Applications now open for PhD in Computational Statistics and Data Science

Start your PhD in Data Science now

Compass CDT is now recruiting for its fully funded places to start September 2023.

We are happy to announce that The University of Bristol online application system is open, and we are receiving applications for Compass CDT programme for September 2023 start. Early application is advised.

For 2023/34 entry, applicants must review the projects on offer. The projects are listed in the research section of our website. You will need to provide a Research Statement in your application documents with a ranked list of 3 projects of interest to you: 1 being the project of highest interest.

PhD Project Allocation Process

Application forms will be reviewed based on the 3 ranked projects specified. Successful applicants will be invited to attend an interview with the Compass admissions tutors and the specific project supervisor. If you are made an offer of PhD study it will be published through the online application system. You will then have 2 weeks to consider the offer before deciding whether to accept or decline.

The next review of applications for 2023 funded places will take place after

4 January 2023.

APPLY NOW

We welcome applications from all members of our community and are particularly encouraging those from diverse groups, such as members of the LGBT+ and black, Asian and minority ethnic communities, to join us.

Advantages of being a Compass Student

  • Stipend – a generous stipend of £21,668 pa tax free, paid in monthly payments. Plus your own expense budget of £1,000 pa towards travel and research activity.
  • No fees – all tuition fees are covered by the EPSRC and University of Bristol.
  • Bespoke training – first year units are designed specifically for the academic needs of each Compass student, which enables students to develop knowledge and capability to pursue cross-disciplinary PhD research.
  • Supervisors – supervisors from across academic disciplines offer a range of research projects.
  • Cohort – Compass students benefit from dedicated offices and collaboration spaces, enabling strong cohort links and opportunities for shared learning and research.

About Compass CDT

A 4-year bespoke PhD training programme in the statistical and computational techniques of data science, with partners from across the University of Bristol, industry and government agencies.

The cross-disciplinary programme offers exciting collaborations across medicine, computer science, geography, economics, life and earth sciences, as well as with our external partners who range from government organisations such as the Office for National Statistics, NCSC and the AWE, to industrial partners such as LV, Improbable, IBM Research, EDF, and AstraZeneca.

Students are co-located with the Institute for Statistical Science in the School of Mathematics, which occupies the Fry Building.

Hear from our students about their experience with the programme

  • Compass has allowed me to advance my statistical knowledge and apply it to a range of exciting applied projects, as well as develop skills that I’m confident will be highly useful for a future career in data science. – Shannon, Cohort 2

  • With the Compass CDT I feel part of a friendly, interactive environment that is preparing me for whatever I move on to next, whether it be in Academia or Industry. – Sam, Cohort 2

  • An incredible opportunity to learn the ever-expanding field of data science, statistics and machine learning amongst amazing people. – Danny, Cohort 1

APPLY BEFORE: 

Wednesday 4 January 2023, 5pm (London, UK time zone)

APPLY NOW

Student perspectives: Compass Conference 2022

A post by Dominic Broadbent and Dom Owens, PhD students on the Compass CDT, and Compass conference co-organisers.

Introduction

September saw the first annual Compass Conference, hosted in the newly refurbished Fry Building, home to the School of Mathematics. The conference was a fantastic opportunity for PhD students across Compass to showcase their research, meet with industrial partners and to celebrate their achievements. The event also welcomed the new cohort of PhD students, as well as prospective PhD students taking part in the Access to Data Science programme. (more…)

Student perspectives: ensemble modelling for probabilistic volcanic ash hazard forecasting

A post by Shannon Williams, PhD student on the Compass programme.

My PhD focuses on the application of statistical methods to volcanic hazard forecasting. This research is jointly supervised by Professor Jeremy Philips (School of Earth Sciences) and Professor Anthony Lee. (more…)

Compass student publishes article in Frontiers

Compass student Dan Milner and his academic supervisors have published an article in Frontiers, one of the most cited and largest research publishers in the world. Dan’s work is funded in collaboration with ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute). (more…)

Student Perspectives: An introduction to normalising flows

A post by Dan Ward, PhD student on the Compass programme.

Normalising flows are black-box approximators of continuous probability distributions, that can facilitate both efficient density evaluation and sampling. They function by learning a bijective transformation that maps between a complex target distribution and a simple distribution with matching dimension, such as a standard multivariate Gaussian distribution. (more…)

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