On behalf of Professor David Crabb, City University London, [log in to unmask]:
Fully funded PhD Studentships
The Crabb Lab at City University London provides a lively research environment with a unique mixture of vision scientists, ophthalmologists, computer scientists and mathematicians.
Two full time PhD studentships in data science are now available (October 1st 2016) in this lab focussing on:
1. Detecting and monitoring glaucoma using eye movement scan paths
Eye movements (EMs) are the most frequent voluntary action we make in our waking day, occurring more times per second than our hearts beat. A predominant EM is the saccade – the quick, ballistic action the eyes make as they move between fixations. Our overall working hypothesis is dysfunction in the visual system can turn up in the form of tell-tale differences in a person’s gaze measured by state-of-the-art eye tracking, including a novel analysis of patterns of saccades, as a person watches a film. Glaucoma detection and monitoring is done, mainly inadequately, in a clinic; a system that is likely unsustainable in the future. Instead of relying on infrequent tests in a clinic, focus should shift to capturing vision loss as part of a person’s ordinary daily activities. Our contention is that anomalies in EMs tracked during viewing of stimuli have the potential to be developed into a rigorous test that could be incorporated into an everyday activity, like something as simple as watching a movie. Our research lab is collecting an archive of EM data in people with and without glaucoma as they watch different types of movies & footage of natural scenes and this data is available for analysis in this project. We therefore seek a creative scientist that can further develop methods to analyse these data.
Supervision
References
Crabb D.P. (2015). A view on glaucoma – Are we seeing it clearly? Eye doi: 10.1038/eye.2015.244. [Epub ahead of print]
Crabb D.P., Smith, N.D., and Zhu, H. (2014). What’s on TV? Detecting age-related neurodegenerative eye disease using eye movement scanpaths. Front Aging Neurosci.6:312.
Glen, F.C., Smith, N.D., and Crabb, D.P. (2013). Saccadic eye movements and face recognition performance in patients with central glaucomatous visual field defects. Vision Res. 82, 42–51.
Smith, N.D., Glen, F.C., and Crabb, D.P. (2012) Eye movements during visual search in patients with glaucoma. BMC Ophthalmol. 12:45
Smith, N.D., Crabb, D.P., Glen, F.C., Burton, R., and Garway-Heath, D. F. (2012) Eye Movements in Patients with Glaucoma When Viewing Images of Everyday Scenes.Seeing Perceiving 25:471-492.
Crabb, D.P., Smith, N.D., Rauscher, F.G., Chisholm, C.M., Barbur, J.L., Edgar, D.F., and Garway-Heath, D.F. (2010).
Exploring eye movements in patients with glaucoma when viewing a driving scene. PLoS One. 16;5(3):e9710.
2. Combining imaging and functional measurements in glaucoma
In clinical practice, the main measurement of vision loss in glaucoma is done with automated perimetry yielding visual field maps. These maps exhibit massive measurement variability often meaning delayed identification of disease deterioration, with a consequence on treatment outcomes, and the requirement for frequent clinic visits for visual field examinations, with consequent cost and patient inconvenience. This programme of work will investigate if combining information from retinal imaging and conventional visual field measurements accelerate the reliable identification of vision loss in patients with glaucoma. This programme of work will adapt and develop statistical models for detecting glaucoma progression already developed at City University London and will also incorporate modern statistical methods (feature extraction) for assessing changes in shapes in the retinal images. The project will take advantage of huge data sets of measurements taken from clinics and clinical trials. We seek a creative data scientist who will develop these statistical methods to potentially provide improved clinical outcomes. The scientist will also work directly with software engineers at Heidelberg Engineering with the aim of implementing the methodology on clinically used instruments.
Supervision
References
Zhu, H., Poostchi, A., Vernon, SA., and Crabb, D.P. (2014). Detecting abnormality in optic nerve head images using a feature extraction analysis. Biomed Opt Express 5, 2215-30.
Zhu, H., Russell, R.A., Saunders, L.J, Ceccon, S., Garway-Heath, D.F., and Crabb, D.P. (2014). Detecting changes in retinal function: Analysis with Non-Stationary Weibull Error Regression and Spatial enhancement (ANSWERS). PLoS One. 9(1):e85654.
Saunders, L.J., Russell, R.A., Kirwan, J.F., McNaught, A.I., and Crabb, D.P. (2014). Examining visual field loss in patients in glaucoma clinics during their predicted remaining lifetime. Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. 55, 102-109.
Zhu, H., Crabb, D.P., Fredette, M.J., Anderson, D.R., and Garway-Heath DF. (2011). Quantifying discordance between structure and function measurements in the clinical assessment of glaucoma. Arch Ophthalmol. 129(9):1167-74.
Zhu, H., Crabb, D.P., Schlottmann, P.G., Lemij, H., Reus, N.J., Healey, P.R., Mitchell, P., Ho, T. and Garway-Heath DF. (2010). Predicting Visual Function from the Measurements of Retinal Nerve Fibre Layer Structure. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 51:5657-66.
Further details
The projects are described in greater detail here:
Applications can be made at the bottom of this webpage:
(The City University London projects are #3 and #5)
The studentships
Training in software engineering, programming, statistics, biomedical engineering, computer science (at Masters level). Detailed knowledge about vision or eyes will not be required, but a flair for creatively analysing data is essential. Alternatively someone with clinical (biomedical) expertise and some knowledge/expertise of the above.
Results from this PhD are likely to generate considerable interest and will lead to presentations at
conferences in the US and Europe; extensive travel funding is available. The 3-year studentship is worth £25,000 per annum (tax free), with all fees for PhD registration paid.
Eligibility
The EGRET+ program is supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant. According to the grant rules, transnational mobility is required for all PhD positions.
To be eligible for a PhD position, you cannot have resided or carried out your main activity in the country of the recruiting institution (in the case of these two studenships, the UK) for more than 12 months during the previous 36 months. We are only recruiting Early-Stage Researchers who, at the time of recruitment are in the first four years (full-time equivalent research experience) of their research careers and not yet have been awarded a doctoral degree. More about eligibility rules can be found at:
http://egret-plus.eu/phd-positions/eligibility-criteria/
Applications (CV, including names of two referees and a statement of interest about the project) should be submitted by email to:
Professor David Crabb
School of Health Sciences,
City University London, Northampton Square,
London EC1V 0HB
Tel: +44 (0)20 7040 0191
Informal enquires are strongly encouraged.
