PhD Studentship - Process Industries: Net Zero - Data Driven Optimisation for Process Scale-up

Award Summary

100% fees (UK home only), a minimum tax-free annual living allowance of £19,237 (2024/25 UKRI rate), and a research training support grant of £20,000. 

Overview

This PhD project is part of the CDT in Process Industries: Net Zero. The successful PhD student will be co-supervised by academics from the Process Intensification Group at Newcastle University.  Nestling has designed a containerised cultivation and processing plant for a broad range of microorganisms with a focus on mycelium. The system is fully automated; the SCADA system is connected to the cloud and provides performance data, enabling the monitoring of critical process parameters (CPPs) and critical quality attributes (CQAs). Nestling wishes to collect the data and apply machine learning techniques to identify process efficiency improvements and enable prediction across scales for a given biological process.  

The PhD project will develop, construct and apply Machine Learning techniques to the process data generated at the pilot scale to enable the prediction of process performance at larger scale. This will enable customers using Nestling’s new platform to recognise best practice, identify key vulnerabilities and predict economic outcomes from process deviations.   

Number of awards: 1

Start date: 15/09/2025

Award duration: 4 years

Supervisors: Dr Chris O’Malley 

Eligibility criteria

You must have, or expect to gain, a minimum 2:1 Honours degree or international equivalent in a subject relevant to the proposed PhD project (usually chemical engineering or chemistry, but please get in touch if you think your qualification may be relevant). Enthusiasm for research, the ability to think and work independently, excellent analytical skills and strong verbal and written communication skills are also essential requirements. Ideal applicants would have strong design engineering skills and have some proficiency working with SCADA and data-based modelling.

This studentship is available to home students only.

How to apply

You must apply through the University’s Apply to Newcastle Portal. Once registered select ‘Create a Postgraduate Application’.

Use ‘Course Search’ to identify your programme of study: 

• Search for the ‘Course Title’ using the programme code: 8856F
• Leave the 'Research Area' field blank
• Select ‘PhD in Process Industries; Net Zero (PINZ’) as the programme of study

You will then need to provide the following information in the ‘Further Details’ section: 

• A ‘Personal Statement’ (this is a mandatory field) - upload a document or write a statement directly in to the application form 
• The studentship code PINZ04-25 in the ‘Studentship/Partnership Reference’ field 
• ‘Research Proposal’ - when prompted for how you are providing your research proposal –select ‘Write Proposal’. You should then type in the title of the research project from this advert. You do not need to upload a research proposal.

You must submit one application per studentship, you cannot apply for multiple studentships on one application.

Contact Details: pinzcdt@ncl.ac.uk

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