Prospective Students
I am seeking graduate students interested in developing statistical methodology that serves brain imaging research. As you’ll see from my research, I am interested in a wide range of topics, from multiple testing, to clinical trials, to Bayesian modeling, but all of my work has a common thread of being motivated by practical problems in functional and structural neuroimaging science. Individuals seeking a PhD in statistics that already have an experience in the neurosciences or imaging processing are ideal candidates, but most of my previous students did not have such background and succeeded nonetheless.
Please see the main statistics page for more on postgraduate admissions, or email me with specific inquires.
PREVIOUSLY ADVERTISED STUDENTSHIPS - For reference only
PhD Studentship Available for October 2012
***Filled - For reference only***
Applications are invited for a PhD studentship in Statistics at the University of Warwick, funded by a NIH RO1 grant, joint with University of Maryland, Baltimore.
Title: SOLAR-Eclipse Computational Tools for Imaging Genetics
Supervisors: Dr. Thomas Nichols (Warwick) and Dr. Peter Kochunov (U. Maryland Baltimore)
Funding: Tuition fees (at UK/EU level) and tax-free stipend for a 3.5 year PhD. Stipend rises annually as per the UK Research Councils minimum rate (£13,590 for 2011/11).
Start Date: October 2012
Project Description: Imaging genetics is an exciting merger of neuroscience and genomics, looking to discover and understand the genetic variation in brain imaging phenotypes. The over-all goal of this project is to create a new imaging genetic tool, that will allow the use of imaging data with classical genetic and epigenetic epidemiological analyses such as heritability, pleiotropy, quantitative trait loci (QTL) and genome-wide association (GWAS), gene expression, and methylation analyses. The project will extend the the widely used genetics SOLAR software, creating the "SOLAR-Eclipse" toolkit.
This studentship specifically concerns the development of inference methods that account for the genomic and spatial structure in the data analyzed. In particular, multiple testing methods that account for both the spatial nature of the signal and correlated noise structure. The methods must work with both independent samples (unrelated individuals) and pedigrees (related subjects). The methods developed will be ultimately be released as a standalone application and integrated into the existing neuroscience eScience networks. Such an integrate analysis package will greatly enhance and speed up the search for genes that influence brain's neuroanatomic and functional traits and provide comprehensive tools to illustrate pathways from genes to brain structure/function. It is expected that a combination of permutation and random field theory based methods will be developed to meet these goals. Grant pending final approval; studentship conditional on grant award.
Requirements: The studentship is available to candidates with the equivalent of a first class or upper second class degree in a relevant discipline, and who meet University entry requirements (see http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/academicoffice/gsp/prospective).
Eligibility: UK or EU nationals. Non-EU nationals can apply, but would be responsible for the difference between UK/EU fees and international fees.
To Apply: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/postgrad/research/apply (and please notify Dr. Nichols t.e.nichols@warwick.ac.uk when application is submitted)
Deadline: Applications are considered on rolling basis, up until 31 July 2012, but priority given to applications received before 15 April.
Inquires: Specific questions on this project should be directed to Thomas Nichols t.e.nichols@warwick.ac.uk; questions on the postgraduate application process at Warwick should be directed to stats.pg.support@warwick.ac.uk
Links:
- Peter Kochunov recently moved to University of Maryland Baltimore. For more on his work see his lab's profile from U. Texas Health Science Center.
PhD Studentship Available for October 2011
***Filled - For reference only***
Applications are invited for a PhD studentship in Statistics at the University of Warwick, funded by a MRC Industrial CASE award with the GlaxoSmithKline's Clinical Unit Cambridge.
Title: Optimal Fixed and Adaptive Designs for fMRI Clinical Trials
Supervisors: Dr. Thomas Nichols (Warwick) and Dr. Ed Bullmore (GSK)
Funding: Tuition fees (at UK/EU level) and tax-free stipend for a 4 year PhD. Stipend rises annually as per the UK Research Councils minimum rate (£13,590 for 2010/11), and is topped-up £2,500 by the industrial sponsor.
Start Date: October 2011
Project Description: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is now almost 20 years old and is an indispensible tool for cognitive neuroscience. However only recently has fMRI been employed as part of drug development, as pharmaceutical companies seek to develop biomarkers that are more sensitive to disease state. By it's increased sensitivity and specificity, fMRI has the potential to reduce the time require to bring a drug to the marketplace, thus lower the cost of drug development and ultimately improve patient care. However, fMRI for clinical trials requires a different set of statistical tools than that used by conventional brain mapping: clinical trial outcomes must be precisely defined a priori, and the number of outcomes considered minimized. Further, cutting-edge type of fMRI designs, using task-free data to measure "resting state networks" presents yet new challenges for use in a clinical trial, as task-free results are intrinsically multivariate and difficult to define a priori.
The goal of this project is to develop novel statistical methodology to maximize information obtained from an fMRI study while still adhering to the stringent inferential requirements of a clinical trial. The project has three broad aims. The first is to develop adaptive designs for task-based fMRI clinical trials, using initial data to customize outcomes to an unknown signal. The second is to develop optimal outcomes for the task-free (or resting-state) fMRI data. The third aim is to develop optimal outcomes from graph-theoretic measures of task-based or task-free fMRI data, understanding the impact of matrix filtering operations on the power of final summary measure. The student will obtain a unique training in statistics and neuroimaging with mentorship from leading researchers in the field. The CASE award also includes three-months of on-site research at the GSK Clinical Unit Cambridge, giving them valuable industrial experience.
Requirements: The studentship is available to candidates with the equivalent of a first class or upper second class degree in a relevant discipline, and who meet University entry requirements (see http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/academicoffice/gsp/prospective).
Eligibility: UK nationals, or EU nationals who have been resident in the UK in the last three years. Other EU nationals can only receive a fees-only award. For full deatils see http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Fundingopportunities/Applicanthandbook/Studentships/Eligibility/index.htm
To Apply: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/postgrad/research/apply (and please notify Dr. Nichols t.e.nichols@warwick.ac.uk when application is submitted)
Deadline: Applications are considered on rolling basis, up until 31 July 2011, but priority given to applications received before 28 February.
Inquires: Specific questions on this project should be directed to Thomas Nichols t.e.nichols@warwick.ac.uk; questions on the postgraduate application process at Warwick should be directed to Ms. Kristine Prismall stats.pg.support@warwick.ac.uk
Links: