Ross Denton

[Fully funded EPSRC Doctoral Landscape Award PhD studentship. Covers Home fees and provides an annual stipend of £21,805 for 26/27. International candidates may receive a University of Nottingham Fee Difference scholarship to cover the difference between Home and International fee rates if successful.] This PhD studentship at the University of Nottingham focuses on designing new photocurable resin systems for high-resolution digital light processing (DLP) printing of ultrasoft hydrogels . The project sits at the interface of polymer chemistry and additive manufacturing , with the aim of enabling printed hydrogel structures that better match the softness of biological tissues while retaining fine architectural control. The student will work on developing reactive crosslinkers and photocurable resin formulations , then study how resin chemistry influences swelling behaviour, print fidelity, and final mechanical properties. The project is motivated by the challenge that very soft hydrogels are prone to overcuring and post-print swelling, which can distort features and make many printed materials stiffer than the tissues they are intended to mimic. Supervision is provided by experts in polymer chemistry and 3D printing , offering training across synthesis, photopolymerisation, mechanical characterisation, and DLP printing. The project is framed around biomaterials and advanced manufacturing applications, with relevance to tissue engineering and in vitro tissue models. The advertised supervisory team includes Dr Vincenzo Taresco , Dr Yinfeng He , Dr Robert Owen , and Prof Ross Denton .