Supervised by Dr. Bruño Fraga and Dr. Isabel Morales-Muñoz, together with Hertfordshire County Council.
To apply for this studentship, please submit your application using this link
- We provide a fully funded 4-year PhD studentship at the University of Birmingham.
- It covers tuition fees and stipend at UKRI rates (for 25/26 this will be £20,780, paid monthly) for home students only (UK citizens, Irish citizens and those with settled status in the UK).
- The project includes collaboration with public sector and policy makers.
Candidate Requirements
- A strong academic background in Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Architecture or Computer Science.
- An Undergraduate degree with at least 2.1 in one of the above subjects is essential, first class is desirable.
- A Masters’ degree in a one of the above subjects is desirable but not essential. The student will have the opportunity of taking a relevant M-level module during their PhD.
- Previous experience in computational modelling, air quality and/or psychology is desirable.
The Research Project
The overall aim of this PhD project is to understand how indoor air quality (IAQ) affects the health of children and adolescents, including their mental health, with the aim of creating healthier spaces and habits for them. This is a highly interdisciplinary project that combines computational modelling and behavioural science.
The first part will be based on the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to diagnose the air quality of indoor spaces where people live and work (presence of pollutants, damp, ventilations) and to propose measures to improve it. Such measures might be recommendations on how to design or retrofit indoor spaces, or behavioural changes such as changing habits regarding ventilation or use of heating.
The second part revolves around understanding the impact of such measures on the mental health of the people who occupy those spaces, and how to effectively communicate to them the risks that poor air quality poses to their health and how to mitigate it. We will employ existing datasets to explore the associations between air quality and cognition, sleep and mental health in childhood and adolescence.
This Studentship provides the opportunity of liaising with Hertfordshire County Council to get first-hand data of indoor spaces and work with real-life scenarios.
How to Apply
Informal enquiries about the project prior to application can be directed to Bruño Fraga and Isabel Morales-Muñoz
The deadline for applications is 19 November 2025 at 5pm. Interviews are expected to take place on 25 November.