Institute of Engineering and Technology – Postgraduate Scholarships Winners

Five scholarships were available ranging in value from £2,500 to £10,000.

Alan Charles is a PhD student at the University of Cambridge.

His research involves combining adaptive algorithms with multi-physics analysis to improve the design of nuclear fuel assemblies by quantifying the trade-offs between different performance criteria. This allows for more creative approaches during the design process which ultimately produce superior results. After completing a Master’s in Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham, Alan worked for three years in the nuclear industry, initially on the nuclear graduates programme and later for Rolls-Royce. He then joined the Imperial, Cambridge and Open University Centre for Doctoral Training; completing a Master’s in Nuclear Engineering at Imperial College London before starting his PhD at Cambridge. Alan hopes to contribute to a revitalization of the UK nuclear industry through innovation and cost reduction whilst maintaining high safety standards and this scholarship will help Alan continue his research and help strengthen collaboration between industry and academia, both at home and internationally.

Lauren Ward is a Postgraduate Researcher at the Acoustics Research Centre, University of Salford, UK.

After completing an Honours degree in Engineering (Electronics and Communications) and a BPhil at the University of Tasmania, Australia, she received the prestigious General Sir John Monash Scholarship which supports her postgraduate studies in the UK. Lauren’s current research investigates the use of next generation audio technology to improve the accessibility of broadcast media for hard of hearing individuals.  She is also undertaking an internship at BBC Research and Development, working to integrate her research into broadcast industry workflows. This scholarship will enable her to travel to engage with more hard of hearing user groups as well as to work with other leaders in next generation audio across Europe to integrate her research into existing and future broadcast formats. When she completes her PhD, she plans to continue in broadcast accessibility research with a focus on translating academic research into end-user technologies.

Adarsh Ganesan is a PhD student in the Nanoscience Centre at University of Cambridge.

He is currently passionate about exploring new experimental regimes of mechanical resonators and applying them for the precision measurement of physical quantities. His original experimental work on ‘phononic frequency combs’ is one of the initial results of this vision which has also resulted in related coverage by American Physical Society, American Institute of Physics and Physics World, among others. Prior to being awarded the 2018 IET Hudswell International Research Scholarship, he was recognised for his work by the 2017 John Winbolt prize (University of Cambridge) and the 2017 ABTA UK doctoral researcher award. He believes that this scholarship will boost the visibility of his doctoral work to a wider engineering audience. This scholarship will also enable him to actively disseminate his research work at conferences and seminars, to fulfil his research objectives and to establish stronger research collaborations.

Edward Tan graduated with a degree in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London, and is currently a PhD student at the University of Cambridge. 

His current work focuses on the fabrication process development of chemical sensors based on polymeric materials. Through his research, he has developed scalable methods to manufacture stretchable electronics for wearable sensing applications and also demonstrated a novel concept for gas sensing. He has been awarded a visiting fellowship at Harvard to work on the development of disposable biosensors for health monitoring. He aspires to build his expertise in device fabrication through advances in chemistry, material science and nanotechnology. The IET Postgraduate Award will be used to support his new research ideas and expand his collaborations.

Ben Fletcher is a PhD student in the ARM-ECS research centre at the University of Southampton.

His research, co-sponsored by Arm through the iCASE programme, is in the domain of microelectronics and aims to establish new, cost-effective ways of designing three-dimensional integrated circuits (integrated circuits that incorporate many vertically stacked tiers). More specifically, he is exploring the use of electromagnetic coupling to transmit data and power wirelessly between tiers in a 3D-IC, to simplify the die stacking process. The scholarship will enable him to advance his research by translating his conceptual designs into physical prototypes.

Find out more about this years Postgraduate Scholarships and Awards