QUT offers a diverse range of student topics for Honours, Masters and PhD study. Search to find a topic that interests you or propose your own research topic to a prospective QUT supervisor. You may also ask a prospective supervisor to help you identify or refine a research topic.
Found 241 matching student topics
Displaying 181–192 of 241 results
Probing the origins of life on Earth
The history of life on Earth is written in the fossil record. In this project, you will investigate stable isotope evidence for extremely early evolving organisms. Through careful petrography and with the use of isotope ratio mass-spectrometers, you will help unravel the history of microbial metabolisms that powered the ecosystems recorded by 3 billion-year-old microbial fossils.
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Optimal conservation management in uncertain Antarctic environments
Species and ecosystems in Antarctica are threatened. Optimal biodiversity conservation is an interdisciplinary field combining mathematical modelling and optimisation with ecology and conservation. We can use mathematics to understand the system, model how management actions might impact it, and then optimise which actions should be used. For example, we can explore where protected areas should be placed, how species should be managed, or how tourist impacts should be reduced. However, the complexities of conservation in Antarctica necessitate the application of …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Centre for the Environment
Modelling and managing uncertain Antarctic species networks
Antarctic ecosystems are complex, and data is limited since it is expensive to collect. Species including penguins, seabirds, invertebrates, mosses, and marine species interact in food webs which can be modelled as mathematical networks. These networks can be large, span across terrestrial and marine systems, and are changing in response to environmental changes.These ecological networks can be modelled using differential equation predator prey models like Lotka-Volterra to describe these interactions. However, the relationships between species are not always known, or …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Centre for the Environment
Phase separation and atmospheric water exchange in droplet nuclei
Several PhD positions are available for motivated individuals to investigate phase separation and glassy state formation inside airborne droplet nuclei and its impact on water uptake and loss during atmospheric transport.Marine and continental atmospheric aerosols play an important role in the global climate hydrological cycle while respiratory aerosols released during breathing speech and coughing are responsible for the airborne transmission of human respiratory viral infections such as SARS-CoV-2. These processes can limit the availability of cloud seeding nuclei with implications …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Organic thin film transistors for sensors, bioelectronic interfaces and bionics
Organic electronic devices are flexible, light weight and stretchable, which makes them an ideal candidate for integrating and interfacing with soft tissues in biological systems. An attractive attribute of organic electronic devices is the solution processibility of constituent layers, since solution-processable devices have the potential to be printed into complex designs and shapes, leading to integrated devices with multiple functionalities.Particularly, organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) have the potential to offer low cost, easy to use and printable sensors for a …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Materials Science
Electrothermal film heaters
Flexible electrothermal heaters have attracted a growing interest because of their broad applications in wearable electronics, including warming garments, and as flexural warmers for medical devices and vehicles. Traditional electrothermal materials such as ferro chromium (FeCr)-based alloys have disadvantages such as heavy weight, rigidity and low heating efficiency. Indium tin oxide (ITO) is widely used in commercial products due to its high transparency and high electrical conductivity. However, the finite reserve of indium has resulted in an increasing price of …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
Australian Ganoderma species for the production of bioactive metabolites and new functional materials synthesis
Fungi are essential components of all ecosystems in roles including symbiotic partners, decomposers and nutrient cyclers and as a source of food for vertebrates and invertebrates. While vital to soil health and organic matter turnover, fungi have great potential in sustainable design and medicine.Ganoderma strains in particular produce bioactive compounds and display growth characteristics that favour their use in medical and applied biotechnology. Some species produce triterpenoids, such as ganoderic acids, and have been used in traditional Asian medicine for …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Hydroponic mushroom production
Lions mane strains are capable of producing very small fruiting bodies (mushrooms) in static liquid culture. In this project we will try establish parameters and conditions that favour mushroom synthesis on a liquid surface. If we can understand how and why this species produces mushrooms on a liquid surface – we may be able to target genes that could improve yields and tendency to grow hydroponically.'Hericium erinaceum (Bull.: Fr.) Pers. is an edible fungus of great significance in medicine. It …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Diffusion and first passage times in random media
Diffusion in homogenous environments is relatively well understood, but the problem becomes more complicated in complex environments - such as wood tissue, cells, filters and catalysts. At QUT there is extensive expertise in using advanced numerical methods to model diffusions and first passage times in complex environments.The ability to combine this expertise with realistic models of random media based on level-sets of Gaussian random field.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Understanding the external surface of fungal mycelia
The way in which fungal cultures grow in liquid cultures are can have a major impact on scale up and producing material. Here, we will examine the growth of three fast-growing filamentous fungi and try understand how various growth parameters affect the morphology that will range from loose mycelia to compact pellets.Fungal morphology is affected by inoculum (form, concentration and growth stage), media components (type and concentration of carbon, nitrogen and phosphate, trace minerals, pH, salt content), dissolved gases (dissolved …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Mathematical and computational models for diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI)
In 1985, the first image of water diffusion in the living human brain came to life. Since then significant developments have been made and diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) has become a pillar of modern neuroimaging.Over the last decade, combining computational modelling and diffusion MRI has enabled researchers to link millimetre scale diffusion MRI measures with microscale tissue properties, to infer microstructure information, such as diffusion anisotropy in white matter, axon diameters, axon density, intra/extra-cellular volume fractions, and fibre orientation …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Developing predictive models, methods and analytics for complex sports data
A 3-year strategic partnership on sports data science between the Centre for Data Science (CDS), the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) and the Queensland Academy of Sport (QAS) was launched in the past few months. With a drive towards data informed decision making across the high performance sports network nationally, a number of collaborative, interdisciplinary research and scholarship opportunities ranging from VRES, to honours, masters and PhD have developed.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
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