NERC RED-ALERT Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT); University of Exeter
🔬 Research Focus
- Investigate microbial pollution in freshwater catchments impacted by wastewater, including pathogens, antimicrobial-resistant (AMR) organisms, and AMR genes.
- Characterise how microbial contaminants are distributed, transported, and persist via hydrodynamic catchment modelling.
- Develop environmental epidemiology approaches to link water quality data to human health risk — especially for recreational water users.
- Use molecular microbiology, rapid diagnostics, and field data to build a real-time or near-real-time framework for environmental health monitoring.
🏛️ Partners & Impact
- Host: University of Exeter
- Supervisory Team: Includes academics in microbiology, hydrology, epidemiology, and public health.
- CASE / Policy Partner: UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) — providing policy relevance and pathways to influence.
- Real-World Relevance: Focused on living lab catchments (Exe, Tamar, Dart) to generate data that can inform water-safety policy, regulation, and public health strategies.
🧪 Training & Skills Development
- Field sampling of rivers and catchments to monitor microbial contamination.
- Lab work in molecular microbiology, pathogen detection, and rapid diagnostics.
- Hydrodynamic modelling to understand pollutant transport.
- Environmental epidemiology training: linking exposures to health outcomes.
- Data analysis, GIS, science-policy translation, and risk assessment.
🎯 Who Should Apply
- Students with a background in environmental sciences, microbiology, public health, epidemiology, or hydrology.
- Those interested in One Health, especially how environmental pollution impacts human health.
- Candidates who enjoy both fieldwork and modelling, and want to bridge science and policy.
- Researchers motivated by applied impact: improving water-quality monitoring and public-health risk assessment.
⭐ Why This PhD Matters
- Addresses a critical gap: standard water-quality indicators (e.g., faecal indicator bacteria) may not fully capture microbial health risks from AMR or pathogens. www.FindAPhD.com
- Helps build real-time environmental-health monitoring frameworks that can inform interventions.
- Combines hydrology, microbiology, epidemiology, and policy, giving you a truly interdisciplinary experience.
- Embedded in the RED-ALERT CDT, meaning you’ll be part of a collaborative network training students to lead the next generation of water-health science.
The deadline for applications is 23:59 on Friday 16 January 2026.
Formal applications should be submitted via the Red-ALERT CDT online application form
More info available at NERC RED-ALERT CDT: An Integrated Approach to Assess Microbial Water Quality and Health Risks in Wastewater-Impacted Catchments