The Vacation Research Experience Scheme (VRES) provides eligible students with the opportunity to participate in a research project. If you're interested in research and thinking of pursuing a research degree the scheme is an opportunity to see if research is right for you. Further information about the scheme is available on HiQ.
QUT offers a diverse range of student topics for VRES. Search to find a topic that interests you.
Found 182 matching student topics
Displaying 97–108 of 182 results
Hunting Giant Primes: The Mathematics Behind Modern Cryptography
Modern digital security relies on deep ideas from number theory. Prime numbers, modular arithmetic, and efficient mathematical algorithms underpin technologies used every day, from secure web browsing and online banking to cryptocurrencies and emerging post-quantum cryptographic systems.This project introduces students to research at the intersection of computational number theory and cryptography. Depending on the interests and background of the student, the project may involve investigating large prime numbers, developing efficient algorithms for modular arithmetic, exploring residue number systems (RNS), benchmarking …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Computer Science
Bayesian Scenario-Based Projection of Climate-Related Changes in Global Economic Growth
This interdisciplinary project investigates how Bayesian statistical modelling can be used to quantify uncertainty in projected climate-related changes in global economic growth under alternative future climate scenarios. The project will combine historical country-level economic growth data with climate variables such as temperature and precipitation, estimate a Bayesian climate-response model, and use simulated future climate variables from different scenario pathways to produce probabilistic projections of future economic outcomes.The project connects statistics, econometrics, climate science, data science, and global economic risk analysis. …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre
- Centre for Data Science
Automated Manufacturing for Artificial Heart Valves
Artificial heart valves are used to treat a wide variety of heart diseases. Our lab is developing a new polymer heart valve which is long-lasting and highly blood compatible. Currently, we manufacture our heart valves by hand and cut the valve leaflets manually using a heated scalpel. This approach leaves a lot of room for error and user experience. The aim of this VRES project is to design, build, and test an automated manufacturing system that can automatically cut our …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
- Research centre
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Mathematical Analysis of Carbon Capture Processes
Carbon capture and storage is a critical technology for decarbonisation of hard to abate sectors such as steel and cement production. The chemical processes used for these technologies - absorption columns and stripper columns - are accurately modelled by sets of nonlinear ODE boundary value problems with interesting emergent behaviour, such as boundary layers and spontaneous bifurcations at critical parameters. These ODEs are routinely solved numerically, but there analytical behaviour is poorly understood. In this project, the student will conduct …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre
- Energy Transition Centre
Mathematical modelling of carbon capture in absorption columns
The capture of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) produced in industrial processes is a vital part of Climate Change reduction. Industrial carbon capture methods involve absorption columns, which contains a counterflow of Carbon Dioxide-rich gas and solvent (such as Monoethanolamine or MEA), which absorbs the CO2. As the absorption of CO2 is exothermic, and reaction rates are dependent on temperature, the control of the temperature profile in the column is of high importance.This project will involve the development and solution of either …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Designing assistive equipment for emerging para-athletes
This project investigates the design of assistive sporting equipment for emerging boccia and lawn bowls para-athletes. Students will engage in an end-to-end practice-led design research project grounded in human-centred and participatory design approaches to design functional assistive equipment to support the performance of para-athletes. While the work will focus on the personalisation of equipment for the participating athletes, the project will also explore the transferability of designs to the broader sporting community. For this purpose, the project will engage with …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice
- School
- School of Design
- Research centre
- QUT Design Lab
CVD-RAG: An AI Prototype for Cardiovascular Disease Clinical Decision Support Integrating Retrieval-Augmented Generation with Large Language Models
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is Australia's leading cause of death, accounting for over 25% of all mortality (AIHW, 2023). Clinicians managing complex CVD cases, particularly patients with concurrent type II diabetes, must synthesise evidence from a rapidly growing body of clinical literature. General-purpose Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT-4 and Llama-3 offer compelling natural-language interfaces to this knowledge, but are known to produce hallucinated, ungrounded, or uncited answers, making them unsafe for unsupervised clinical use.Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) directly addresses this …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Computer Science
- Research centre
- Centre for Data Science
What Does a Machine Learning Model Know Well About Galaxies, and Why?
Modern machine learning (ML) models trained on large spectroscopic datasets can predict galaxy properties directly from spectra, without ever computing a physical model. But when such a model succeeds or fails, it is rarely obvious why. This project investigates the behaviour of an existing spectral machine learning model (SpecML) by probing its learned representations and linking model performance back to the properties of the underlying data. You will run the model's downstream prediction tasks, quantify where it performs well and …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Computer Science
How Spectral Energy Distribution Models Shape Active Galactic Nucleus Identification
When astronomers classify a galaxy as harbouring an active galactic nucleus (AGN), that classification often rests entirely on the output of a spectral energy distribution (SED) fitting code. But SED-fitting codes require the user to choose an AGN model, and different models encode different physical assumptions about the geometry, dust distribution, and emission properties of the nucleus. This project asks a deceptively simple question: how much does that choice matter? Working with a radio-selected galaxy sample drawn from the ASKAP-based …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
Lab on a chip devices for industrial application
The project aims to develop lab-on-a-chip devices for the analysis of metals of industrial significance. While other methodologies, such as FIA, SIA and SFA, have been applied for industrial online monitoring, these are usually expensive due to the consumption of large volumes of reagents. Miniaturisation of this style of technique to the lab-on-chip level will provide significant cost reductions.
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Chemistry and Physics
- Research centre
- Centre for Materials Science
A longitudinal content analysis of the Public Communication of Science and Technology field
This project examines the evolution of public communication of science and technology (PCST) research through a longitudinal analysis of conference abstracts submitted to biennial PCST Network conferences held between 1989 and 2025. Combining manual and LLM-assisted coding, the study maps changing patterns in authorship, research themes, methodological approaches, and patterns of international collaboration across more than three decades. The project is interdisciplinary, drawing on science communication, media and communication studies, and computational social science research methods. By documenting how the …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice
- School
- School of Communication
- Research centre
- Digital Media Research Centre
BIOM04 - Microphysiological Models of Bone Metastasis
Bone metastasis is a major complication of advanced cancers, particularly breast and prostate cancer, and remains an incurable, palliative condition. A better understanding of how cancer cells interact with the specialised cells and extracellular matrix of bone is needed to identify more effective therapeutic approaches.This interdisciplinary VRES project brings together cancer biology, bone biology, biomaterials science and biofabrication. The student will contribute to the development of miniaturised three-dimensional microphysiological models of bone metastasis containing both cancer cells and mature bone …
- Faculty
- Faculty of Health
- School
- School of Biomedical Sciences
- Research centre
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Contact us
If you have questions about the Vacation Research Experience Scheme (VRES), the application process, finding a topic or anything else, get in touch with us today.