The School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences at Queen Mary is one of the UK’s elite research centres, according to the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF). We offer a multi-disciplinary research environment and have approximately 180 PhD students working on projects in the biological and psychological sciences. Our students have access to a variety of research facilities supported by experienced staff, as well as a range of student support services.
Prof Lars Chittka is an international research leader in insect cognition; he has over 270 publications, many in Nature and Science. The lab is furnished with cutting-edge technology and computing equipment. Further details about the lab can be found at: http://chittkalab.sbcs.qmul.ac.uk/
Our PhD students become part of Queen Mary’s Doctoral College which provides training and development opportunities, advice on funding, and financial support for research. Our students also have access to a Researcher Development Programme designed to help recognise and develop key skills and attributes needed to effectively manage research, and to prepare and plan for the next stages of their career.
The supervisor, Lars Chittka has trained 30 PhD students, many of whom are now full professors at top international universities, since they receive outstanding training and have often published in leading international journals as part of their PhDs.
Any project in the areas of competence of supervisor Lars Chittka is possible - please email him directly to discuss your ideas. Possible areas include insect cognition, social learning, communication, vision, neural computation and pollination biology. One possibility is a project on high-efficiency, low energy visual information processing, using insects as a model. Presently, supercomputers are spectacularly inefficient compared to biological brains in terms of energy consumption.
IBM’s “Summit” supercomputer is hailed as one of the most energy-efficient – it runs at 13 Megawatts, weighs 340 tons and occupies 5600 square feet. The human brain weighs ~1kg, runs on 12W, yet easily outperforms any supercomputer. Insect brains are smaller still – a bee’s is ~1mm2, and runs on a drop of nectar – but delivers highly accurate long distance navigation, collision avoidance, face recognition, concept learning, numerical skills, tool use and high memory capacities for visual landmarks and objects.
Leveraging the principles of energy-efficient computing in miniature brains will revolutionise computer science and AI. A fundamental energy-saving principle in brains is to send (and store) information only when absolutely necessary, and the goal of this PhD project is to identify behavioural and computational strategies by which the bee brain achieves this.
One way in which this could be achieved is by sequential scanning of salient target features in ways determined by the spatial arrangement of said features. Another is by selective attention – a sort of “inner eye” that focusses only on those aspects of incoming sensory information that is salient at any one time.
We study both “bottom up” (stimulus or event driven) attentional processes as well as “top down” processes, by which the central nervous system controls which visual targets are being sought and identified.
We explore the extent to which insect eyes can be viewed as biological event-driven cameras, and the extent to which such cameras can be made more efficient by leveraging principles of insect vision.
We investigate attention as the biological equivalent of electronic foveation (as used in computerised visual recognition mechanisms) and use computational modelling to understand the neural underpinnings of visual information processing in bees.
This studentship is open to students applying for China Scholarship Council funding. Queen Mary University of London has partnered with the China Scholarship Council (CSC) to offer a joint scholarship programme to enable Chinese students to study for a PhD programme at Queen Mary. Under the scheme, Queen Mary will provide scholarships to cover all tuition fees, whilst the CSC will provide living expenses for 4 years and one return flight ticket to successful applicants.
Applicants must be:- Chinese students with a strong academic background.- Students holding a PR Chinese passport.- Either be resident in China at the time of application or studying overseas.- Students with prior experience of studying overseas (including in the UK) are eligible to apply. Chinese QMUL graduates/Masters’ students are therefore eligible for the scheme.Please refer to the CSC website for full details on eligibility and conditions on the scholarship.
Applications are invited from outstanding candidates with or expecting to receive a first or upper-second class honours degree in an area relevant to the project, such as biology, psychology or neuroscience (or any subdiscipline of these). A masters degree is desirable, but not essential.
Applicants from outside of the UK are required to provide evidence of their English Language ability. Please see our English Language requirements page for details: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/international-students/englishlanguagerequirements/postgraduateresearch/
Informal enquiries about the project can be sent to Lars Chittka at l.chittka@qmul.ac.uk
Formal applications must be submitted through our online form by 31st January 2024 for consideration, including a CV, personal statement and qualifications. You must meet the IELTS/ English Language requirements for your course and submit all required documentation (including evidence of English Language) by 14th March 2024. You are therefore strongly advised to sit an approved English Language test as soon as possible.
Shortlisted applicants will be invited for a formal interview by the supervisor. If you are successful in your application, then you will be issued an QMUL Offer Letter, conditional on securing a CSC scholarship along with academic conditions still required to meet our entry requirements. Once applicants have obtained their QMUL Offer Letter, they should then apply to CSC for the scholarship by in March 2024 with the support of the supervisor.
Only applicants who are successful in their application to CSC can be issued an unconditional offer and enrol on our PhD programme. For further information, please go to: https://www.qmul.ac.uk/scholarships/items/china-scholarship-council-scholarships.html
Apply Online