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 22 matching student topics
Displaying 1–12 of 22 results
Computational communication and culture
The Computational Communication and Culture research program within the Digital Media Research Centre investigates how rapid advances in computation and human-machine communication are transforming society, through automation and AI, the Internet of Things, and disintermediating technologies such as blockchain. We draw on and extend computer science and critical humanities theory and methods (including agent-based modelling, machine vision, critical simulation, and information visualisation) to help explore and explain emergent phenomena in the digital media environment, including the fundamental transformation of communication …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice
- School
- School of Communication
- Research centre(s)
- Digital Media Research Centre
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
Digitising Legislation
Dr Anna Huggins is looking for PhD/MPhil candidates interested in the emerging computational law project of translating legislation into digital forms. This could involve top down conceptualisation of the translation of legislative provisions or projects examining in detail the digitisation of specific legislation. Candidates with a background in data science, public administration and/or law are encouraged to apply. This topic is led by the QUT School of Law within the Digital Social Contract and Datafication and Automation of Human Life …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Law
Mathematical and statistical methods for change point detection in precision fermentation
Precision fermentation uses microorganisms such as yeast to produce valuable biological products for food, biotechnology and synthetic biology. A major challenge is that microbial growth and production can change when cells switch between different metabolic regimes. These changes may occur because of nutrient depletion, stress responses, dilution conditions, or shifts in how cells allocate resources between growth and product formation.This PhD project will develop new mathematical and statistical methods for detecting these metabolic change points from experimental data. The project …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Detecting metabolic regime switching using dilution-resolved growth data: mathematical modelling, statistical inference and uncertainty quantification
Microbial populations rarely grow according to a single fixed physiological program. As nutrients are consumed, waste products accumulate and environmental stress changes, cells can transition between distinct metabolic regimes associated with growth, maintenance, fermentation, respiration and survival. These transitions are biologically important and industrially relevant, but they are often difficult to detect directly from standard growth curve summaries such as maximum growth rate, lag time, carrying capacity or area under the curve.This project will develop new mathematical and statistical methods …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Studying the small proteins of the global microbiome
As part of an ARC Future Fellowship project awarded to Luis Pedro Coelho, we aim to study small proteins with the aim of better understanding them and laying the groundwork for exploiting them for biotechnological purposes. Small proteins (up to 100 amino acids, but often much shorter) have vital roles in all areas of life, but have been neglected in research due to lack of methods.Particular projects in this topic include developing methods for determining function based on genomic context, …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for Microbiome Research
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
Statistics via scalable Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo methods use random sampling to approximate solutions to challenging problems. These methods are helpful for statistical models with many parameters, as discussed in this short video. The methods are particularly useful for Bayesian inference where one wishes to get a rigorous understanding of parameter uncertainty.Despite having many advantages over their competitors, Monte Carlo methods can be very slow in the context of big data. In this project, you'll help develop scalable Monte Carlo methods to enable timely and …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Making predictions using simulation-based stochastic mathematical models
Stochastic simulation-based models are very attractive to study population-biology, disease transmission, development and disease. These models naturally incorporate randomness in a way that is consistent with experimental measurements that describe natural phenomena.Standard statistical techniques are not directly compatible with data produced by simulation-based stochastic models since the model likelihood function is unavailable. Progress can be made, however, by introducing an auxiliary likelihood function can be formulated, and this auxiliary likelihood function can be used for identifiability analysis, parameter estimation and …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
How do healthy people sleep? Biomechanics, physiology, and environment - what matters most?
In the Westernized world a person typically spends one third of their life in bed, with more time spent sleeping in a bed than in any other single activity. Sleep amount and quality of sleep have a direct impact on mood, behaviour, motor skills and overall quality of life. Yet, despite how important restful sleep is for the body to maintain good health, there is a comparatively small amount of studies evaluating key multi-factorial and biomechanical determinants of restful sleep …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Optimisation of piezoelectric materials for robotics applications
Piezoelectricity, which translates to “pressure electricity”, is the phenomenon in which certain materials convert mechanical energy to electrical energy, and vice versa. Such materials are common-place and are used in a variety of applications including sensor, actuator, and energy harvesting technologies. The capabilities of such piezoelectric materials have not yet been fully realised. We plan to use computational structural optimisation to design new piezoelectric materials and components that may contribute to novel sensing technologies for robotics applications. Essentially, robots need …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Simulation of turbulent fluid flow through a microfluidic device using CFD
Microfluidic devices (MFD) are extensively used in microbial studies. Bacterial cell attachment onto surfaces under flow conditions in laminar regime has been previously studied using a custom designed MFD.As an extension of this study, microbial attachment under turbulent flow is to be studied in a future project. The suitability of current MFD for microbial studies under turbulent flow must be evaluated to adopt / redesign the MFD.A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis is proposed to examine the fluid flow inside …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
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