I occasionally advertise PhD places and/or research jobs. If I do not have an advert linked here it is most likely I don't have funding available. If you are a self-funded student interested in working with me please include a mention that you read this page in your email as I get a lot of spam asking about jobs.
Currently I am looking for a PhD student who is a Chinese national eligible for Chinese Scholarship Council funding to study a PhD with me. This is being advertised on findaphd, the text for my project is below. If you are interested in applying the best thing you can do is read the text below and then email me (r.clegg@qmul.ac.uk).
This PhD is about constructing synthetic versions of complex networks. It is a good project for any student with an interest in data science, analysis of systems or the mathematics of complex systems. You will learn about how to analyse data and create new models of those systems.
A core problem in the research of complex networks is that many data sets are too sensitive to be studied properly. Consider some important networks data sets: networks showing who buys what items online (for studying how to recommend new items); how people transfer their money between bank accounts (for studying fraud perhaps); or how people meet in the real life (for example for studying disease transmission). These would be invaluable data sets but they are extremely private. Very few people would want this information about them made public and companies or organisations involved would consider it proprietary information.
This type of data is very hard to make anonymous (NetFlix, the video streaming company, tried to do so and failed). It is important to study the nature of privacy in networks, how we can guarantee privacy and what properties of networks expose risk. The ultimate aim is to create a system that can produce a synthetic version of a real network that guarantees the network data produced is private. The project can be computational or mathematical or a mix of both depending on the skills of the student. Please contact Richard Clegg (r.clegg@qmul.ac.uk) for more details.