PhD Opportunity – An Integrated Approach to Assess Microbial Water Quality & Health Risks in Wastewater-Impacted Catchments

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.

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.

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.

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.

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