25 July 2006
Monash University has featured in two of four inaugural research fellowships established to promote research and cultural links between Australia and Malaysia.
The fellowships are an initiative of the federal Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Australia-Malaysia Institute -- a body that promotes closer ties between the two countries.
Dr Cynthia Joseph, a lecturer in Monash's Education faculty, has received an Australia-Malaysia fellowship to undertake her research project, 'Malaysian youth identities: ethnicities, education and globalisation' at Universiti Malaya.
As a visiting academic in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Dr Joseph will examine the identities of Malay, Chinese and Indian youths within the context of Malaysian tertiary institutions.
Malaysian academic Mr Badrul Redzuan Abu Hassan, a lecturer in the School of Media and Communication Studies at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, has received a fellowship to conduct research at the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash. He will examine aspects of visual culture and multiculturalism in Malaysian and Australian cinema.
Fellowships were also awarded to two Malaysian researchers to undertake studies at the University of Tasmania and Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia.
The fellowships, for academics, postgraduate students and other researchers, were announced last month.
Dr Wendy Smith of Monash's Business and Economics faculty is the Academic Secretariat of the Australia-Malaysia Institute and one of the co-founders of the fellowship scheme. She is also the Director of the Centre for Malaysian Studies within the Monash Asia Institute.
"The fellowships will further the objectives of the institute to strengthen personal and institutional links between Australia and Malaysia and to promote mutual understanding of the societies of both countries," Dr Smith said. "They also strengthen Monash's commitment to Malaysia."
Further information about the fellowships is available from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website.
For more information contact Ms Robyn Anns, Media Communications, on +61 3 9905 9317 or 0417 568 781.
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