Grantham PhD opportunities

The Grantham Institute – Climate Change and the Environment invites PhD applications that support projects in some of our priority research areas. In addition to this call, two Grantham lecturers are also currently recruiting for a PhD student (Dr Adrien Lefauve, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Dr Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao, Department of Mechanical Engineering).

Details on the studentship, the Grantham Institute and Imperial can be found underneath the project table. For details of each project and how to apply, please see each project pdf below. The deadline for student applications is close of business on Monday, 12 January 2026.

For any general, non-project related queries, please email granthamphd@imperial.ac.uk.

Supervisor	Department	Project title
Professor Firat Guder	Department of Bioengineering	Low cost, high-throughput electrochemical plant phenotyping platform for pesticide screening (pdf)
Professor Firat Guder	Department of Bioengineering	Biomarker sensing and monitoring for agricultural health (pdf)
Dr Sonja Billerbeck	Department of Chemistry	Next-gen biological crop protection using antifungal proteins and peptides from
Dr Adrien Lefauve	Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering	Laboratory investigation of ocean mixing by stratified turbulence (pdf)
Dr Alex Whittaker	Department of Earth Science and Engineering	Fingerprinting the impact of extreme rainfall, floods and storms using Night-Time Light (NTL) Data (pdf)
Dr Tiago Dias da Costa	Department of Life Sciences	Harnessing Phage Satellites for Next-generation Biological Crop Protection (pdf)
Dr Giorgio Gilestro	Department of Life Sciences	Behavioral Toxicology Fingerprinting: A High-Throughput Framework for Assessing Sub-Lethal Pesticide Effects Across Drosophilidae to Protect Beneficial Insects (pdf)
Professor Tolga Bozkurt	Department of Life Sciences	AI-guided genetic and cellular immunity for pesticide-free crop protection (pdf)
Dr Jingwen Weng	Department of Materials (from December 2025)	Geothermal–Phase Change Materials Integrated Systems for Energy-Efficient and Cl
Dr Xiangkun (Elvis) Cao	Department of Mechanical Engineering	Design of smart, multifunctional photonic systems for solar-driven carbon capture and conversion (pdf)
Professor Ralf Toumi	Department of Physics	Developing a global tropical cyclone model (IRIS) (pdf)
Dr Judite Goncalves	School of Public Health	Assessing Population Health Impacts of Pesticide Use in Latin America: The Role of International Maximum Residue Limits (pdf)

About the Grantham Studentships

The award will provide 3.5 years of funding as follows:
· Home tuition fees at UKRI indicative rate (£5,006 per annum for 2025/26)
· A maintenance stipend, paid in equal monthly instalments directly to your bank account (£22,780 per annum for 2025/26)
· A total of £5,000 is available during the duration of the project to contribute towards research expenses associated with the project, including conference costs, consumables, and travel for research purposes 

We welcome home and international candidates to apply. However, for international applicants, any costs over those mentioned above will need to be covered by applicants or in exceptional cases by the department where the student is registered.

Interested candidates are welcome to contact me via email (elvis.cao@imperial.ac.uk), following the requirements in the job ad (early drafts for the statement of purpose are acceptable at this point).