PhD:Feasibility of wireless & wearable technology for continuous measurement of biomolecules

Title: A 3.5 year fully-funded (home rate) PhD on “ Feasibility of wireless and wearable technology for continuous measurement of biomolecules in biofluids ” at UCL  

Start : early 2023 

How to apply: Please send the following to Dr Sara Ghoreishizadeh through email (s.ghoreishizadeh@ucl.ac.uk). Use the subject line “application for PhD on wearable sensors- [your full name]”. 

• CV 
• transcripts (both Undergraduate and postgraduate),  
• a short (up to one page) cover letter explaining why you think you are a suitable candidate for this post.

Closing date: applications open until we find a suitable candidate. 

Description: 
We are looking for a motivated student with an interest in developing new disruptive wearable technologies for continuous health monitoring. Our primary goal in this project is to develop a fully integrated and wireless wearable technology to measure a panel of biomolecules and biomarkers in bio-fluids such as sweat and saliva. 

What the PhD project entails?  
The student will have the opportunity to learn techniques from multiple desciplines to design, develop and test the fundamental parts of such a wearable technology. this includes the instrumentation circuits (on either printed circuit board or Integrated Circuit technology), the energy sources and power management, the fluidics system, graphical user interface, and biocompatible packaging to make a complete and functional device that can be tested with real bio-fluid samples. 

The student is expected to publish the outcome of the project in top journal and conference of the field and attend at least national or international conferences every year.

The student will work under the supervision of Dr Sara Ghoreishizadeh (https://sghoreish.github.io/index.html ) and will join and collaborate with an interdisciplinary team of PhD students and postdoctoral researchers at UCL Dept of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, located in central London. Founded in 1826, UCL is one of the world's leading universities focused on research excellence and teaching. 

What is covered by this studentship?  

A stipend (currently £19,668 pa) and fees at the home rate (currently £5,690 pa) for a period of 3.5 years. This studentship also covers the cost of consumables and travel expenses to attend conferences during the same period.  

Although the fees are only covered at home rate (and not international rate), the overseas candidates are still welcome to apply. However, they would need to fund the difference between home and overseas fees themselves (e.g. through another award or self-funding) and specify this in their application. 

* Due to large number of applications expected to receive, we will not respond to any application that misses the above information.  

More details about the stipend and fees can be found here:  https://www.ucl.ac.uk/research-innovation-services/award-services/research-studentships/studentship-budgets/studentship-budgets-202223

Person specification: 

The candidate should pass the entry requirements of PhD programme at UCL EEE.

In addition:

• They should have at least an upper second-class honours degree (2:1 or equivalent qualification) in Electrical Engineering, Bioengineering, or equivalent professional experience.  
• have experience in hardware and software design (and test) of embedded circuits on printed circuit boards (PCB)  
• Knowledge of design and analysis software tools such as C/C++, MATLAB, PCB design softwares.  
• Ability to think independently, interpret data, and knowledge of statistics (e.g. basic data clustering and classification methods).
  
  Desirable:  
• Experience in development and test of integrated circuits in semiconductor technology.  
• Knowledge/experience working with electrochemical biosensors. 
• Knowledge/experience working with inductive links for power transfer, or other energy harvesting techniques/devices 
• Knowledge/experience working with lab-on-chip and microfluidics systems 
   

  For informal enquiries please contact Dr Sara Ghoreishizadeh (s.ghoreishizadeh@ucl.ac.uk)