Developing a Digital Twin for enhancing resilience of critical coastal infrastructure to compound, multi-hazard and cascading risks

We are recruiting new Doctoral Researchers to our EPSRC-funded Doctoral Landscape Award (DLA) PhD studentships starting 1 October 2025.

Applications are invited for the project title Developing a Digital Twin for enhancing resilience of critical coastal infrastructure to compound, multi-hazard and cascading risks.

Successful applicants will receive an annual stipend (bursary) of approximately £21,237, including inner London weighting, plus payment of their full-time home tuition fees for a period of 42 months (3.5 years).

You should be eligible for home (UK) tuition fees there are a very limited number (no more than two) studentships available to overseas applicants, including EU nationals, who meet the academic entry criteria including English Language proficiency.

You will join the internationally recognised researchers in the Department of Civil Engineering research and PhD programmes | Brunel University London.

The project

Compound, multi-hazard, and cascading (CMC) risks present significant and escalating challenges for critical coastal infrastructure (CCI), such as ports, energy facilities, and transport networks, both in the UK and elsewhere in the world. CMC risks interact in complex, non-linear ways, triggering cascading failures and amplifying direct and indirect impacts across interconnected complex CCI systems, which are fundamental for societal well-being and smooth functioning of important sectors of a nation’s economy and the surrounding and supporting environment. Climate change and extreme weather events (e.g., flooding, heatwaves/drought, coastal erosion) coupled with rapid urbanisation and population growth, will exacerbate these risks.

This project aims to: i) develop a dynamic, data-driven Intelligent Digital Twin modelling platform that integrates real-time monitoring, predictive risk analytics, and scenario simulations; ii) assess the complex multi-hazard interactions and their cascading impacts on CCI networks, and iii) provide decision-support framework to optimise climate adaptation and coastal resilience planning and inform resource allocation and emergency (including infrastructure restoration) response strategies under uncertainty. The project will employ an interdisciplinary approach, combining concepts of flood and coastal engineering, climate change adaptation, infrastructure resilience and sustainability, multi-hazard risk assessment and management frameworks, and leveraging applications of emerging digital technologies (i.e., physics-informed Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence approaches) and big-geospatial-data analytics, modelling, visualisation capabilities.

Please contact Dr Abiy Kebede (abiy.kebede@brunel.ac.uk) or Dr Yurui Fan (yurui.fan@brunel.ac.uk) for an informal discussion about the studentships.

Eligibility

Applicants will have or be expected to receive a first or upper-second class honours degree in an Engineering, Computer Science, Design, Mathematics, Physics, Environmental Science, Geography or a similar discipline. A Postgraduate Masters degree is not required but may be an advantage.

Skills and experience

Applicants will be required to demonstrate the following skills;

Understanding of and experience in coastal processes, critical infrastructure, climate change adaptation, multi-hazard risk assessment, and geospatial data processing, modelling, and visualisation.
Experience in using numerical models and/or willingness to learn computer programming, and developing new ideas and methodologies is an advantage.
Experience or interest in learning development and/or applications of advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Machine Learning (ML), Deep Learning (DL), and so on.

You should be highly motivated, able to work independently as well as in a team, collaborate with others and have good communication skills.

How to apply

There are two stages of the application:

1. Applicants must submit the pre-application form via the following link

https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/brunel/epsrc-dla-25-26-pre-application-form-brunel-university-of-londo

by 16.00 on Friday 17 January 2025.

2. If you are shortlisted for the interview, you will be asked to email the following documentation in a single PDF file to cedps-studentships@brunel.ac.uk within 72hrs.

Your up-to-date CV;
Your Undergraduate degree certificate(s) and transcript(s) first or upper-second class honours degree essential;
Your Postgraduate Masters degree certificate(s) and transcript(s) if applicable;
Your valid English Language qualification of IELTS 6.5 overall (minimum 6.0 in each section) or equivalent, if applicable; this must be valid up to 31 October 2025.
Contact details for TWO referees, one of which can be an academic member of staff in the College.

Applicants should therefore ensure that they have all of this information in case they are shortlisted.

Interviews will take place on 13 and 14 February 2025. For shortlisted international/EU applicants’ interviews will be via Microsoft Teams and for UK applicants’ interviews will be in person at the Brunel University of London campus.

Meet the Supervisor(s)

Abiy Kebede - Dr Kebede is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Flood and Coastal Engineering and the PGR Director in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences (CEDPS) at Brunel University of London. He is also a founding member and Deputy Director of one of Brunel's interdisciplinary Research Centres, the Centre for Flood Risk and Resilience (CFR2). He also leads the Department's Flood, Coastal and Water Engineering (FCWE) Research Group. Prior to joining Brunel, Abiy worked as a Researcher at the University of Southampton, where he also completed his PhD and part of his MSc studies. His current research interests span from integrated assessment of the food-water-land-ecosystems nexus interactions and implications for sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to investigating the potential impacts of climate change, sea-level rise and climate extremes and risks of hydro-geo-meteorlogical hazards (e.g., flooding and coastal erosion), and quantifying the costs and benefits of engineered- and nature-based solutions to climate and environmental risks and sustainability challenges at different spatial (local to global) and temporal (short- to long-term) scales for informing robust climate adaptation and risk management policies. His work explores the following key research questions: What are the physical, socio-economic and environmental impacts of climate change, sea-level rise and climate extremes in coastal areas and river deltas? What are the long-term implications of historic coastal landfills on shoreline management and engineering solutions to coastal risks? What are the direct and indirect impacts and key uncertainties of future changes in climate and socio-economic conditions on the built and natural environment? How can we devise robust adaptation policies across multiple sectors, scales, and scenarios to tackle environmental and sustainability challenges?