Auckland and Birmingham universities offer first joint PhD

Aspiring civil engineer Megan Schlotjes is combining her OE, with a PhD from two universities, while helping to improve New Zealand roads.

She is the first University of Auckland student to sign an agreement with the University of Birmingham in the UK, to complete a joint PhD in Civil Engineering. The agreement is an extension of a Universitas 21 Doctoral Mobility Scholarship, which funds short term overseas placements at partner universities. This is the first time a U21 Scholar will receive a PhD from both universities.

“A PhD is such a huge commitment and it usually means you have to put off your OE. I’m so glad I’m able to combine the two while being recognised by both universities,” she says.

Megan, 24, departs in April to study at Birmingham for 12 months, before returning to Auckland to complete her PhD in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering’s Transportation Research Centre.

The aim of her PhD is to create a model to better predict when roads are likely to need repairs.

“New Zealand roads generally operate at low traffic low volumes, and perform well over their expected lifetime. However unexpected failures, such as crack and ruts, can happen and when they do, they need to be repaired immediately to prevent further damage,” Megan says.

“Having better information about the likelihood of road failures will help transport authorities to better target maintenance and ultimately assist in spending road funding more efficiently.”

The completed risk model has international applications, as it will be designed for use on any road network in the world.

Megan’s study will be co-supervised by Dr Theuns Henning from The University of Auckland and Dr Michael Burrow from the University of Birmingham. Dr Henning says understanding risk and uncertainty is a growing field in infrastructure management. Birmingham is renowned for its risk and asset management programmes, and the agreement will pave the way for closer collaboration and sharing of research between the two universities. The Faculty of Engineering already hosts Professor Martin Snaith from the University of Birmingham, as a guest lecturer in infrastructure management.

“These agreements help to strengthen the worldwide reach of research from The University of Auckland. This study will have been completed in Europe and New Zealand, giving it greater potential for international exposure,” Theuns says.

Megan completed her Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) Degree at The University of Auckland, and was named the top overall Civil Highway Engineering and Transportation student in her final year.

The University of Auckland is the only New Zealand member of Universitas 21, an international association of comprehensive, research-intensive universities in 13 countries. The aim of U21 is to facilitate interchange between members.