PhD students

Prospective PhD students

Information about applying for PhD places and funding is available at the Gravitation and Cosmology PhD projects webpage.  In particular, please do not send applications directly to me. 

For entry in October 2027, there is the possibility of funding via EPSRC studentships, for the following project:

Charged quantum fermion fields on black hole space-times 

Applications for consideration for EPSRC funding must be made via the link below:

Apply for a PhD 

While applications are open to both UK and international students, the funding available for international students is extremely limited. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that there will be any funding at all for my particular project. 

To work under my supervision, I usually expect PhD students to have (or expect to obtain) the equivalent of a UK first class undergraduate degree at either BSc or MMath/MPhys/MSci level.  If you have a BSc undergraduate degree, then usually a Master's level qualification in either Theoretical Physics or Mathematics is also required.  A strong background in general relativity and flat space-time quantum field theory is necessary; knowledge of quantum field theory in curved space-time is an advantage.   Experience with algebraic and numerical computing (whether using Mathematica, Maple, Matlab or Python) is also required.  

Possible PhD projects

My current research lies in Quantum Field Theory in Curved Space-time. I am interested in three aspects of this: 

• canonical quantization and defining quantum states, 

• computing renormalized expectation values of field operators, and 

• using these expectation values to study the backreaction effect of the quantum field on the space-time. 

As well as the above advertized projects, applications from self-funding students to work on any of these aspects are always welcome.

Current PhD students

• Rose Grayson (started October 2026)

Visiting PhD students

• Tommaso Bambagiotti (Universita di Bologna) - 2026

• Bruno Felipe (Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil) - 2025 

• Alvaro Alvarez Dominguez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain) - 2024

• Silvia Pla Garcia (Universidad de Valencia, Spain) - 2021

Past PhD students