Project Scholarships

Diabetes Oral Health Dental Service (DIOH-DS): Implementation of a new model of care

School of Nursing and Midwifery

Lead Researcher: Professor Ajesh George

a.george@westernsydney.edu.au

Diabetes affects almost 1.9 million Australians and is one of the biggest challenges for the nation's health care system, costing the national economy $17.6b annually. Gum (periodontal) disease is the sixth most prevalent complication of diabetes. Diabetes also has a bidirectional relationship with gum disease. However, recent consensus has shown that treating gum disease can significantly improve blood glucose management among people with diabetes.

Both Australian and international guidelines highlight the effectiveness and safety of periodontal treatment for people with diabetes and recommend that all diabetes care providers undertake oral health reviews as part of holistic management. Research, however, has shown that diabetes care providers place little emphasis on oral health due to limited training and knowledge. Currently, there is no system in place that offers people with diabetes regular and effective oral health promotion.

This PhD project will complement a larger randomised controlled trial that will explore the clinical effectiveness, cost effectiveness and implementation of a preventive diabetes oral health intervention delivered by diabetes care providers (DIOH), along with a dental service (DS) intervention. The RCT aims to address the above research gaps. The PhD Project will involve analysing and evaluating the implementation and sustainability of the program to better understand its scalability.

The student will be based at the Australian Centre for Integration of Oral Health (ACIOH) (www.acioh.com), the leading national research centre in integrated oral health care. The centre is based at the Ingham Institute for Applied Medical Research (Liverpool Precinct).

What does the scholarship provide?

• Domestic candidates will receive a tax-free stipend of $35,188 (AUD) per annum for up to 3 years to support living costs, supported by the Research Training Program (RTP) Fee Offset.
• Support for conference attendance, fieldwork and additional costs as approved by the Centre (ACIOH).

Eligibility criteria

We welcome applicants with a background in public health, nursing, medicine, health science, health promotion, or implementation science. The successful applicant should:

• Hold qualifications and experience equal to one of the following (i) an Australian First Class Bachelor (Honours) degree, (ii) coursework Masters with at least 25% research component, (iii) Research Masters degree, or (iv) equivalent overseas qualifications.
• Demonstrate strong academic performance.
• Have an understanding of the importance of integrated oral health care systems.
• Experience in systematic reviews/meta-analysis, qualitative/quantitative data collection and analysis using relevant software’s (e.g. NVivo, SPSS, Stata)
• Be enthusiastic and highly motivated to undertake further study at an advanced level.

Applications close: 31 May 2026

PS2026_015_CS0590220_SoNM

Crop Physiology and Phenotyping in Vertical Farms

School of Medicine

Lead Researcher: Professor Oula Ghannoum

The Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (HIE) at Western Sydney University (WSU) is offering one research scholarship to a highly motivated PhD candidate to work within a research group addressing the key challenge of optimising the yield, quality and disease and stress resistance of horticultural crops (e.g., mushroom, leafy greens, strawberry) grown in vertical farms, in collaboration with Prof Wen Hu at University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Industry Partner Vertical Patch.

HIE is a research institute within WSU and has rapidly become a research leader in plant environmental and ecological research, with a strong reputation for delivering research outcomes of the highest quality. This research will connect plant biology and imaging to IOT project led from UNSW.

This project will appoint one HDR student as part of an ARC Linkage project (Battery-Free IoT-Based Sensing and Control for Protected Cropping), a collaboration between UNSW (lead organisation, WSU and Industry Partner Vertical Patch to an innovative solution by integrating battery-free intermittent computing and sensing and data-driven adaptive control for real-time environmental optimisation. The project will contribute to the education and training of ECR and HDR for the protected cropping

industry, particularly indoor vertical farming.

The aim of this PhD project is to collect physiological (including photosynthesis) and imaging data towards developing an integrated crop monitoring and decision support system for real-time controlled optimisation of crop growth and growth conditions in vertical farms.

The project will combine measurements of photosynthesis as well chlorophyll fluorescence to study plant biology together with plant phenotyping using RGBD imaging and/or commercial phenotyping facility as part of APPN node at WSU Hawkesbury campus. The project is led by Professor Oula Ghannoum at WSU in collaboration with a Prof Wen Hu (WSU, and Mr Wayne Forde (Vertical Patch).

What does the scholarship provide?

• Domestic candidates will receive a tax-free stipend of $37,000 (AUD) per annum for up to 3 years to support living costs, supported by the Research Training Program (RTP) Fee Offset.
• International candidates will receive a tax-free stipend of $37,000 (AUD) per annum for up to 3 years to support living costs, a tuition fee waiver and an Overseas Student Health Cover (OSHC) Single Policy.
• Support for conference attendance, fieldwork and additional costs as approved by the Institute.

Eligibility criteria

We welcome applicants from a range of backgrounds, who are keen to apply their skills to key issues in crop physiology in protected facilities. In particular, the project is suitable for candidates with strong interests in digital phenotyping and using state-of-the-art algorithms to build digital plant model for the applications in photosynthesis for example assessing parameters that influence carbon assimilation.

The successful applicant should:

• Hold qualifications and experience equal to one of the following (i) an Australian First Class Bachelor (Honours) degree, (ii) coursework master's with at least 25% research component, (iii) Research Master's degree, or (iv) equivalent overseas qualifications.
• Demonstrate strong academic performance in subjects relevant to crop physiology, including leaf photosynthesis (gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence) and biochemistry (assays of enzymes and metabolites).
• Demonstrate experience with advanced statistical methods and data-set analysis using statistical software packages (e.g., R, Python).
• Experience in collection and analysis imaging (e.g, RGB, infrared and/or hyperspectral) is essential.
• Willingness to learn computational techniques applicable to crop phenotyping.
• Have good oral and written communication skills and be highly motivated to progress research in a timely manner.

International applicants must demonstrate English language proficiency.

Applications close: 30 April 2026

REF: PS2026_018_CS0794311_HIE