PhD Studentship: AI for the Environment: Collaborative Exeter – Turing PhD Studentship

The UKRI AI Centre for Doctoral Training in Environmental Intelligence

Data Science & AI for Sustainable Futures at University of Exeter in partnership with the Alan Turing Institute is offering fully funded PhD studentships.

These prestigious studentships would be based jointly at University of Exeter (Streatham campus) and at the headquarters of the Alan Turing Institute in London, with the students co-supervised by academic experts at both organisations and expected to spend approximately half their time in each location. This is an outstanding opportunity to work with two leading institutions at the forefront of utilising AI to develop solutions to the global environmental challenges we face.

The research area for these PhD projects will be the application of AI methods to environmental challenges. Climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental damage and societal resilience to extreme events are urgent challenges for the 21st century. Data on many environmental processes are now abundant, but the scale and complexity of the underlying systems makes it difficult to use. AI tools, including machine learning, computer vision, digital twins / emulators, large language models and statistical approaches, can help unlock insight from data and thereby improve environmental decision-making.

The Alan Turing Institute has made environment & sustainability one of its core research themes:

https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/environment-and-sustainability

University of Exeter has a strong research programme in Environmental Intelligence:

https://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/networks/environmental-intelligence/

The students will join the Environmental Intelligence CDT in Exeter (https://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/eicdt/), spending the first 6 months of their PhD undertaking training and cohort-building activities. They will then transfer to the Alan Turing Institute in London to spend time engaging with the Turing community and shape a PhD proposal, selecting Exeter and Turing supervisors and a thesis topic for approval at end of Year 1. Years 2-4 will be split between Exeter and London, working across both organisations on an interdisciplinary application of AI to the environment.

This opportunity will suit candidates with a strong background in computer science, mathematics, physics or another quantitative discipline with a demonstrable interest in the environment, climate change and sustainability. The studentship is available to both UK and International students. The studentship will cover all tuition fees and pay a stipend of at least £19,237 for a duration of 4 years. The start date will be 16 September 2024, initially based in Exeter. There will be additional funding to cover the travel and accommodation needs of split-site working. After Year 1, the schedule of time spent in Exeter and London will be agreed by negotiation with the student and supervisor team.

The collaboration with the project partner is subject to contract. Please note full details of the project partner’s contribution and involvement with the project is still to be confirmed and may change during the course of contract negotiations. Full details will be confirmed at offer stage.

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