World-Leading Doctoral Scholarship in Geography and Sustainable Development and Earth Sciences: Groundwater under Antarctica: Impact of deep subglacial groundwater on Antarctic ocean circulation

The University of St Andrews is pleased to offer a full 3.5 year PhD scholarship funded by St Leonard’s Postgraduate College, to support an exceptional student to start in September/October 2025 or January 2026.

Summary of project: Reconsidering how meltwater moves via both subglacial and groundwater pathways represents a significant shift in understanding how the Antarctic ice sheet interacts with the surrounding oceans. An updated view that presents a unified ice sheet-groundwater-ocean system, in turn, will further constrain the large uncertainty in future ice sheet stability and catastrophic sea level rise. In this light, the objective of this ambitious PhD project is to reshape our thinking on the interaction between ice sheets and their surrounding oceans to include the role of groundwater dynamics.

This project is uniquely multidisciplinary, and we encourage ambitious candidates who have a background in physics, mathematics, oceanography, scientific computing, physical geography, earth sciences, or other relevant disciplines to apply. We welcome interested candidates to reach out to get to know the supervisory team and gain further insight in how the project advances the candidates’ academic interests and ambitions. 

For the details of this project, candidate eligibility, how to apply, and funding information, please see our webpage for the project: Groundwater under Antarctica: Impact of deep subglacial groundwater on Antarctic ocean circulation.

The application deadline is Friday 21 February 2025 but please be aware that you need to start the application process three days before this deadline. Guidance on this can be found under ‘How to apply’ on the World-Leading Doctoral Scholarship in Geography and Sustainable Development and Earth Sciences page.