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 661 matching student topics
Displaying 49–60 of 661 results
Keeping carbon – ensuring soil carbon gains through improved grazing management persist through drought in Australia's tropical and semi-arid grasslands
Drought is the biggest barrier to sequestering soil organic carbon (SOC) in soils over the long-term. While options are limited during dry periods, how we manage our pastures prior to drought can influence the resilience of SOC to losses and enhance recovery.
- 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
Co-benefits of trees on farms: soil carbon
Soils are now in the ‘front line’ of global environmental change. Soils are the largest global pool of actively cycling organic C and N. Maintaining and increasing soil organic matter (SOM) is a prominent strategy for mitigating atmospheric CO2 and adapting agriculture to climate change.At the same time the global biodiversity crisis has led to increased scrutiny on supply chains to scrutinise farms ecological footprint. Planting or retaining trees in the landscape has the opportunity to achieve both outcomes, however …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Multi-UAV navigation in GPS denied environments
The aim of this research is to develop a framework for multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), that balances information sharing, exploration, localization, mapping, and other planning objectives thus allowing a team of UAVs to navigate in complex environments in time critical situations. This project expects to generate new knowledge in UAV navigation using an innovative approach by combining Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) algorithms with Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDP) and Deep Reinforcement learning. This should provide significant benefits, …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Smoke and mirrors: intercepting the elusive molecular precursors of soot
Soot formation occurs via a complex network of chemical reactions leading from simple gases to macromolecular aggregates. Despite being central to our understanding of extreme environments ranging from engines, to bushfires and interstellar clouds, the critical steps and intermediates in these reactions are poorly described.This project will deploy advanced mass spectrometry and laser-based methods to generate, isolate and interrogate gas phase free radical intermediates and elucidate their role in molecular weight growth processes.Through these chemical insights, advanced computational models will …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Materials Science
Virus Search Algorithms
Meta-heuristics are powerful search algorithms for solving intractable optimization problems. There are many population based approaches, like genetic algorithms, evolutionary algorithms, particle swarm, etc. but most of these have a static population size.Viruses arise and attack populations periodically. They typically appear when populations become abundant. Viruses infect population members, and often reduce the number of individuals. Viruses create spaces for more individuals and balance competition.The concept of viruses may be mimicked and could be a useful optimization paradigm.
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
Network Flow Improvement
Network flow is impeded by the arcs present in the network and their associated length/weighting. Arcs can be added or removed to debottleneck the network. But which ones? At what cost?
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
The pulse of sustainability: Interventions to sustainably increase legume production and consumption
Legume-supported value chains, from production to consumption, provide benefits to people and nature that include improved ecosystem functions and resource use efficiency, as well as farmed animal and human health provisions. Environmental co-benefits of legumes include reduced nitrate leaching, increased food sources for pollinators, a greater structural diversity of farmland, and improved soil fertility. Despite the potential of legumes to improve the sustainability of cropping systems and enhance human health, the production and consumption of legumes in Australia is low.Multiple …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Place-based giving and philanthropy
Effective models of place-based funding remain conceptually unresolved. Place-based, collective impact initiatives are increasingly recognised for creating long-term systems change, yet the role of philanthropy in supporting, advocating for and catalysing change is underexplored.I am interested in supervising research into conceptual models of philanthropic funding for place-based initiatives, to explain and clarify the elements and characteristics of successful, long-term relationships between philanthropic funders and place-based, community-led initiatives in regional and urban Australian communities.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Accountancy
- Research centre(s)
-
Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies
Scalable Bayesian Inference using Multilevel Monte Carlo
Bayesian inference is a popular statistical framework for estimating the parameters of statistical models based on data. However, Bayesian methods are well known to be computationally intensive. This fact inhibits the scalability of Bayesian analysis for real-world applications involving complex stochastic models. Such models are common in the fields of biology and ecology.Multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) methods are a promising class of techniques for dealing with the scalability challenge. These approaches use hierarchies of approximations to optimise the trade-off between …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Climate vulnerability of nut and pulse food systems in Australia
Arable land, water resources and biodiversity are under pressure from increased human populations and resource needs. On top of that, natural and agri-food systems are rapidly changing due to natural disturbances, with climate change likely to increase the impacts of extreme events like drought and wildfire.With climate change, negative impacts on agriculture are predicted with disruptions to food supply; many ecosystems have already been impacted by increased frequency and severity of extreme fire events; coral reefs will be threatened by …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Biology and Environmental Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Centre for the Environment
Coarse-grained molecular dynamics modelling in expansive soil
Expansive soil/active soil has wide applications in geotechnical engineering and other engineering disciplines due to its desirable special properties - for example, low permeability and swelling pressure under saturated condition. But these materials are highly susceptible to experiencing huge volume change and even damage due to moisture content reduction. However, the underlying mechanism of this phenomenon is still not clear for geotechnical engineers. Therefore, there is no optimum solution available to solve the problem.In this project, a special modelling approach …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Materials Science
Elucidating the gas-phase reactivity and photochemistry of halide anions
Bromine and iodine are suspected to be responsible for most of the halogen-induced ozone loss in the stratosphere but are not currently included in atmospheric models due to a paucity of knowledge of the gas-phase chemistry and photochemistry of their anions and radicals.This project will develop and deploy advanced mass spectrometry and laser spectroscopy techniques to enable precision measurements of the reactions and photo- reactions of gas-phase iodide and bromide anions and their oxides.These state-of-the-art measurements of reaction kinetics and …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Materials Science
Contact us
If you have questions about the best options for you, the application process, your research topic, finding a supervisor or anything else, get in touch with us today.