PhD Opportunities

The Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean, under the leadership of Professor Dirk Zeller, is looking for highly motivated potential PhD candidates interested in conducting research on fisheries and fisheries conservation issues at the ocean-basin and global scale. If this is of interest to you, then consider applying for a PhD Scholarship at UWA. UWA offers a limited number of these scholarships to both domestic (i.e., Australian) and international PhD candidates each year to work with leading researchers to address some of the world’s growing challenges, such as that of over-exploitation of ocean resources. Candidates should be academically outstanding students (i.e., First Class Honours or Master’s degrees) who are eager to advance meaningful, high output research, and who have not completed or are engaged in a PhD elsewhere. Australian PhD programs normally last for three years and scholarships are awarded for the duration. No graduate course work is required (unlike in the North American system).

The Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean provides a great opportunity to work collaboratively with our world leading research partners. This includes the Sea Around Us initiative at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and other research partners around the world, such as the Fisheries and Food Security group at Harvard University, the Aquatic Resource Trade in Species (ARTIS) group at American University, Global Fishing Watch, the Fisheries Economics Research Unit, FishBase etc.. Professor Zeller also regularly collaborates and partners with Professor Jessica Meeuwig and the UWA Marine Futures Lab. Emphasis is on conservation and fisheries science at the ocean-basin scale and globally. The research projects focus on high-impact written output in the scientific literature, accompanied by public and media outreach.

Besides the excellent professional development opportunities of being part of this global network of leading researchers, living in Perth also offers a great lifestyle; you will get to live very close to great beaches with a comfortable climate in beautiful Western Australia.

Suitable candidates will be encouraged to apply for scholarships after extensive discussions with Professor Zeller, and after a project has been agreed upon. Early contact is essential, well before the annual scholarship round opens. Please contact Dirk Zeller directly (dirk.zeller@uwa.edu.au) for potential suitability and likely projects after carefully considering the above.

Relevant background information on the purpose of and research conducted by the Sea Around Us – Indian Ocean can also be found on the profile of Dirk Zeller, the Sea Around Us - Indian Ocean Publications page or on the What We Do page. For more information on scholarships click here.