Health awards fully funded PhD fellowships to eight researchers
Twice a year, the faculty awards fully funded PhD fellowships to talented researchers with promising careers ahead of them. The first pool of the year has now been distributed, and eight researchers can look forward to being enrolled as PhD students at the Graduate School at Health.
About the fully funded PhD fellowships
- The faculty awards fully funded PhD fellowships twice a year based on open calls for proposals. The exact number of PhD fellowships is determined prior to each round of funding.
- The PhD fellowships are awarded based on a number of assessment criteria and the Scholarship Committee's expert assessments of the applicants' qualifications, talent and project.
- The Scholarship Committee is appointed by the dean and acts as an advisory body. The committee members represent the academic diversity at Health.
- A fully financed PhD fellowship covers three years' salary and expenses related to carrying out studies.
- The next round of funding will take place at the end of the autumn semester.
In the first round of funding in 2023, the faculty has invested in eight new PhD students. Two of them are affiliated with the Department of Public Health, while the others are affiliated with the Department of Clinical Medicine. The fellowships cover a wide range of topics from reproduction and physical activity to venous thromboembolism and Parkinson's disease. The new PhD students are:
Andreas Baun, Department of Clinical Medicine
Title: Connecting the dots across systems - a multimodal imaging study on prodromal Parkinsonism
Supervisor: Professor Nicola Pavese
About the PhD project: Using several PET and MRI imaging modalities, Andreas Baun's project will investigate the spatial and temporal relationship between different pathological mechanisms involved in the very early stages of Parkinsonism.
Anne Hjort Thomsen, Department of Public Health
Title: Social inequality in pregnancy and reproductive health in children
Supervisor: Professor Cecilia Ramlau-Hansen
About the PhD project: In her PhD project, Anne Hjort Thomsen will examine the correlation between the parent's education, income and job and their children's puberty development, fertility, and risk of infertility later in life. She will be using data from registers and cohorts. The aim is to increase our understanding of how social inequality affects reproductive health.
Anne Lind Malte, Department of Clinical Medicine
Title: The fibrinolytic system in venous thromboembolism recurrence: pathophysiology and risk assessment
Supervisor: Associate Professor Julie Brogaard Larsen
About the PhD project: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a common disease with high mortality and morbidity and 30% of patients will receive a new VTE within 10 years. In the project, Anne Lind Malte will study fibrinolysis, i.e. the ability to break down thrombi in VTE patients. She will be using a new laboratory method aimed at identifying new risk markers for recurrences of VTE.
Cecilie Thrue, Department of Public Health
Title: Can high-intensity exercise be used to treat fatigue in Parkinsons' Disease?
Supervisor: Professor Ulrik Dalgas
About the PhD project: The primary objective of the PhD study is to investigate whether high-intensity exercise can reduce fatigue in people with Parkinson's disease both acutely, i.e. effects observed immediately after a single training session, and/or chronically, i.e. the general level of fatigue after a period of regular training sessions.
Eleni Sia, Department of Clinical Medicine
Title: Mapping the epigenetic signature of THC exposure during pregnancy in offspring neurocognitive development
Supervisor: Associate Professor Rodrigo Grassi-Oliveira
About the PhD project: Eleni Sia will investigate the (epi-)genetic framework that connects prenatal cannabis use with the subsequent brain development of the child. In the project, she will be using both animal models and human brain organoids, and the aim is to increase our understanding of the correlation between prenatal cannabis consumption and neurological development in children.
Marie Dahl Jørgensen, Department of Clinical Medicine - Department of Clinical Epidemiology
Title: Physical Activity and Spontaneous Abortion – a cohort study and a randomized controlled trial
Supervisor: Clinical Specialist Anne Sofie Dam Laursen
About the PhD project: The objective of the PhD project is to examine whether different levels of physical activity in the period leading up to pregnancy and during early pregnancy have significance for the risk of miscarriage among Danish couples who are trying to conceive. Marie Dahl Jørgensen takes her point of departure in the SnartForældre.dk cohort, which she will combine with data from questionnaires, registers and fitness trackers.
Simon Arvin, Department of Clinical Medicine
Titel: Vagus Nerve Stimulation: Touching the Brain, from the Outside
Supervisor: Clinical associate professor Andreas Nørgaard Glud
About the PhD project: In his PhD project, Simon Arvin will test the hypothesis that stimulation of the vagus nerve increases the level of noradrenaline in the brain by activating the locus coeruleus, a small structure in the brainstem also known as the brain's blue spot. The team behind believes that the clinical effect of the vagus nerve arises through the locus coeruleus, and that this could be exploited to develop new medical treatments – for example, waking people from a coma.
Torsten Grønbech Nielsen, Department of Clinical Medicine
Title: Clinical outcome after Medial Patella Femoral Ligament Reconstruction (MPFL-R) in children and adults with Patella dislocation.
Supervisor: Clinical Professor Martin Lind
About the PhD project: In his PhD project, Torsten Grønbech Nielsen will investigate whether a newer MPFL-R technique (i.e. a reconstruction of the medial patella femoral ligament ) where a superficial part of a tendon is used from the front of the thigh and fixated without screws provides better treatment results than the standard procedure.