Job offerings / positions

PhD Scholarship 2022 – Predicting bubbles in recreational scuba divers

A new PhD scholarships was announced today, to study bubbles in recreational/technical divers, in Perth, Western Australia.

This project will collate existing human bubble data recorded in vivo in recreational divers, using published research and existing datasets in Australia, Europe and North America. A bubble “score” is given after observing the quantity of bubbles passing through the right ventricle of the heart, using 2D echocardiography. The partial pressure of inert gas dissolved in the divers will be estimated using software authored by the research team. An algorithm will be developed with three possible outcomes: no detectable bubbles, low bubbling or high bubbling. The independent predictor variables will be a set of classic Haldanean tissue pressures, which are already well-established in popular dive computers. In this way, divers and dive computers of the future will be able to simultaneously predict the probability of both decompression sickness and bubble formation. We will then validate our algorithm by recording bubbles in recreational divers in Western Australia and comparing their bubble scores with those predicted by the algorithm, (based on the recorded depth-time dive profiles). A second validation set of dives will be made in the Fiona Stanley Hyperbaric Medicine Unit, in a custom-built pool inside the hyperbaric chamber.

All PhD tuition fees are covered plus it comes with an almost $30,000 per year tax-free living allowance, and many other allowances (e.g. $4,000 for quarantine, plus a new laptop/software, conference fees, travel, etc).

Applications open: 19/07/2021
Applications close: 13/08/2021

Details are here: https://scholarships.curtin.edu.au/Scholarship/?id=5501