Research projects

Our BSc students carry out an individual project in year three comprising one quarter of the year’s credits. These projects are supervised by academic researchers in a range of scientific disciplines and interdisciplinary topics. MSci Students in their fourth year (Masters year) carry out larger scale research projects which occupy half their final year and provide excellent preparation for roles in academia or industrial research.

Examples of project topics

An independent research project, supported by an academic supervisor, in which you test a hypothesis through appropriate experimental, analytical and/or computational techniques. You will assess your findings in relation to other work in the subject area through literature studies.

Recent topics include:

• Classification of meteorites
• Effect of digital mapping of fingerprints on everyday objects
• Earth on fire: tracking biomass burning from space
• Blood flow and embolus trajectory within a laboratory replica of the cerebral arteries
• Spectroscopic characterisation of novel nanoparticles
• Can there be life around black holes?
• Medical ultrasound image processing techniques to assess carotid plaque and vessel wall motion
• Land surface temperature changes and climate
• Observations of supernovae
• Substructures within substructures
• Through the eye of a lobster
• Stellar fossils: the end states of binary stars and planetary systems
• eSource: the next step in the evolution of the humble textbook
• An investigation into the dynamics and evolution of Jupiter's great red spot
• Science communication
• Combating antibiotic resistance
• Organometallics and applications in catalysis
• Nanoscale chemistry

Student publications

Some of the projects have led to publications in the peer reviewed scientific literature and are listed below:

• Bond, J.W. & Johnson, M, 'Visualizing indented writing on thermal paper by the controlled application of heat', Journal of Forensic Sciences, 2017 62: 1366-1371
• Peel, A & Bond, J. W., 'Effect of Temperature on the Visualization by Digital Colour Mapping of Latent Fingerprint Deposits on Metal', Journal of Forensic Sciences, 2014 59: 490–493
• Bond, J.W. & Lieu, E, 'Electrochemical behaviour of brass in chloride solution concentrations found in eccrine fingerprint sweat', Applied Surface Science, 2014 313: 455-461
• Williams, M, Zalasiewicz, J, Jarram, D.R., et al. 'Sea ice extent and seasonality for the Early Pliocene northern Weddell Sea', Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 2010 292 (1–2): 306–318