The NZ Astrostatistics and General Relativity Group (NZ Gravity) is coordinating applications for several PhD scholarships within an interdisciplinary team to work on
• interstellar objects, stellar populations, supernovae, large scale structure formation and ultralight dark matter, engaging with the Vera Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) and
• gravitational wave astronomy and statistical data analysis for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission.
The cross-institutional research team spans astrophysics, cosmology, mathematics and statistics with members at five New Zealand universities as well as international collaborators within the Vera Rubin Observatory and the International LISA Consortium.
The LSST is a ten-year, wide-field astronomical survey designed to image the entire southern sky every few nights using a 3.2 gigapixel camera, creating a massive 200-petabyte dataset for studying dark energy and dark matter, mapping the Milky Way, exploring the transient optical sky, and identifying potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroids. The space-based gravitational wave mission LISA raises deep challenges regarding source modelling and numerical simulation and requires new statistical methodologies. We are seeking highly motivated and skilled students with a strong background in statistics, physics, mathematics or a related discipline, with sound computing skills and a keen interest in interdisciplinary research in gravitational wave science. All PhD and MSc candidates will have the opportunity to join the NZ Gravity Group, obtain academic support from an interdisciplinary supervisory team and will contribute to cutting-edge research for the LSST and the LISA mission. The PhD scholarships will be available from May 2026 and provide an annual (tax-free) stipend of NZ$35,000 plus tuition fees for three years. Starting dates are flexible throughout the year.
PhD Projects
- A Census of Stellar Remnants
- Bayesian strategies for noise modelling and estimation of the stochastic
gravitational wave background with LISA - Deep Learning for Corrupted Gravitational-Wave Time Series in LISA
- Gravitational Waves From The Early Universe
- Interstellar Objects
More details about each of the PhD projects including the required skillsets and supervisors can be found here. Admissions decisions will be made by individual universities – please direct initial enquiries to the supervisors of specific projects that interest you or send general queries to
Professor Richard Easther (R.Easther(at)auckland.ac.nz) and
Professor Renate Meyer (Renate.Meyer(at)auckland.ac.nz).