Postgraduate Research international awards at The University of Sydney

This scholarship aims to support a student undertaking a PhD within the EarthByte Group in the School of Geosciences, Faculty of Science, with a focus on applying spatio-temporal data analysis for reconstructing the sedimentary evolution of the ocean basins. Deep-sea sediments record changes in climate, paleogeography, surface environments and biogeochemical cycles through geological time. In this project ocean drilling data will be used in combination with paleobathymetric maps, paleoclimate models and machine learning tools to reconstruct the accumulation rates of key components of deep-sea sediments, with a focus on deep-sea carbonates, organic carbon and the global carbon cycle.

The EarthByte Group is a leader in developing spatio-temporal data analysis tools. In this project a range of open-source tools including pyGPlates, pyBacktrack, and machine learning tools will be applied to understand how major changes in ocean basin configurations and paleoclimate are reflected in the history of deep sea sedimentation and carbon storage. This project is part of an ARC Future Fellowship and will involve the Sydney Informatics Hub, offering broad expertise in data science, python scripting and workflow development. This project is perfectly suited to COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 times because it relies on an enormous wealth of existing analytical data and it uses data analysis methods that can easily be applied in other fields, leading to broad employment opportunities.

You must:

• be currently enrolled or have an unconditional offer of admission to study a full-time PhD
• be willing to conduct research into deep-sea sedimentology and spatio-temporal data analysis
• hold an honours degree (first class or second class upper) in geosciences, or a master's degree in a related field with a substantial research component
• be willing to travel to remote field areas such as the Great Barrier Reef.

This scholarship will provide a stipend allowance of $28,092 per annum (indexed on 1 January each year) for up to three years, subject to satisfactory academic performance. The recipient may apply for an extension of the stipend allowance for up to six months.