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 Faculty: Arts
General subject area: Human Services, Sociology
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Nicola Taylor
Extraction of plant protein isolates
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Food engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Ken Morison
Defect-free membranes
Host Faculty: 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 Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Chemical Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Alex Yip
Applications of NMR spectroscopy in Chemical Engineering
Host Faculty: 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 Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Chemical Enigneering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Alex Yip
Granular flows
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Chemical Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Daniel Holland
Climate change and youth citizenship: activism and anxiety
Host Faculty: Arts
General subject area: Political Science and International Relations
Supervisor: Bronwyn Hayward
Language attitudes
Host Faculty: Arts
General subject area: Linguistics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Kevin Watson
Accent variation and change in England
Host Faculty: Arts
General subject area: Linguistics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Kevin Watson
Documentation and Description of Idi
Host Faculty: Arts
General subject area: Linguistics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Dineke Schokkin
Critical Analysis of Role of Alternative Media in Society
Host Faculty: Arts
General subject area: Alternative Media
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: LindaJean Kenix
Decay resistance of naturally durable eucalyptus timber
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Forestry
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Clemens Altaner
Harnessing photoheterotrophic metabolism to convert methane into biopolymers
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Bioprocess Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Carlo Carere
Metal-organic Framework Physisorbents for Carbon Dioxide Capture
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Chemistry
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Paul Kruger
Parenting a child on the autism spectrum
Host Faculty: Education, Health and Human Development
General subject area: Clinical Psychology; Child and Family Psychology
Project level: PhD
Mindful Parenting and Autism
Host Faculty: Education, Health and Human Development
General subject area: Clinical Psychology; Child Psychology; Autism
Project level: PhD
Development of a smart material designed to attenuate oblique and direct impacts
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Mechanical / Materials Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Natalia Kabaliuk
Development of a novel "three-way" catalyst for hydrogen generation from water-gas-shift reaction
Host Faculty: 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 Faculty: 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 Faculty: Science
General subject area: Bioengineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Ian Dickie
Investigation of Jack-in-the-box Systems
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Chemistry
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Sarah Masters
Hydrogen storage materials
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Chemistry
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Sarah Masters
Towards in vitro brain model
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Tissue engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Yilei Zhang
A computer chip that thinks like the brain
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Nanotechnology, Neuromorphic computing
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Simon Brown
Artery Inflammation
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Biochemistry, Immunology, Cell biology
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Steven Gieseg
Imaging and Detecting Vascular diase
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Biochemistry
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Steven Gieseg
Local-global principles for divisibility in algebraic groups
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Brendan Creutz
Descent algorithms for finding rational points on curves
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Brendan Creutz
Rational points and zero-cycles on bielliptic surfaces
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Brendan Creutz
Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space methods in dynamical systems
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Rua Murray
Dynamical systems and ergodic theory
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Rua Murray
Matroid theory
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Charles Semple
Topological and finite circle geometries and their automorphism groups
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Gunter Steinke
Post-quantum Cryptosystems from Diophantine equations
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Felipe Voloch
Sudoku and geometry over the integers modulo 3
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Geertrui Van de Voorde
Axiomatic planes
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Geertrui Van de Voorde
Generalised quadrangles/polygons
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Geertrui Van de Voorde
Designs and their codes
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Pure Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Geertrui Van de Voorde
Crisis and Change
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Clemency Montelle
Ethnomathematics
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Mathematics Education
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Clemency Montelle
Mathematical themes from ancient mathematics
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: History and Philosophy of Mathematics Education
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Clemency Montelle
Mathematical themes from ancient mathematics
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Clemency Montelle
No flow limit for Bingham fluid flow
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Miguel Moyers Gonzalez
Bubble dynamics in an elastoviscoplastic medium
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Miguel Moyers Gonzalez
Data driven analysis of dynamical systems
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Rua Murray
Optimisation methods in transient dynamics
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Rua Murray
Pulses in heterogeneous media
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Rua Murray
Mathematics of medicine
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Rua Murray
Modelling spread of COVID-19
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Michael Plank
Spatial moment dynamics for invasive populations
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Michael Plank
Marine ecosystems and fishing
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Michael Plank
Combinatorics of reticulate evolution
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Charles Semple
Fluid-particle interactions for granular flows
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Phillip Wilson
Pseudo-wake structure in colliding turbulent boundary layers
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Phillip Wilson
Turbulence in the Deep Ocean
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: applied Mathematics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Phillip Wilson
Efficient survey designs
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Jennifer Brown
Spatial patterns in ecological models
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Jennifer Brown
Dose-Response Analysis
Host Faculty: 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 Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Daniel Gerhard
Integrated multi-modal sensing, and machine learning application
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Thomas Li
3D volumetric and point-cloud data machine learning algorithms
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Thomas Li
Crime and punishment in England
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Elena Moltchanova
Heights of army and navy recruits
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Elena Moltchanova
Dynamic economic control charts for monitoring epidemics
Host Faculty: 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 Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Elena Moltchanova
Parsimonious models for multivariate time series
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Marco Reale
Spatially Balanced Sampling of Natural Resources
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Blair Robertson
Decision Trees for Statistical Learning
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Blair Robertson
Stochastic properties of speciation and extinction models
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: Masters
Supervisor: Mike Steel
Discrete random models in evolutionary biology
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Statistics and Data Science
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Mike Steel
Teen anxiety and parenting
Host Faculty: Education, Health and Human Development
General subject area: Psychology
Project level: PhD
Superconducting Power Electronics
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Power Electronics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Bill Heffernan
Impacts of Australian bushfires on New Zealand glacial environments
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Glacier-climate
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Heather Purdie
Multi-Physics Power Transformer Model for Digital Twin
Host Faculty: 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 Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Applied Mathematics and biosecurity
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Steve Pawson
Superhuman Sports to Foster Engagement in Playful Physical Activities
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Computer science; applied games; mixed reality
Project level: PhD
Biomimetic sensors and neurocomputing algorithms
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: neurocomputing, machine learning, artificial intel
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Yilei Zhang
Knowledge generation for smart design and manufacturing
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Mechanical engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Yilei Zhang
Development of engineered wood products utilizing small-diameter softwood and hardwood trees
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Timber engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Hyungsuk (Thomas) Lim
Swimming Lane Distribution Simulation
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: computer science, sociology, statistics
Project level: Master's
Supervisor: Christoph Bartneck
Ethical Asymmetry Perception in HRI
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: psychology, human-robot interaction, ethics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Christoph Bartneck
Valence Free Racialization In HRI
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Psychology
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Christoph Bartneck
Swimming Markup Language
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: computer science, sport, health, design
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Christoph Bartneck
Microstructural imaging of live Maple trees
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Chemical and Process Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisors: Matt James Watson, Daniel Holland
Creating hair-protein materials via a self-assembly mesophase approach
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Biomedical Sciences, biophysics, protein chemistry
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Volker Nock
Is cannabis safe to use during pregnancy? Integrated multi-omic and functional analyses of the genomic and molecular imp
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Genetics and epigenetics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Amy Osborne
Mathematical & computation techniques to enable hybrid network transient and fault analysis
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Neville Watson
Mathematical & computation techniques to enable hybrid network dynamic analysis
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Neville Watson
Social-ecological dimensions of freshwater fish management
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Human geography, social-ecological systems, enviro
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Ed Challies
Fungal biosynthesis of compounds for enteric methane mitigation
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Synthetic biology, biochemistry
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Sarah Kessans
Using ecological community data to optimise the sensitivity and specificity of biosecurity surveillance networks
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: biosecurity, ecology, mathematics, invertebrates
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Steve Pawson
Spatial moment dynamics for invasive populations
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Mathematics and Statistics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Michael Plank
Māori Perspectives on Biosecurity Decision Making
Host Faculty: Law
General subject area: Law, Policy
Project level: Master's
Supervisor: Sascha Mueller
Exploring the Coherence of Aotearoa New Zealand's Biosecurity Regulatory Framework
Host Faculty: Law
General subject area: Law, Policy
Project level: Master's
Supervisor: Sascha Mueller
Airborne Microplastics in a Changing Climate
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Atmospheric physics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Laura Revell
Mapping “Student Success” in School Science among Migrant and Refugee Populations in Aotearoa New Zealand
Host Faculty: Education
General subject area: Education, science education, multilingual educati
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Sara Tolbert
Achieving Long-term Restoration Following Invasive Species Removal
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Ecology
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Ian Dickie
Combining Technology and Behavioural Science to Improve Citizen Science Monitoring of Biosecurity Risks
Host Faculty: Education
General subject area: Biosecurity, Psychology, Social Media
Project level: PhD
Supervisors: Don Hine, Chris North
Near-Real-Time Models of Earthquake-Related Flood Hazard
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Geosciences
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Ian Dickie
Additive Manufacture of Metal, Ceramic and Polymer Components Using Screen Additive Manufacturing
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Additive Manufacture (3D Printing)
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Don Clucas
Biodegradable implant system for bone fracture fixation based on magnesium alloys
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Mechanial Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Mark Staiger
Interactive effects of non-native fish and environmental conditions on galaxiid demography
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Biology, Ecology
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Angus McIntosh
Pest and disease scouting in major New Zealand crops: evaluating remote sensing and machine learning tools
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Mathematics and Statistics
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Blair Robertson
Adaptation Options for Rural Coastal Lowlands
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Civil Systems Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Tom Logan
Communicating risk with communities for local climate change adaptation
Host Faculty: Arts
General subject area: Risk Science and Communication
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Zita Joyce
Fire Safety of Building Greenery System
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Fire Engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Dennis Pau
QuakeCoRE MSc Scholarship in Fault Displacement Hazard
Host Faculty: Science
General subject area: Geology
Project level: Master's
Supervisor: Tim Stahl
Agricultural profitability, resilience, and sustainability in an uncertain future: a decision support tool for policy de
Host Faculty: Engineering
General subject area: Agriculture and engineering
Project level: PhD
Supervisor: Tom Cochrane
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.