The Lewy Body Dementia Doctoral Training Network PhD studentships in Lewy Body Dementia

This PhD programme is available thanks to support from the Alzheimer’s Society and is designed to support students embarking on a career in dementia research, especially in Lewy body dementia. 

About the programme

The LBD-DTN is a new PhD programme that aims to create a thriving united Lewy body dementia UK research community. Our core mission is to improve the lives of people living with LBD.

This programme brings together supervisors at six UK centres: UCL, Newcastle, Southampton, Nottingham, Kings College London, and Exeter, with expertise across a range of methodologies to address fundamental questions in the field of Lewy body dementia. 

Highlights of the programme:

Being part of an interdisciplinary collaborative programme at world class institutes 

Advanced training opportunities including workshops and seminars specific to the programme

Commitment to a positive research culture 

Opportunities to engage with patients with Lewy body dementia 

Potential for real-world impact 

About this studentship

The 2026 LBD-DTN studentship at UCL will be supervised by Dr Angeliki Zarkali, Dr Barbara Dymerska and Prof Martina Callaghan at UCL, and by Professor Mitul Mehta (King’s College London).

Project summary

Lewy body dementia (LBD) is the second most common degenerative dementia, involving early synaptic, mitochondrial, and iron-related changes that are poorly understood in vivo. This project will use advanced MRI and Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopic Imaging MRSI in people with LBD, Parkinson’s disease, and healthy controls to map early grey-matter changes, including markers of myelin, iron, synaptic density, microstructure, mitochondrial function, and gliosis.

We will relate these measures to disease severity, progression, and amyloid and tau PET burden, using both existing longitudinal datasets and newly collected metabolic imaging. The goal is to fully characterise the earliest changes within grey matter along the spectrum of LBD and clarify the impact of co-pathologies in grey matter dysfunction providing important mechanistic insights with potential to identify imaging markers that can improve prognosis and support future clinical trials.

Student development and Supervisory team

The student will train in multiple advanced neuroimaging methods, clinical and neuropsychology assessments, as well as patient and public engagement. They will be supported by Dr Angeliki Zarkali, UCL, clinical neurologist and researcher with expertise in advanced diffusion weighted imaging. They will be co-supervised by Dr Barbara Dymerska and Prof Martina Callaghan, UCL, MRI physicists with international expertise in quantitative MRI methods and Prof Mitul Mehta, Kings, a world expert in positron emission tomography. 

Funding

This is a fully-funded 4-year PhD programme. It covers Home tuition fees and offers a stipend starting at approx. £21,500 per year, plus consumables up to £7,500 per year for the project.

Eligibility

Students must have achieved at least an upper 2:1 or equivalent in their undergraduate degree, which should be in neuroscience or a related area. An MSc is not a prerequisite. This PhD opportunity is open to applicants of any nationality. 

Applications are encouraged from candidates with some experience in the field of dementia or Parkinson’s and with coding experience and neuroimaging. Candidates are encouraged to indicate any specific personal circumstances that may have affected their progression; we wish to remove any unintended barriers within the recruitment process.

How to apply

An application is made by emailing your CV, academic transcripts and a personal statement to ion.pgr@ucl.ac.uk. Your CV should include the names of two academic referees who will be contacted as part of the application process.

Your personal statement should cover the following points:

1. A summary of your research experience to date
2. Your motivation for applying to this PhD programme and why you are a strong candidate and work well in a team.

It should be no longer than one side of A4, Arial font 11. 

We require that these THREE documents are submitted in one merged PDF file labelled as SURNAME_FIRST NAME_LBDDTN_QSION.pdf. No other documents will be accepted.

All enquiries regarding the programme should be made to r.weil@ucl.ac.uk and ion.pgr@ucl.ac.uk.

Key dates

Application deadline: 5pm 23rd January 2026

Interviews: Early March 2026; Start date: October 2026