I am always happy to receive enquiries from prospective PhD students who want to work in any of the broad areas described on my research interests page. Typically students will be involved in defining their own research project after discussions. Candidates should have a good degree (upper second or first class or overseas equivalent) in mathematics or a related subject with a large component of mathematics.
If you are interested please email me at "r dot hoyle at surrey dot ac dot uk".
Regular patterns arise naturally in many physical, chemical and biological systems - from hexagonal convection cells on the surface of the sun to stripes on a zebra's back. Constantly changing irregular patterns of carbon monoxide (CO) and oxygen are seen during CO oxidation on platinum crystals in the [100] orientation. With colleagues I have developed a reaction-diffusion model to reproduce this pattern formation and created numerical simulations that show patterns made up of moving CO and oxygen fronts. (R.B. Hoyle, A.T. Anghel, M.R.E. Proctor and D.A. King [2007] Pattern formation during the oxidation of CO on Pt{100}: a mesoscopic model. Physical Review Letters, 98, 226102. Copyright (2007) by the American Physical Society.)
Possible PhD projects in this area include:
Molecular motors are proteins that transform chemical energy into mechanical work on a molecular level, generating forces and leading to motion. We are studying myosin V, a processive molecular motor involved in intracellular transport and found in many animal cell types, particularly neurones. It has two heads that bind to an actin filament and a long neck region that attaches to its cargo, such as vesicles and organelles. The myosin molecule walks hand-over-hand along the actin track via the coordinated binding and release of its heads, fuelled by the hydrolysis of ATP. We have used energetics to model the interaction of external load and intramolecular strain with the chemical cycle that governs the stepping action of myosin V, focusing on information transmission between its two heads.(K.I. Skau, R.B. Hoyle and M.S. Turner [2006] A kinetic model describing the processivity of myosin-V. Biophys. J., 91 2475-2489. (List of typos))
Possible PhD projects in this area include:
How do oral histories, tales that encode some part of a community's history or shared culture, spread and persist? Can we model this mathematically, perhaps using an agent-based approach, where we create individuals, give them attributes and behaviours and link them together in an evolving social network? I'd like to find out, perhaps using the evolution of children's nursery rhymes as an example. This project would involve researching the history and geographical distribution of nursery rhymes and attempting to build a model that can reproduce a similar pattern of spread. It would suit a Maths or Computing Science graduate with an interest in social science and some programming skills who is comfortable with an open-ended and exploratory approach in the initial stages.
Funding may be available via an EPSRC studentship for UK and EU students. For UK students an EPSRC studentship pays all course fees and a maintenance allowance. For EU students only the fees are paid by the EPSRC. The closing date for these is usually in April each year. Further information on funding can be found on the faculty graduate school funding page.
We do not have any earmarked funding for overseas (non-EU) students. However, a number of competitive schemes exist, each with its own eligibility criteria. The schemes that we know about are listed on the faculty graduate school funding page.
Further information on our research degree programme can be found on our PhD admissions page.