both validate the methodology robustly and prove that it can be completed rapidly and reproducibly. Following on from this we will then test fluid from macerated infected tissue and sonicated fluid from explanted infected hip and knee prosthesis.

The project will be managed jointly between the School of Medicine at St Andrews and the University Hospital at Bonn (Department of Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery). The student will be supervised by Dr Phil Walmsley and Dr Robert Hammond (St Andrews) and Prof. Dr. Dieter C. Wirtz and Prof. Dr. Frank A. Schildberg (Bonn).

Informal enquiries regarding this scholarship may be addressed to the supervisors above. At St Andrews, the following will also be part of the project team – Dr Adeel Akhtar and Dr Andrew Hall.

Study level
Postgraduate Research (Doctoral)

Geographical criteria
No restrictions

Domicile for fee status
No restrictions

Year of entry
2024

The successful student will spend half of the scholarship term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn (42 months in total). The exact schedule will be discussed during the interview process.

The student may start their degree at any point in the academic year 2024–2025 prior to a final entry date of May 27, 2025 subject to agreement with the supervisory team.

Additional criteria
Applicants must not already (i) hold a doctoral degree; or (ii) be matriculated for a doctoral degree at either the University of St Andrews or the University of Bonn (or another institution).

Duration of award
Up to 3.5 years. The student will be expected to spend approximately half of the award term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn. The successful candidate will be expected to have completed the doctorate degree by the end of the award term. The award term excludes the continuation period and any extension periods.

Value of award
The funding comprises a scholarship equivalent of a full-fees award and stipend for a period of up to 3.5 years. It is expected that the student will spend half of the scholarship term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn:

• For the period spent at the University of St Andrews, the scholarship will comprise a full fees award and a stipend paid at the current UK Research Council rate (£18,622 each year in 2023–2024).
• For the period spent at the University of Bonn, the scholarship will comprise a monthly maintenance grant of €1,500. The University of Bonn does not charge any tuition fees, but students must pay a so-called social contribution once per semester (currently €315 per semester).

Tuition or maintenance award
Tuition and maintenance

Applicants should submit their application to the co-supervisors by March 31, 2024.                Please send your application in a single PDF file (max. 10 MB) by email to the following email addresses:

• Dr Phil Walmsley and Dr Robert Hammond: pw38@st-andrews.ac.uk
• Prof. Dr. Dieter C. Wirtz and Prof. Dr. Frank A. Schildberg: forschung-ortho-unfall@ukbonn.de

Your application should include the following:

• Statement on why you are the right candidate for the project (max. 1 page)
• CV, includign a list of publications
• Scanned academic degrees
• At least two references

Please indicate in your application that you wish to be considered for this Global St Andrews scholarship (reference Walmsley_Hammond_Wirtz_Schildberg).

Terms and conditions

Please read the University of St Andrews scholarships terms and conditions (opens in new tab). These are applicable during the St Andrews duration of the award; please consult the partner institution for their terms and conditions relating to scholarships.

Contact

Please contact us should you have any questions regarding the scholarship: pgscholarships@st-andrews.ac.uk

• Informal enquiries regarding this scholarship may be addressed to any of the co-supervisors:  Dr Phil Walmsley and Dr Robert Hammond and Prof. Dr. Dieter C. Wirtz and Prof. Dr. Frank A. Schildberg.
• At St Andrews, the following will also be part of the project team – Dr Adeel Akhtar and Dr Andrew Hall

Submission deadline: March 31, 2024

It is expected that the degree will begin at the University of Bonn. The student may start their degree at any point in the academic year 2023–2024 prior to a final entry date of May 27, 2024 subject to agreement with the supervisory team.

You will be notified of the outcome of your application by April 30, 2024. Awards are subject to final signatures of contractual relationships between the parties, and are not an indication of admission to the doctoral programme. Successful scholarship applicants must apply to both institutions and meet all relevant entry requirements for admission including any immigration requirements that may be in place.

Next steps
Once notified, successful candidates should proceed to fulfill the application requirements for each University and must meet all normal entry requirements for admission – please see the advice on applying for research degree programmes. Applications should indicate that the applicant is the recipient of a Global PhD Scholarship St Andrews and Bonn (reference Walmsley_Hammond_Wirtz_Schildberg).

As the major greenhouse gas contributing to ongoing climate change, CO2 is only one component of the global carbon cycle. To fully comprehend global climate change, its potential drivers, and potential feedback mechanisms, it is essential to understand the entire carbon cycle in as much detail as possible. The ocean plays a major role in this respect. It is actively sequestering carbon by both CO2 dissolution and by photosynthetic biomass production, but it also is the ultimate “collection point” of any carbon coming off the continents. As such, the deposition, and ultimately burial, of organic carbon (OC) in ocean sediments is one of the most important long-term processes removing the greenhouse gas CO2 from the ocean-atmosphere system. This project aims to understand and quantify the role of marine mass transport processes in global OC burial and climate regulation. Marine mass transport processes are currently poorly constrained, yet they have the potential to be one of the most efficient mechanisms by which OC is rapidly transported into the deep oceans and buried in the seafloor.

Background on marine organic carbon cycle and mass transport

Mass wasting (the movement sediment down slope) occurs along all continental margins (active or passive) where the seafloor becomes episodically unstable, e.g., due to oversteepening, isostatic rebound, changing sea level, or earthquakes (Fig. 1). Large masses of nearshore seafloor sediments, often rich in organic material from algal productivity or input from land, get remobilized and quickly shuttled to the deep ocean where the material gets redeposited. By this process, fresh organic material (that is prone to microbial degradation and transformation back into CO2) gets mixed deeper into the mass transport deposit, removing it from oxygen-containing seawater and thereby increasing its preservation potential (Fig. 2). However, it has also been argued that mass transport processes can inject oxygen-rich water and material into otherwise oxygen-poor sediments, which would lead to decreased carbon preservation. These two contrasting effects on carbon burial are poorly understand, and even less well quantified.

Methodology

Due to the world-wide distribution of submarine mass transport deposits, this project will focus on samples from two key areas that represent some of the most prevalent depositional settings globally: Earthquake-remobilized sediments from the Japan Trench, and uplift-/melting-triggered mass transport deposits in (sub-)Arctic fjords. Sediment samples are available at Bonn and St Andrews (e.g., from IODP Expedition 386), and new samples will be taken from curated sediment cores during this project (e.g., Norwegian collaboration partners). Additionally, possibilities exist to also join future sea-going expeditions to the East Greenland fjords (autumn 2024) and/ or Norwegian fjords (regular coring activities) to collect new cores.

Based on a detailed visual and/ or microscopic sediment description, various geochemical techniques will be applied to characterize the quantity and nature of the OC within different portions of the mass transport deposits. This will include bulk as well as molecular analyses of the OC pool within the sediments. Where possible, pore waters (water contained in the pore space of aquatic sediments) will be extracted as well (like during IODP Expedition 386) to characterize the biogeochemical status within the sediments, providing a fingerprint of ongoing OC degradation processes. In addition, inorganic geochemical proxies will be used to unravel the past oxidation history of the OC by, e.g., oxygen, metal oxide, or sulfate reduction.

From these data, we will derive (i) how much fresh OC has been buried by the various mass transport deposits vs how much has been degraded, (ii) evaluate similarities and differences between the different types and locations of mass transport deposits, and (iii) attempt to upscale the potential from fresh OC burial by mass transport processes for continental margins globally. In the upscaling step, there is a potential to apply numerical modelling with collaboration partners in Belgium (Prof. Dr. Sandra Arndt) and the UK (Dr. Jack Longman).

The project will be managed jointly between the School of Geography & Sustainable Development at St Andrews and the Institute for Geosciences at Bonn. The student will be supervised by Dr Craig Smeaton, and Prof William Austin (St Andrews) and Prof. Dr. Christian März (Bonn).

Informal enquiries regarding this scholarship may be addressed to the co-supervisors (Dr Craig Smeaton and Prof. Dr. Christian März.

Study level
Postgraduate Research (Doctoral)

Geographical criteria
No restrictions

Domicile for fee status
No restrictions

Year of entry
2024

It is planned that the successful student will spend the first 21 months at Bonn to initiate the research and move to St Andrews to complete the programme of research and graduate. The student may start their degree at any point in the academic year 2024–2025 prior to a final entry date of 27 May 2025 subject to agreement with the supervisory team.

Additional criteria

Applicants must not already (i) hold a doctoral degree; or (ii) be matriculated for a doctoral degree at either the University of St Andrews or the University of Bonn (or another institution).

Duration of award
Up to 3.5 years. The student will be expected to spend approximately half of the award term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn. The successful candidate will be expected to have completed the doctorate degree by the end of the award term. The award term excludes the continuation period and any extension periods.

Value of award
The funding comprises a scholarship equivalent of a full-fees award and stipend for a period of up to 3.5 years. It is expected that the student will spend half of the scholarship term at the University of St Andrews and half at the University of Bonn:

• For the period spent at the University of St Andrews, the scholarship will comprise a full fees award and a stipend paid at the current UK Research Council rate (£18,622 each year in 2023–2024). The School of Geography and Sustainability will provide a research training and support grant of £750 per annum for the period spent at St Andrews (21 months).
• For the period spent at the University of Bonn, the scholarship will comprise a monthly maintenance grant of €1,500. The University of Bonn does not charge any tuition fees, but students must pay a so-called social contribution once per semester (currently €315 per semester).

Tuition or maintenance award
Tuition and maintenance

Applicants should submit their application to the co-supervisors by February 9, 2024.                Please send your application to both Dr Craig Smeaton (St Andrews), Prof. Dr. Christian März (Bonn) and postgradute research administrators at the following email addresses:

• Dr Craig Smeaton: cs244@st-andrews.ac.uk
• Prof. Dr. Christian März: cmaerz@uni-bonn.de
• Postgradute Research Administrators: gsdpgradmin@st-andrews.ac.uk

Your application should include the following:

• Statement why you are the right candidate for the project (max. 800 words)
• CV
• Reference(s)

Please indicate in your application that you wish to be considered for this Global St Andrews scholarship (reference Smeaton_Austin_März).

Terms and conditions

Please read the University of St Andrews scholarships terms and conditions (opens in new tab). These are applicable during the St Andrews duration of the award; please consult the partner institution for their terms and conditions relating to scholarships.

Contact

Please contact us should you have any questions regarding the scholarship: pgscholarships@st-andrews.ac.uk

Informal enquiries regarding this scholarship may be addressed to the co-supervisors (Dr Craig Smeaton and Prof. Dr. Christian März.

Submission deadline: February 09, 2024

The student may start their degree at any point in the academic year 2024–2025 prior to a final entry date of May 27, 2025 subject to agreement with the supervisory team.

You will be notified of the outcome of your application by April 30, 2024. Awards are subject to final signatures of contractual relationships between the parties, and are not an indication of admission to the doctoral programme. Successful scholarship applicants must apply to both institutions and meet all relevant entry requirements for admission including any immigration requirements that may be in place

Next steps
Once notified, successful candidates should proceed to fulfill the application requirements for each University and must meet all normal entry requirements for admission – please see the advice on applying for research degree programmes. Applications should indicate that the applicant is the recipient of a Global PhD Scholarship St Andrews and Bonn (reference Smeaton_Austin_März).