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, insect emotions, the study of consciousness and its welfare implications, and pollination biology. We study how the insect brain, with only the size of a pinhead, 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 and this is therefore a highly topical project. 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 also use neural-computational modelling to understand the neural underpinnings of visual information processing in bees.
Supervisor 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. The student will be trained in advanced automated behavioural monitoring methods, psychological analyses, statistics, and manuscript writing for top international journals. The supervisor has trained 30 PhD students (including four CSC 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. Our team provides a lively international research environment, with currently 5 postdocs, 3 PhD students and a research technician. Lab web pages: http://chittkalab.sbcs.qmul.ac.uk/Lars.html
Find out more about the School of Biological and Behavioural Sciences on our website.
We are looking for candidates to have or expecting to receive a first or upper-second class honours degree and a Master’s degree in an area relevant to the project such as biology, neuroscience or psychology. Knowledge of behavioural experiments (especially with insects) or computational neuroscience methods would be highly advantageous but are not required.
You must meet the IELTS requirements for your course and upload evidence before CSC’s application deadline, ideally by 1st March 2025. You are therefore strongly advised to sit an approved English Language test as soon as possible, where your IELTS test must still be valid when you enrol for the programme.
Please find further details on our English Language requirements page.
Formal applications must be submittedthrough our form by 29th January 2025 for consideration. Please identify yourself as a ‘CSC Scholar’ in the funding section of the application.
Applicants are required to submit the following documents:
Find out more about our application process on our SBBS website.
Informal enquiries about the project can be sent to Prof Lars Chittka AT l.chittka@qmul.ac.uk Admissions-related queries can be sent to sbbs-pgadmissions@qmul.ac.uk
Shortlisted applicants will be invited for a formal interview by the supervisor. If you are successful in your QMUL 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 with the support of the supervisor.
For further information, please go to the QMUL China Scholarship Council webpage.
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