Openings

• Doctoral position funded by the EPSRC DTP for the project "Machine learning for early and personalised risk assessment for pathological myopia." For more information, contact Dr. Ajay B Harish over email. 

• Doctoral position in an industry-funded project "Machine learning for accelerating computational fluid dynamics simulations." For more information, check out FindAPhD.

• Competitively funded doctoral position in the project "Multiscale modelling of Achilles tendon elasticity, viscoelasticity and damage." For more information, check out FindAPhD.

• Competitively funded doctoral position in the project "Simulation of tissue regeneration processes by lattice Boltzmann method." For more information, check out FindAPhD.

• Note:

  • If you are interested in the above positions, please reach out to me before sending an official application through the University of Manchester portal. When you reach out, please send your latest CV, bachelor and master (if available) transcripts, any information that can help us understand/interpret your grades (if you are not from UK, Germany, India, US - which I am more familiar with). We would like to ensure that there is a general fit before asking you to invest more time into the application process.

  • Doctoral positions advertised above are funded through research funding, unless they are stated as "competitively funded".

  • Competitively funded openings imply that we will nominate suitable candidates for departmental/school level fellowships. Please see Ph.D. openings below for more information on these.

  • If you are interested in our research and there is no advertised position, please feel free to write to me to explore other potential options and possibilities.

Like most faculty, I am always looking for postdocs who already have previous experience in the topics that overlap with my research. If you have extensive coding experience, have mechanics and/or machine learning background and are interested in our line of research, I am always looking forward to hearing from such candidates.

If you think you would fit the group, please email me with the subject "Postdoc Inquiry". In your email, please explain to me your prior research experience and how this contributes to the overlapping areas. We do not have internal fellowships at the department to support a long visit. These are mainly restricted to short 3-month visit that aims to write proposals to support longer visits. Thus, if you know of potential fellowships that can support your visit, please feel free to let me know about them in the email. Some available fellowships that I am aware of include (but not limited to)

• Newton International Fellowship [Link] from The Royal Society

• UK IC Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Programme [Link] by the Royal Academy of Engineering

• EPSCR Post-doctoral fellowship [Link]

Like most faculty, I am always looking for Ph.D. students. Send me an email if you are interested in my research and feel you have relevant background. Please email me with the subject "Ph.D. Inquiry". In your email, please explain to me your prior research experience and why you are interested in my work. If I feel there is a good fit, we will have a talk before taking things further. You can also look for all openings at the University of Manchester on our "Find a PhD project" page. For more information about admissions at MACE in the University of Manchester, see admissions at MACE.

Some of the university-level scholarships can be found on the MACE departmental page on "Funding". Regular yearly-calls include Presidential fellowship, Dean's fellowship, Exceptional women in engineering fellowship. These fellowships are extremely competitive. The success of application for these scholarship depends on the pool of applicants each year. Just to provide a general ideal, from past experience, the profiles of selected candidates include those who have:

• Top grades in their class.

• Have demonstrated a potential for high-quality research. This could include three or more journal publications in high-impact Q1 journals including one or more first author papers.

Some scholarships that I am aware of include:

• J N Tata Endowment for Higher Education of Indians [Link]

• Commonwealth Ph.D. scholarship [Link]

I can also recommend you to check the funding finder on the university website to check for potential fellowships available based on your nationality.

• If you are already a student at the University of Manchester, feel free to send me an email. Unfortunately, no funding is available for Masters (MSc and M.Phil) students but I would be happy to discuss potential projects.

• If you are interested in applying to the University of Manchester to pursue Masters in Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, I can recommend you to see admissions at MACE. MACE offers a course-oriented 12-month M.Sc program and a research-oriented 21-month M.Phil program for international students. I do not make admissions decisions and hence cannot influence this. If you are admitted to the University and would like to work with me, please send me an email to discuss potential projects.

• Some scholarships that I am aware of:

  • British Council Scholarships for Women in STEM [Link]

For more information, check out the page on "remote internships".

I generally do not have funding for extended visits for students. If you are a student and at a university outside of Manchester, then please talk to your advisor about this. I would generally consider a visit only if: (a) I already have a existing collaboration with your advisor and (b) You are not self-funding the visit but have funding support, from your advisor, for the visit. 

I am always open for collaborations if there is a mutual topic of interest. Unfortunately, I do not have funding to support visiting faculty. If you are from the EU, India, USA, Brazil, we can explore joint proposals. Some of the potential funding, that I am aware of to support visits include:

• International Exchanges from The Royal Society

• Is Manchester a good university?

• Univ. of Manchester has been consistently ranked in the Top 50 universities globally. In 2021, ARWU ranked the university at 35 while in 2022, QS ranks the university at No. 27. Nationally, University of Manchester is ranked 5th. 

• Is Manchester a big university?

• Univ. of Manchester has about 40485 students, with 26630 (undergraduates) and 13855 (postgraduates). It has 5150 academic faculty. The university budget is about £1.1B. It has the largest student population and largest engineering campus of any university in the UK. 

• Are you looking for new students?

• Yes, I am always looking for new Ph.D. students.

• Will I be funded for my Ph.D.?

• Yes, all Ph.D. students in my group are funded, unless they were originally admitted through self-funding. Admitted students are either funded through my research funding, external/internal fellowships. 

• Can I work on the topic of my choice?

• Yes and no. We expect our Ph.D. students to develop into independent thinkers and researchers. This cannot happen without the flexibility to lead research directions. That being said, this also depends on the source of funding. Fellowships offer more flexibility, in comparison, to governent or industry funded projects. Further, the group needs to contribute into a particular direction in order to build on previous work, instead of each student starting from scratch.

• How does fellowship offer flexibility?

• If you are funded by me, then this is from a research project that already has pre-defined aims and objectives agreed upon with the funding agency. Since the pre-set deliverables need to be completed, there is not much room for modification. If you are on your own fellowship, then we can propose a topic & direction of mutual interest. Thus, fellowships offer reasonable flexibility.