PhD opportunities
Applying for a PhD
For prospective applicants wishing to start a PhD in our group in 2025/26, there are two possibilities to receive a fully-funded doctoral position.
Studentships funded by the School of Mathematics and Physical Sciences through its EPSRC Doctoral Landscape Award.
One studentship in Algebraic Geometry under the supervision of Evgeny Shinder funded by his UKRI Horizon Europe guarantee grant.
One studentship in Mathematical Physics under the supervision of Albrecht Klemm funded by his Leverhulme Trust grant.
EPSRC Studentships
The EPSRC studentships can fund PhD projects under the supervision of any member of staff in our group, and they include a stipend and support for travel and research training. Furthermore, all studentships cover the amount of home-level fees (applicable to long-term residents of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland) and a selected, limited number of the EPSRC studentships account also for the full amount of overseas fees (applicable to international applicants).
Deadline: please apply by 20 January 2025 for full consideration.
Feel free to have a look at our research interests and members section to choose potential supervisor(s). Informal enquiries from interested candidates can be sent to Andrea Brini.
UKRI Studentship in Algebraic Geometry
The UKRI studentship will be under the supervision of Evgeny Shinder for PhD work on the UKRI Horizon Europe guarantee project Motivic invariants and birational geometry of simple normal crossing degenerations. This is studentship is potentially open to international candidates. Please contact Evgeny Shinder for any questions.
Deadline: flexible. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, but please apply by 29 January 2025 for full consideration. All applications for the EPSRC studentships will automatically be considered for this position. If you are applying for an EPSRC studentship, there is no need to send a separate application for the UKRI studentship.
Leverhulme Studentship in Mathematical Physics
The Leverhulme studentship will be under the supervision of Albrecht Klemm for PhD work on the Leverhulme Trust project Quantum geometry and arithmetics. This position is only available for students having "home status" for tuition fee purposes (long-term residents of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland). Please contact Albrecht Klemm for any questions.
Deadline: flexible. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, but please apply by 29 January 2025 for full consideration. All applications for the EPSRC studentships will automatically be considered for this position. If you are applying for an EPSRC studentship, there is no need to send a separate application for the Leverhulme Trust studentship.
How to apply
Please use the University online system to submit your application for both the EPSRC DLA studentships and the UKRI studentsthip. You will need to click the "Start new application" link at the bottom of the page. See also general guidance on how to apply.
Most sections in the form need to be filled out with your personal details and are self-explanatory. A few sections ask specifically about your choice of course applications as well as supporting documents. For this part, please refer to the following instructions and required documents specific to our group.
Under Section D -- Course specific questions:
Select "S3.5-MPS-Open" in the drop-down list appearing in Choice 1.
Then please answer all of the three course-specific questions, in as much detail as possible. The answers you provide here may be taken into account when the final ranking list is formed.
Under Section G -- Previous education: if available, please also upload your transcripts and your Master thesis work.
Under Section J -- References: upload two reference letters, or contact details of two referees who can provide you with a reference.
Under Section I -- Supporting statement: please refer to the guidance notes on the webpage for what to include. You should include details of the area you wish to pursue and the name of at most three possible supervisors.
Under Section M -- Personal Supporting Documents: we require you to upload a CV in this section.
PhD Life In The Algebraic Geometry and Mathematical Physics Group
There is a growing number of PhD students working on a variety of areas in the Algebraic Geometry and Mathematical Physics Group. In the department there are many other PhD students to talk to working in Algebraic Topology, Number Theory, General Relativity, Quantum Field Theory, Category Theory and Differential Geometry.
The Sheffield department is quite an active one. Each week there is ample opportunity to attend a variety of seminars run by various research groups. The algebraic geometry and mathematical physics postgraduates themselves organise a weekly reading group where they work through a set of lecture notes on a particular topic.
In 2024-25 we are running a learning seminar on the minimal model programme.
Past topics included:
singularity theory
motivic integration
intersection theory
algebraic stacks
toric varieties
algebraic surfaces
Donaldson-Thomas theory
K3 surfaces
parts of Ravi Vakil’s Foundations of Algebraic Geometry
Robin Hartshorne’s notes on Deformation Theory
various topics from Mirror Symmetry
More broadly, there are several postgraduate reading groups in areas other than algebraic geometry and mathematical physics. To name a few, there have been study groups on Topological K-Theory, V.I. Arnold’s book Mathematical Methods of Classical Mechanics, Applied Topology and Galois Representations.