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New engineering scholarship for PhD students

15 October 2008

Chancellor Dr Alan Finkel, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Edwina Cornish and Dean of Engineering Professor Tam Sridhar.

Eighty high-achieving, final year Monash engineering students celebrated their academic success at the recent launch of the Monash Engineering Finkel Scholarship.

The Finkel PhD Scholarship, provided by the Finkel Foundation and Monash Chancellor Dr Alan Finkel and his wife Dr Elizabeth Finkel, will be offered to three new PhD students in the Faculty of Engineering from 2009.

The scholarship is open to full-time PhD students within biological engineering, biomedical engineering, electrical engineering and general engineering who have received an Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) or the Monash Graduate Scholarship (MGS).

Dr Alan Finkel, a Monash engineering alumnus, gave an inspiring speech to students about why he chose a research path.

"As a PhD student you will prove your ability to tackle and solve complex problems through exercising your own initiative, investigation and critical thinking," Dr Finkel said.

"Upon completion, you will be the world’s number one expert in a particular area of technology, more knowledgeable than even your supervisor.

"Hard work and extraordinary expertise -- these are the nature of a research PhD. I found the journey to be extremely rewarding both personally and professionally."

Engineering dean Professor Tam Sridhar thanked the Chancellor and his wife for establishing the scholarship and wished the students well in their PhD research.

"In your undergraduate course you are taught the current state of knowledge in your discipline," Professor Sridhar said.

"The PhD program is more of a partnership between the student and the supervisor, a journey into the unknown. The answers are often surprising."

Applications for the Finkel Scholarship close on 31 October. For more information visit the Faculty of Engineering website.

For more information on the Monash University Postgraduate Research Scholarships visit the Research scholarship website.