Rank Prize Lord Selborne Scholarship
The Lord Selborne Scholarship is a prestigious new scheme to support and encourage the next generation of researchers in vision science. The Lord Selborne PhD Scholarship has been set up in honour of our former Chairman, Lord Selborne (1940-2021). Lord Selborne was the Chairman of Rank Prize for nearly 30 years, retiring only in 2015. He led the organisation through its formative years with great wisdom and foresight as well as charm and charisma. His legacy is the universally high esteem in which Rank Prize is held today. We are pleased to be able to offer one Full-time funded studentship for this award.
Optimising spatial and spectral performance of a trichromatic retina The human trichromatic retina contains three classes of spectrally-selective cone photoreceptors, which collectively support human colour vision. It is less commonly discussed that these same cones support all visual functions in daytime light levels, including responses to grey-scale spatial patterns. What is the optimal arrangement of photoreceptors in a trichromatic retina to achieve both spatial and spectral discriminations? This problem has occupied designers of imaging sensor chips for decades, and there are different engineering solutions, constrained by manufacturing processes and desired outcome. The proposed interdisciplinary project investigates this question in a biological imaging system: the living human eye. Fundamental to addressing this question is the ability to map the human trichromatic mosaic in vivo. The first part of the project is to develop reliable tools to do this. The second part of the project will use empirical techniques to measure visual performance with stimuli delivered directly to the cone mosaic. The help understand the empirical results, computational modelling, using the Image System Engineering Toolbox for Biology (ISETBIO), will be used to predict performance under known assumptions, which can then be compared to empirical performance. The student will be jointly supervised across the departments of Experimental Psychology and Engineering Science, working with state-of-the-art facilities for advanced retinal imaging.
For more information and details on how to apply, please refer to this document. To apply, follow this link.