PhD Studentship in Cyber Security and AI: Deepfake Attribution and Generative Model Fingerprinting Loughborough University in United Kingdom

PhD studentship opportunity at Loughborough University in collaboration with Darktrace, focused on Cyber Security and Artificial Intelligence.

The project is titled Deepfake Attribution and Generative Model Fingerprinting for Disinformation Source Tracking. It is based at the Institute for Digital Technologies on the London campus and is part of the university’s Darktrace funded studentships call.

This PhD is designed for research into AI-generated deepfakes, media authenticity, provenance, and source tracking. The project explores how generative models can be fingerprinted from output artifacts, how attribution methods can identify the origin of deepfakes in real-world settings, and how blockchain or distributed ledgers may support authenticity verification.

Funding: the studentship is funded, with UK fees fully covered. The call states that international fees are not applicable. The position is full-time for 3.5 years.

Eligibility: applicants should meet PhD entry requirements and normally have a first-class honours degree; if they also hold a master’s degree, it must be at distinction level.

Start date: July 2026 or October 2026.

Deadline: 21 July 2026.

Supervisors: Safak Dogan and Dr Xiyu Shi.

Students interested in cyber security, AI, deepfake detection, digital forensics, provenance systems, and disinformation research should consider applying.