MSc project proposals 2019/20
| Project ID | Supervisor | Co-supervisor | Project title | Prospective PhD | Co-funding |
| 1 | Jeremie Houssineau (Statistics) |
Anne Straube (Medical School) |
Modelling and analysis of the dynamics of molecular motors and intracellular cargo | Yes | |
| 2 | Tobias Grafke (Mathematics) |
Robert MacKay (Mathematics) |
Quantifying intact ship capsizing risk | Yes | No funding secured, but interest has been expressed by Royal Caribbean International, INTERCARGO, and SMEs in the naval engineering sector. |
| 3 | Paolo Turrini (Computer Science) |
Intelligent Traffic Control via Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning | Yes | ||
| 4 | Paolo Turrini (Computer Science) |
Manipulation Resistant Social Networks | Yes | ||
| 5 | Yi Yu (Statistics) |
Adversarial Change Point Detection | Yes | ||
| 6 | R.S.MacKay (Mathematics) |
Anne-Marie Broomhall and Rene Kiefer (Physics) |
Detection of modes of oscillation | Yes |
GE Grid Solutions have expressed interest in interacting with a PhD student and sharing Icelandic AC power data. |
| 7 | Vishwesh Kulkarni (Engineering) |
Andrew Phillips (Other) |
CCS Student Project Opportunities | Yes | The four topics outlined in this document have cash and in-kind support from external funding agencies (e.g., Microsoft Research, EPSRC, MRC). |
| 8 | Xavier Didelot (Statistics) |
Rich Everitt (Statistics) |
Modelling and inferring recombination in bacterial genomic evolution | Yes | Yes via the Health Protection Research Unit in Genomics and Enabling Data which is a partnership with Public Health England. |
| 9 | Xavier Didelot (Statistics) |
Matt Keeling (Mathematics) |
Bayesian analysis and prediction of infectious disease outbreaks based on temporal data | Yes | Yes, via the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Genomics and Enabling Data which is a partnership with Public Health England |
| 10 | Xavier Didelot (Statistics) |
Matt Keeling (Mathematics) |
Bayesian inference of past population dynamics from genomic data | Yes | Yes, via the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Genomics and Enabling Data which is a partnership with Public Health England |
| 11 | Dr Christopher Quince (Warwick Medical School) |
Prof Xavier Didelot (School of Life Sciences) |
Bayesian graphical models for strain resolution from hybrid metagenomics sequencing | Yes | This Masters project could lead to a PhD through either of the two NIHR funded Health Protection Units based at the University of Warwick, Gastrointestinal Infections or Genomics and Enabling Data. |
| 12 | Radu Cimpeanu (Mathematics) |
Ed Brambley (Warwick Manufacturing Group) |
Hats and pancakes in the sky: drop dynamics in high-speed flow | Yes | No funding secured, however discussions with contacts in the aerospace industry (AeroTex and Thales in particular) are planned for the following weeks. Strong progress during the MSc could prove persuasive. |
| 13 | Xavier Didelot (Statistics) |
Noel McCarthy (Warwick Medical School) |
Identifying bacterial genes that predict characteristics of human infections | Yes | |
| 14 | Simon Spencer (Statistics) |
Noel McCarthy (Warwick Medical School) |
Detecting outbreaks | Yes | |
| 15 | Noel McCarthy (Warwick Medical School) |
Matt Keeling (Mathematics) |
Modelling and estimating person to person spread of gastrointestinal infections | Yes | |
| 16 | Simon Spencer (Statistics) |
Noel McCarthy (Warwick Medical School) |
Correcting bias in genetic source attribution for zoonotic infections | Yes | None at present. |
| 17 | Henrik Singmann (Psychology) | Bayesian Estimation of a Cognitive Model for Human Decisions and Associated Response Times | Yes | None at present. But existing industry contacts may change that in the future if MSc. project shows sufficient potential. | |
| 18 | Nigel Burroughs (Mathematics) |
Rob Cross (Warwick Medical School) |
Modelling information propagation through the microtubule lattice. | Yes | Limited |
| 19 | Nigel Burroughs (Mathematics) |
Jan Brosens (Warwick Medical School) |
Modelling uterus implantation potential to understand recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL). | Yes | Limited |
| 20 | Nigel Burroughs (Mathematics) |
Darius Köster (Warwick Medical School) |
Modelling and simulating actin curls induced by protein binding. | Yes | Limited |
| 21 | Nigel Burroughs (Mathematics) |
Andrew McAinsh (Warwick Medical School) |
Controlling the self-organisation of chromosomes during cell division | Yes | None |
| 22 | Shreyas Mandre (Mathematics) |
Madhusudhan Venkadesan, Yale University (Other) |
Determining the motion in a skeletal join from the articular surface geometry | Yes | None yet, possible in the future. |
| 23 | Gechun Liang (Statistics) |
Intensity models for portfolio credit derivatives | Yes | NA | |
| 24 | Gechun Liang (Statistics) |
Forward utility processes in portfolio optimisation | Yes | NA | |
| 25 | Gechun Liang (Statistics) |
Modeling of systemic risk | Yes | NA | |
| 26 | Jonathan Harrison (Mathematics) |
Nigel Burroughs (Mathematics) |
Complete kinetochore tracking: tracking kinetochores with machine learning | Yes | Possibility of partnership with 3i (microscopy company), or with University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW). |
| 27 | Tanaya Guha (Computer Science) |
Victor Sanchez (Computer Science) |
Multimodal Deep Learning for Behavior Analysis | Yes | Possible funding from Ford. |
| 28 | Adam Noel (Engineering) |
Mike Chappell (Engineering) |
Structural Identifiability for Organ-on-a-Chip Microfluidics | Yes | n/a |
| 29 | David Wild (Statistics) |
(----) |
Bayesian Computation in Big Spaces - the Case of Biomolecular Simulation | No | |
| 30 | Nigel Burroughs (Mathematics) |
Siobhan Quenby (Warwick Medical School) |
Identifying epidemiological causal factors of recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) | Yes | Limited. External is NHS. |
| 31 | Jeremie Houssineau (Statistics) |
(----) |
Revisiting the multi-armed bandit problem | Yes | |
| 32 | Juergen Branke (Warwick Business School) |
(----) |
A/B testing with Bayesian Optimisation | Yes | I am discussing this topic with Uber. From my experience, it is difficult to get funding from Uber, but I would try. In any case, they would be interested in a collaboration. |
| 33 | Juergen Branke (Warwick Business School) |
(----) |
Bayesian Optimisation for Multimodal Problems | Yes | I am currently doing a project with NSC, a UK training/simulation/consulting company, on multimodal optimisation. If we can use their application as a use case (in the PhD, not the MSc), I would hope that we can convince them to co-fund a PhD student. |
| 34 | Juergen Branke (Warwick Business School) |
Michael Pearce (Other) |
Accelerating Bayesian Optimisation for Algorithm Selection | Yes | None at the moment |
| 35 | Kat Rock (Mathematics) |
Simon Spencer (Statistics) |
Novel Bayesian approaches to fit models of sleeping sickness at different spatial scales using data from different sources | Yes | |
| 36 | Dr Martine J Barons (Statistics) |
Dr Julia Brettschneider (Statistics) |
Coupling models for integrated decision support in complex systems - CIDSS. | Yes | |
| 37 | Neophytos Neophytou (Engineering) |
Vassilios Vargiamidis (Engineering) |
Thermoelectric transport and quantum Hall effects in topological materials | Yes | |
| 38 | Dr Martine J Barons (Statistics) |
Dr Simon Spencer (Statistics) |
Eliciting parameters of multivariate distributions for decision support. | Yes | Monash-Warwick Alliance PhD scholarship |
| 39 | Subhash Lakshminarayana (Engineering) |
(----) |
Understanding the Resilience of Cyber-Physical Systems Using Complex Networks Theory | Yes | NA. |
| 40 | Wei He (Engineering) |
Jihong Wang (Engineering), and Robert MacKay (Math) (Mathematics) |
Accelerate Energy Decarbonisation by Efficient Forward and Inverse Energy System Design using Machine Learning | Yes | We would like to know how much and what 30% actually is. W.H. has a Research Fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2019-2024), which could provide budgets for travel and exchange with MIT through the PhD project. We work with several energy companies in the UK, so funding from industries is also possible. |
| 41 | David Rand (Mathematics) |
James Briscoe (Crick Institute) |
New approaches to developmental biology: landscapes, information and genetic network design (several projects, one is reserved for Francesca) |
Yes | Crick will supply very valuable data and carry out experiements. They valued the value of this for a recent grant application as £150000. |
| 42 | Sebastian Vollmer (Statistics) |
Colm Connaughton (Mathematics) |
Fairness done rigorously | Yes | consultancy company (IQVIA) |
| 43 | Sebastian Vollmer (Mathematics) |
Juergen Branke (Warwick Business School) |
Hyperparameter tuning of iterative algorithms | Yes | Healthcare consultancies |
| 44 | Professor Bo Chen (Warwick Business School) |
Optimal cost-sharing in general resource selection | Yes | ||
| 45 | Dr. Gabriele C. Sosso (Chemistry) | Dr. Ali A. Hassanali (ICTP, Trieste) | It's all in the Void: a general-purpose algorithm to find regions of empty space in complex networks | Yes | AstraZeneca plt. has a strong interest in supporting this project as part of the "Beyond-a -Single-Molecule-in-Vacuum" research theme currently ongoing in the Sosso Group. |
| 46 | R.S.MacKay (Mathematics) |
Nikos Kallinikos (Mathematics) | Regions of non-existence of flux surfaces for magnetic fields | Yes | Simons Foundation grant could pay maintenance for Oct 2020 to Aug 2022. Probably fees too. But this is subject to my not having committed the funds to something else, eg a postdoc, in the mean time. Simons would not be an external partner, but I could probably get someone from Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory to serve (which is a USA government lab) |
| 47 |
Dr Soroush Abolfathi and Dr Petr Denissenko (Engineering) |
Dr Ed Bramley (Mathematics) | Analysing experimental data on long wave dynamics and statistics of the shoreline motion | Yes | We are having discussions with HR Wallingford to partially fund this project. |
| 48 | Dr Ahmad Mannan (Engineering) |
Professor Declan Bates (Engineering) |
Designing a rapid switch for efficient chemical production from bacteria. | Yes | |
| 49 | Richard Everitt (Statistics) |
Nicola Walker (Other) |
Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) for calibrating and evaluating Individual Based Models | Yes | Cefas (fisheries agency) can provide CASE funding. However, note that this PhD project has already been offered to someone. I should know by 16th March whether they have accepted this offer. If they accept, I will need to withdraw the possibility of the PhD project, since the co-funding will already be taken. |
| 50 | Fayyaz ul Amir Afsar Minhas (Computer Science) |
Nasir Rajpoot (Computer Science) |
PathGraph: Analysis of Graph Neural Networks for Predictive Modelling in Computational Pathology | Yes | NIH/Industrial sources |
| 51 | Tom Gur (Computer Science) |
(----) |
Quantum and Classical Cryptography for Social Benefit | Yes | |
| 52 | Nasir Rajpoot (Computer Science) |
Fayyaz Minhas (Computer Science) |
Multiresolution Graph Modeling of Whole Slide Images for Predictive Tasks in Computational Pathology | Yes | NHS/Industry |
| 53 | Dr Yulia Timofeeva (Computer Science) |
Prof Kirill Volynski (Other) |
Modelling of fluorescence imaging of quantal neurotransmitter release at single synapses | Yes | |
| 54 | Giovanni Montana (Warwick Manufacturing Group) |
Shravan Sampath Kumar (Other) |
Artificial Intelligence-enabled Emotional Profiling to enable Smart Advertising | Yes | System1 Group |
| 55 | Giovanni Montana (Warwick Manufacturing Group) |
(----) |
Enabling Collaborative Robotic Manipulation with Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning | Yes |
Reserved projects
| Student | Supervisor | Co-supervisor | Project title | Prospective PhD | Co-funding |
| Haoran Ni | Martin Lotz (Mathematics) |
Dimension Reduction for Optimal Transport and Normalizing Flows | Yes | An application for a Chancellor's Scholarship and a China Scholarship have been submitted. | |
| Yijie Zhou | R.S.MacKay (Mathematics) |
Bazil Sansom (Economics) |
Trophic analysis of financial networks | Yes | It would depend on getting Financial Network Analytics (or some other company or government department) interested enough. I doubt that FNA would actually put any money in. But I think I could tout the results of the MSc project around various people and try to raise some willingness to invest. |
| Nayef Shkeir | Tobias Grafke (Mathematics) | Metastability in Atmospheric Jets | Yes | ||
| Jimmy McKendrick | Michael Tildesley (School of Life Sciences) | Warren Tennant (Mathematics) | Modelling spread and control of Lassa Fever in Nigeria | Yes | This project is in collaboration with Nigeria Centers for Disease Control. There is the possibility to secure funding to support this project through GCRF or directly through Nigeria CDC. |
| Abi Coleman | Matt Keeling (Mathematics) | Giles Budge (other) | Predicting and controlling the invasion of honey-bee pests and diseases. | Yes | None at present. |