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 44 matching student topics
Displaying 37–44 of 44 results
Moving boundary problems in mathematical biology
Invasion of biological cells or ecological populations involves moving fronts that invade into previously unoccupied regions of space. Such moving fronts are driven by a combination of motility, such as random diffusion, and proliferation, such as logistic growth. Understanding how best to model such invasive fronts is important as moving fronts of cells are associated with wound healing and cancer progression and moving fronts in ecology are associated with the spreading of weeds and invasive species.Previously both continuum and discrete …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
How many species were saved by national parks?
National parks are the cornerstone of modern conservation efforts. They now cover more than 10% of the Earth’s land surface and are found on every continent and sea.We can prove that these national parks stop human destruction of habitat. We can prove that they benefit the lives and livelihoods of people who visit and surround them. However, we can't yet prove that they have stopped the extinction of a single species. This isn't because we don’t believe that they've helped. …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
First passage time for diffusion
Mathematical models describing diffusive transport of mass and energy are essential to our understanding of many problems in engineering, physics, biology and chemistry.Classical analysis of mathematical models that describe diffusive transport focus on diffusion in simple geometries, such as lines, discs and spheres composed of homogeneous materials. In contrast, specific applications of diffusive transport theory in more complicated geometries are often explored computationally. This can include geometries with heterogeneous materials.While computational approaches are necessary in certain circumstances, analytical insight is …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Equation learning for partial differential equation models of stochastic random walk models
Random walk models are often used to represent the motion of biological cells. These models are convenient because they allow us to capture randomness and variability. However, these approaches can be computationally demanding for large populations.One way to overcome the computational limitation of using random walk models is to take a continuum limit description, which can efficiently provide insight into the underlying transport phenomena.While many continuum limit descriptions for homogeneous random walk models are available, continuum limit descriptions for heterogeneous …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Developing optimal management approaches to sustain the Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef is under significant threat from climate change.There are many options for management approaches to help sustain the reef, and many more are being developed. However, optimally planning these management actions is a difficult mathematical problem as they need to deploy over a large scale. This results in long timeframes for developing and executing these actions.This project will involve adapting the Modern Portfolio Theory to develop optimal management approaches to sustain the Great Barrier Reef.Modern Portfolio Theory …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Considering economics when prioritising species conservation
There are limited funds available for saving threatened species globally. Investing that money wisely can help ecologists and the government achieve more bang for their buck, and help more species and ecosystems.We can use many approaches to help guide those investment decisions, including mathematical optimisation and operations research. However better considerations of economic factors are needed in order to reflect the complexity of real ecosystems and governments.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Mean exit time calculations in complicated geometries
Calculating the duration of time required for a diffusive process to end is a classical problem in mathematics, engineering, biology and economics. The concept of mean exit time is widely used to study transport phenomena in biology, such as calculating the duration of time required for a protein created in a cell nucleus to reach the cell membrane. While many exact calculations of mean exit time are known for simple geometries and homogeneous media, exact solutions are rare for complicated …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Advanced numerical modelling to study fluid flow and heat transfer of ground-mounted photovoltaic panels for the power generation industry
The increase in global energy demand necessitates further advancement in photovoltaic (PV) systems. Advancements in PVs could potentially play a role to help meet the Paris Agreement of limiting global temperature increase to below 2°C.The performance of ground-mounted PV panels commonly found in solar farms depends on a myriad of factors such as tilt angle, microclimate i.e. wind loads, shading, solar irradiance, and dust deposition. This project aims to develop an advanced numerical model, namely computational fluid dynamics (CFD), backed …
- Study level
- PhD, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
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.