Program Overview

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Our PhD Bioinformatics research in the Department of Mathematical Sciences focuses on the analysis of large functional genomics datasets. It involves close collaborations between our students and academics with backgrounds in any of: bioinformatics, biological sciences, computer science, mathematics, physics and statistics. Our staff are strongly committed to research and teaching. They are world leaders in their individual specialisms, with their papers appearing in learned journals such as; Briefings in Bioinformatics, PLoS One, BMC Bioinformatics , and Briefings in Functional Genomics . Our Department of Mathematical Sciences is genuinely innovative and student-focused. Our research groups are working on a broad range of collaborative areas tackling real-world issues. Here are a few examples:

• Our data scientists carefully consider how not to lie, and how not to get lied to with data. Interpreting data correctly is especially important because much of our data science research is applied directly or indirectly to social policies, including health, care and education.
• We do practical research with financial data (for example, assessing the risk of collapse of the UK’s banking system) as well as theoretical research in financial instruments such as insurance policies or asset portfolios.
• We also research how physical processes develop in time and space. Applications of this range from modelling epilepsy to modelling electronic cables.
• Our optimisation experts work out how to do the same job with less resource, or how to do more with the same resource.
• Our pure maths group are currently working on two new funded projects entitled “The Calabi problem for smooth Fano threefolds” and “Stability of Brunn-Minkowski inequalities and Minkowski type problems for nonlinear capacity”.
• We also do research into mathematical education and use exciting technologies such as electroencephalography or eye tracking to measure exactly what a learner is feeling. Our research aims to encourage the implementation of ‘the four Cs’ of modern education, which are critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity.

We also offer part-time research study. Why we're great.

• You will be able to access mathematical software packages on the University’s High-Performance Computing cluster.
• Our Department of Mathematical Sciences has an internationally excellent reputation in areas such as algebraic geometry, group theory, semigroup theory, differential equations, optimisation, probability, applied statistics, bioinformatics and mathematical biology.
• Our department is ranked 31st for research power in the Research Excellence Framework 2021.

Our expert staff

If you are undertaking your research within our Department of Mathematical Sciences, then joint supervision across other Essex departments and schools (particularly with our School of Life Sciences, and with our School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering) is possible. Some of our current students have a supervisor based in our Department and another in one of the departments or schools mentioned above. We encourage PhD students to meet with their supervisor regularly. While undertaking your research within Mathematical Sciences, joint supervision across other Essex departments and schools is possible. Joint supervision allows you to have a supervisor based in our Department and another in a relevant Department or School (such as Biological Sciences, or Computer Science and Electronic Engineering). At the end of your PhD you may be publishing your research in academic journals. Our PhD students have had papers accepted and published in journals such as: Ecology, Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, Mathematical Modelling of Natural Phenomena , and The North American Journal of Economics and Finance .

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Specialist facilities

The Department of Mathematical Sciences is based in the University’s state-of-the-art STEM Centre. Research students have a dedicated work space and PCs, with access to software such as MATLAB, Gap, SageMath, Python and R. All University of Essex research students have access to our innovative and unique scheme, Proficio . Postgraduate research students are automatically enrolled on Proficio, which provides a variety of training courses, and a fund of up to £2,500 per student for conference attendance and relevant external training courses.

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Your future

Many of our former PhD students have gone on to work as academics in prominent institutions across the world, such as the University of Cambridge, University of Nottingham and many other international universities. Some have also remained at the University of Essex, working as postdoctoral research fellows, research impact officers, or lecturers. Other graduates have joined organisations like the Met Office, the Ministry of Defence, and companies based in the City of London. There is a high demand for those with a numerate background in all sectors of the economy, so our graduates are sought after in the UK and abroad.