Posted by Ted Feldpausch
20 October 2026Prof Ted Feldpausch is recruiting students for the China Scholarship Council and University of Exeter PhD Scholarships. Full-time PhD scholarships are available in collaboration with the China Scholarship Council (CSC), for September 2027/28 entry.
The PhD projects focus on a range of themes related to fire, land-use change, tree mortality, carbon cycling, and forest degradation and restoration. The research is part of large-scale NERC-funded projects. Potential projects are listed below.
Lead Supervisor: Prof Ted Feldpausch
Contact Email: t.r.feldpausch@exeter.ac.uk
Department: Geography
This project will test how fire regimes, a warming and drying climate, and land-use change interact to drive tree mortality and forest degradation. It will quantify the consequences for above-ground and soil carbon, including pyrogenic carbon, and for forest structure measured from the field and by Lidar. The student can build on long-term forest plots and fire experiments in Amazonia, and can shape the question towards other forest biomes.
Lead Supervisor: Prof Ted Feldpausch
Contact Email: t.r.feldpausch@exeter.ac.uk
Department: Geography
Lightning kills large trees and can ignite fires, but its contribution to forest carbon loss is poorly constrained. This project will link lightning detection data with forest plot and remote sensing records to estimate tree mortality and carbon loss. The student will also ask how a changing climate alters lightning-driven disturbance and wildfire risk.
Lead Supervisor: Prof Ted Feldpausch
Contact Email: t.r.feldpausch@exeter.ac.uk
Department: Geography
Fuel moisture and understorey microclimate control whether a forest burns, yet they are rarely measured at scale. This project will use field sensors, Lidar and satellite radar to map microclimate and fuel dryness through drought. The aim is to build early-warning indicators of fire risk and to test how fire and degradation change the forest microclimate.
Lead Supervisor: Ted Feldpausch
Second Supervisor: Kees Jan Van Groenigen
Contact email for project enquiries: t.r.feldpausch@exeter.ac.uk
This project will assess how local versus regional fires have shaped black carbon distribution in Amazonian old-growth forests, and what this means for soil carbon storage and fertility. The student will model windborne black carbon transport using current climate, MODIS fire counts, palaeo-climate reconstructions and HYSPLIT, with soil black carbon datasets available from our UKRI-funded projects. Applicants should have strong spatial analytical skills, experience with Python or R, and a background in ecology, soil or atmospheric science, geography or a related field.
Other projects are welcome related to wildfire, drought, and forest and soil carbon dynamics, in the tropics or in other forest biomes.
Contact Prof Feldpausch to discuss potential applications. For more information and to apply:
University CSC scholarships page (2027 details to be published by the University in autumn 2026): https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/pg-research/csc-scholarships/
Environment and Sustainability projects: https://www.exeter.ac.uk/study/pg-research/csc-scholarships/environment/
Application deadline for 2027 entry: to be confirmed by the University (the 2026 round closed on 1 December 2025). Contact Prof Feldpausch early to discuss a project.