Find a project or supervisor
To enrol in a University of Canterbury PhD or Doctoral Degree, you first need to find a supervisor or join an existing (funded) project.
Option 1: Join a project
Browse doctoral projects currently available at the University of Canterbury.
Search Projects
A Critical Approach to Animal Assisted Interventions
Host College: Arts
General subject area: Human Services, Sociology
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Nicola Taylor
Phytophagous insect community ecology of kōwhai
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Forest Entomology
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Steve Pawson
Extraction of plant protein isolates
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Food engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Ken Morison
Defect-free membranes
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Chemical and Process Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Matthew Cowan
Novel catalytic plastic waste-to-energy technology for New Zealand
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Chemical Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Alex Yip
Applications of NMR spectroscopy in Chemical Engineering
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Chemical Engineering
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Daniel Holland
Design of hierarchical zeolites for important reactions in the oil and gas industry
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Chemical Enigneering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Alex Yip
Granular flows
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Chemical Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Daniel Holland
Climate change and youth citizenship: activism and anxiety
Host College: Arts
General subject area: Political Science and International Relations
Supervisor: Bronwyn Hayward
Language attitudes
Host College: Arts
General subject area: Linguistics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Kevin Watson
Accent variation and change in England
Host College: Arts
General subject area: Linguistics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Kevin Watson
Documentation and Description of Idi
Host College: Arts
General subject area: Linguistics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Dineke Schokkin
Critical Analysis of Role of Alternative Media in Society
Host College: Arts
General subject area: Alternative Media
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: LindaJean Kenix
Decay resistance of naturally durable eucalyptus timber
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Forestry
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Clemens Altaner
THRIVE: Positive Social Relationships to Maximise Wellbeing in Early Childhood
Host College: Education, Health and Human Development
General subject area: Child development and caregiver wellbeing
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Cara Swit
Harnessing photoheterotrophic metabolism to convert methane into biopolymers
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Bioprocess Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Carlo Carere
Applied animal behaviour/bioacoustics
Host College: Science
General subject area: Biological Sciences
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Ximena Nelson
Metal-organic Framework Physisorbents for Carbon Dioxide Capture
Host College: Science
General subject area: Chemistry
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Paul Kruger
Parenting a child on the autism spectrum
Host College: Education, Health and Human Development
General subject area: Clinical Psychology; Child and Family Psychology
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Lisa Emerson
Mindful Parenting and Autism
Host College: Education, Health and Human Development
General subject area: Clinical Psychology; Child Psychology; Autism
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Lisa Emerson
Development of a smart material designed to attenuate oblique and direct impacts
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Mechanical / Materials Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisors: Natalia Kabaliuk, Nick Draper
Lessons from the Christchurch earthquakes and COVID-19 on urban food resilience
Host College: Education, Health and Human Development
General subject area: Community Resilience; Food Justice
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Sara Tolbert
Development of a novel "three-way" catalyst for hydrogen generation from water-gas-shift reaction
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Chemical Engineering, Catalysis
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Alex Yip
Socio-ecological co-benefits of urban blue-green infrastructure and community resilience (applications have now closed)
Host College: Science
General subject area: Urban resilience; blue-green infrastructure
Project level: PhD
Supervisors: Ed Challies, Rita Dionisio
Enabling 'go-hard, go-early' for novel pathogen incursion using electrical and molecular detection tools
Host College: Science
General subject area: Bioengineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Ian Dickie
Investigation of Jack-in-the-box Systems
Host College: Science
General subject area: Chemistry
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Sarah Masters
Hydrogen storage materials
Host College: Science
General subject area: Chemistry
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Sarah Masters
Towards in vitro brain model
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Tissue engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Yilei Zhang
Bio-inspired monolithic biodegradable plate system for bone fracture fixation
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Biomaterials
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Mark Staiger
A computer chip that thinks like the brain
Host College: Science
General subject area: Nanotechnology, Neuromorphic computing
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Simon Brown
Artery Inflammation
Host College: Science
General subject area: Biochemistry, Immunology, Cell biology
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Steven Gieseg
Imaging and Detecting Vascular diase
Host College: Science
General subject area: Biochemistry
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Steven Gieseg
Local-global principles for divisibility in algebraic groups
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Brendan Creutz
Descent algorithms for finding rational points on curves
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Brendan Creutz
Rational points and zero-cycles on bielliptic surfaces
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Brendan Creutz
Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space methods in dynamical systems
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Rua Murray
Dynamical systems and ergodic theory
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Rua Murray
Matroid theory
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Charles Semple
Topological and finite circle geometries and their automorphism groups
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Gunter Steinke
Post-quantum Cryptosystems from Diophantine equations
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Felipe Voloch
Sudoku and geometry over the integers modulo 3
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Geertrui Van de Voorde
Axiomatic planes
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Geertrui Van de Voorde
Generalised quadrangles/polygons
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Geertrui Van de Voorde
Designs and their codes
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Geertrui Van de Voorde
Crisis and Change
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Clemency Montelle
Ethnomathematics
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Mathematics Education
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Clemency Montelle
Mathematical themes from ancient mathematics
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: History and Philosophy of Mathematics Education
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Clemency Montelle
Mathematical themes from ancient mathematics
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Clemency Montelle
No flow limit for Bingham fluid flow
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Miguel Moyers Gonzalez
Bubble dynamics in an elastoviscoplastic medium
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Miguel Moyers Gonzalez
Data driven analysis of dynamical systems
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Rua Murray
Optimisation methods in transient dynamics
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Rua Murray
Pulses in heterogeneous media
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Rua Murray
Mathematics of medicine
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Rua Murray
Modelling spread of COVID-19
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Michael Plank
Spatial moment dynamics for invasive populations
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Michael Plank
Marine ecosystems and fishing
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Michael Plank
Combinatorics of reticulate evolution
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Charles Semple
Fluid-particle interactions for granular flows
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Phillip Wilson
Pseudo-wake structure in colliding turbulent boundary layers
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Phillip Wilson
Turbulence in the Deep Ocean
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Phillip Wilson
Efficient survey designs
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Jennifer Brown
Spatial patterns in ecological models
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Jennifer Brown
Dose-Response Analysis
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Daniel Gerhard
Spatio-temporal modelling of environmental and crop management effects on sensory scores and chemistry profiles using hi
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Daniel Gerhard
Integrated multi-modal sensing, and machine learning application
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Thomas Li
3D volumetric and point-cloud data machine learning algorithms
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Thomas Li
Crime and punishment in England
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Elena Moltchanova
Heights of army and navy recruits
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Elena Moltchanova
Dynamic economic control charts for monitoring epidemics
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Elena Moltchanova
Analysis of spatio-temporal trends in NZ traffic & implications for benchmarking and implementation of self-driving cars
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Elena Moltchanova
Parsimonious models for multivariate time series
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Marco Reale
Spatially Balanced Sampling of Natural Resources
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Blair Robertson
Decision Trees for Statistical Learning
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Blair Robertson
Stochastic properties of speciation and extinction models
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Mike Steel
Discrete random models in evolutionary biology
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Mike Steel
Teen anxiety and parenting
Host College: Education, Health and Human Development
General subject area: Psychology
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Lisa Emerson
Superconducting Power Electronics
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Power Electronics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Bill Heffernan
Impacts of Australian bushfires on New Zealand glacial environments
Host College: Science
General subject area: Glacier-climate
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Heather Purdie
Multi-Physics Power Transformer Model for Digital Twin
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Electrical Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Andrew Lapthorn
Using ecological community data to optimise the sensitivity and specificity of biosecurity surveillance networks
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics and biosecurity
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Steve Pawson
Superhuman Sports to Foster Engagement in Playful Physical Activities
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Computer science; applied games; mixed reality
Project level: PhD
Combining technology and behavioural science to improve citizen-science monitoring of biosecurity risks
Host College: Science
General subject area: Psychology, behaviour change, biosecurity
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Don Hine
Cultivating Extremophilic Microorganisms from the Mt Erebus Geothermal System on Ross Island, Antarctica
Host College: Science
General subject area: Microbiology
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Matthew Stott
Transforming New Zealand's ICT Workforce using Digital Personalized Interactive Training
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Artificial Intelligence in Education
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Tanja Mitrovic
Transforming New Zealand’s ICT workforce using digital personalized interactive Training (Sofrware Eng sub-project)
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Software Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Matthias Galster
Biomimetic sensors and neurocomputing algorithms
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: neurocomputing, machine learning, artificial intel
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Yilei Zhang
Knowledge generation for smart design and manufacturing
Host College: Engineering
General subject area: Mechanical engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Yilei Zhang
Option 2: Find a supervisor
Explore UC research profiles to identify academics who are conducting research in your topic area and who may be interested in becoming a supervisor of your research.