INFUZE: Visualization for evaluating probabilistic and agent-based models of mobility transitions

One full scholarship is available at the School of Geography in 2025/26. This scholarship is open to UK and international applicants and covers tuition fees plus maintenance stipend at the UKRI rate (£19,237 in 2024/25) for three and a half years, subject to satisfactory progress.<br /> <br /> This fully funded PhD place provides an exciting opportunity to pursue postgraduate research in a range of fields relating to environmental science and climate change.<br /> <br /> The School of Geography invites applications from prospective postgraduate researchers who wish to commence study for a PhD in the academic year 2025/26 for the School of Geography INFUZE scholarship.<br /> <br /> The award is open to full-time candidates (UK and international) who have been offered a place on a PhD degree at the School of Geography.

<p>In mobility analysis, visualization is often used informally to explore data under different social and environmental contexts, and from here generate new behavioural understanding. Separately, probabilistic and agent-based models provide a mechanism for simulating behaviours and asking what-if questions, resulting in a very large set of ensemble model outputs. But despite the apparent compatibility of visual and model-based approaches, the extent to which visual analytic designs are coupled with probabilistic and agent-based models is relatively limited. This PhD project will develop and apply approaches from geovisualization, risk communication and visual storytelling to interrogate, evaluate and communicate models developed as part of the Inspiring Futures for Zero Carbon Mobility (INFUZE) project. </p> <p>INFUZE will generate models that simulate transitions away from individualised car ownership, informed by insights from community co-design activities, large-scale public attitude surveys and observed physical environment data. The outputs from these simulations will be analysed recursively and in detail. We are interested in the circumstances under which individuals are most affected by mobility transitions, behavioural response to transitions -- how attitudes and behaviours shift in response to shifting circumstances -- and the role of social norms informing behavioural response. The PhD project will develop tools to support this model-building process: helping model builders navigate a wide set of data analytic decisions, provide detailed outputs that support analysts to update prior knowledge in light of evidence and to compare, evaluate and communicate competing models under different probabilities. </p> <p paraeid="{0891f99b-6c40-43b9-afb5-545afdc9c3fa}{12}" paraid="714519697">Applicant skills/interests: </p> <ul> <li paraeid="{0891f99b-6c40-43b9-afb5-545afdc9c3fa}{22}" paraid="1922685521">Geovisualization </li> <li paraeid="{0891f99b-6c40-43b9-afb5-545afdc9c3fa}{30}" paraid="324617663">Probabilistic and agent-based modelling </li> <li paraeid="{0891f99b-6c40-43b9-afb5-545afdc9c3fa}{36}" paraid="1658154662">Statistical methods for uncertainty representation, including Bayesian approaches </li> <li paraeid="{0891f99b-6c40-43b9-afb5-545afdc9c3fa}{42}" paraid="822269014">Visual storytelling </li> <li paraeid="{0891f99b-6c40-43b9-afb5-545afdc9c3fa}{48}" paraid="1419292326">Visualization / statistical graphics programming (e.g. Python, R, D3, vega/vega-lite) </li> <li paraeid="{0891f99b-6c40-43b9-afb5-545afdc9c3fa}{62}" paraid="7402526">Transport mobility analysis </li> </ul> <p><strong>References</strong></p> <p>Gelman, A., Hullman, J., & Kennedy, L. (2023). Causal Quartets: Different Ways to Attain the Same Average Treatment Effect. <em>The American Statistician</em>, 78(3), 267–272. DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.2023.2267597 ">https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.2023.2267597 </a></p> <p>Hullman, J., & Gelman, A. (2021). Designing for Interactive Exploratory Data Analysis Requires Theories of Graphical Inference. <em>Harvard Data Science Review</em>, 3(3). DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.3ab8a587">https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.3ab8a587</a> </p> <p>Hullman, J. (2020). Why Authors Don’t Visualize Uncertainty. <em>IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics</em>, 26(1). DOI: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2019.2934287" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2019.2934287</a> </p>

<p>Formal applications for research degree study should be made online through the <a href="https://www.leeds.ac.uk/research-applying/doc/applying-research-degrees">University's website</a>. You will need to create a login ID with a username and PIN.</p> <ul> <li>For ‘Application type’ please select ‘Reseach Degrees – Research Postgraduate’.</li> <li>The admission year for this project is 2025/26 Academic Year.</li> <li>For ‘Planned Course of Study’ please select ‘PhD Geography Full-time’.</li> <li>For ‘Proposed Start Date of Research’ please select 1 September 2025.</li> <li><strong>In the research information section, you must state clearly that the project you wish to be considered for is ‘INFUZE: Visualization for evaluating probabilistic and agent-based models of mobility transitions’ and name <a href="https://environment.leeds.ac.uk/geography/staff/1003/dr-roger-beecham">Dr Roger Beecham</a> as your proposed supervisor. If you do not do this, your application may not be considered.</strong></li> </ul> <p>If English is not your first language, you must provide evidence that you meet the University's minimum English language requirements (below).</p> <p><em>As an international research-intensive university, we welcome students from all walks of life and from across the world. We foster an inclusive environment where all can flourish and prosper, and we are proud of our strong commitment to student education. Across all Faculties we are dedicated to diversifying our community and we welcome the unique contributions that individuals can bring, and particularly encourage applications from, but not limited to Black, Asian, people who belong to a minority ethnic community, people who identify as LGBT+ and people with disabilities. Applicants will always be selected based on merit and ability.</em></p>

Applicants should normally have at least an upper second class British Bachelors Honours degree (or equivalent) in geography or a related subject. A lower undergraduate degree can be supplemented by a relevant Masters degree. Applicants who are uncertain about the requirements for a particular research degree are advised to contact the Postgraduate Research Admissions team prior to making an application.

The minimum English language entry requirement for research postgraduate research study is an IELTS of 6.0 overall with at least 5.5 in each component (reading, writing, listening and speaking) or equivalent. The test must be dated within two years of the start date of the course in order to be valid. Some schools and faculties have a higher requirement.

<p><strong>Information about the Award</strong></p> <p>We are offering 1 full-time PhD scholarship in the School of Geography for one UK or international candidate, covering tuition fees and a maintenance grant matching the UKRI rate (£19,237 in 2024/25) for three and a half years, subject to satisfactory progress.</p> <p><strong>Duration of the Award</strong></p> <p>Full-time (3.5 years). The award will be made for one year in the first instance and renewable for a further period of up to two and a half years, subject to satisfactory academic progress.</p> <p><strong>Other conditions</strong></p> <ul> <li>Applicants must not have already been awarded or be currently studying for a doctoral degree.</li> <li>Awards must be taken up by 1^st October 2025.</li> <li>Applicants must live within a reasonable distance of the University of Leeds whilst in receipt of this scholarship.</li> </ul>

<p>For further information, please contact the INFUZE team: <a href="mailto:infuze@leeds.ac.uk">infuze@leeds.ac.uk</a>.</p>