University of Canterbury PhD Scholarship

PhD opportunity at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand focused on the human exposome, geospatial epidemiology, lifecourse epidemiology, GIS, and environmental health. The project, supervised/recruited by Dr Matthew Hobbs (Associate Professor, Public Health and Spatial Epidemiology), aims to develop the concept of the geospatial exposome and to build a theoretically grounded and computationally realisable framework for understanding how environmental exposures across homes, schools, workplaces, and wider activity spaces accumulate over time and space to shape health outcomes and inequalities.

The project is especially relevant for students interested in spatial epidemiology, health inequalities, quantitative analysis, statistical modelling, and geospatial methods using QGIS, ArcGIS, R, and Python. It emphasizes interdisciplinary research and the integration of socio-economic and environmental datasets such as deprivation indices, census data, and land-use data.

Funding is available through the Geospatial Research Institute (GRI) PhD Scholarship 2026, with total support of NZ$35,650/year for 3 years full-time, including a UC PhD scholarship and GRI top-up, plus possible travel/research expense support. The application deadline is 29 May 2026 at 17:00 NZ Time.

To apply, candidates should prepare a cover letter, application form, CV with publications, referee contacts, and a GPA report, then email the completed package to [email protected]. The post also notes that Māori scholars are especially encouraged to apply.