PhD Studentship in Control and Engineering Biology
[Full award for UK students: home fees plus stipend; course fees covered at the UK rate (at least £10,940 per year) and a tax-free stipend of at least £21,805 per year for the first year and for a further two and a half years. There may be flexibility for international students.]
PhD Studentship in Control and Engineering Biology at the University of Oxford
This 3.5-year D.Phil. studentship explores
Synthetic Biology for fundamental science and application scale-up
. The project sits at the interface of synthetic biology, control engineering, AI, and robotics, with a focus on developing new approaches for designing reliable engineered biosystems and applying them to global biotechnology challenges.
Possible research directions include genetically engineering microbes to change form and function, building theory and AI methods for better biosystem design, and creating robotic measurement and control platforms that automate experimentation and discovery. Extensions may include directed evolution, protein engineering, and biomedical or environmental applications, especially where scale-up is important.
The studentship is integrated with the EPSRC Programme Grant
EEBio: Efficient engineering and control of predictable and reliable biotechnologies
. The successful candidate will join a multidisciplinary environment with academic and industrial experts and may collaborate nationally and internationally.
Supervisors:
Prof Harrison Steel and Prof Antonis Papachristodoulou.
Funding:
For UK students, the award covers home fees and provides a stipend. Course fees are covered at the UK rate (at least £10,940 per year), and the stipend is at least £21,805 per year for the first year and for a further two and a half years. There may be some flexibility for international students, but they are advised to contact the supervisors directly before applying.
Eligibility highlights:
Applicants should hold a first-class degree or strong 2:1 in a relevant quantitative, engineering, or bioscience field such as Engineering, Materials Science, Computer Science, Physics, Biology/Biotechnology, Chemistry/Biochemistry, or Mathematics. Strong English communication skills are required. Useful but not mandatory experience includes microbiology, synthetic biology, AI, control engineering, biological lab work, programming/software engineering, and robotics prototyping.
How to apply:
Submit a graduate application through the University of Oxford admissions portal and quote reference
27ENGCO_HS
. Informal enquiries can be directed to
[email protected]
and
[email protected]
.
Deadline:
noon on Tuesday 2 December 2026. Start date: October 2027.
