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Schemes for Professional Engineers
19 October 2001
Women engineers show the
way in Panasonic Fellowships
Women engineers have scooped four out of
this year’s five Royal Academy of
Engineering Panasonic Trust Fellowships,
each worth £7,000. A record 34 people
applied for the bursaries, which enable
recipients to take Masters degree courses in
sustainable development and related
subjects. Panasonic UK Ltd and the Academy
started the Fellowship scheme three years
ago to answer the business community’s need
for specialist engineering skills that
contribute to the environment.
“I congratulate this year’s Fellowship
awardees, all of whom demonstrate
outstanding abilities not only as engineers
but as professionals,” says Panasonic Trust
Chairman Robin Bond FREng. “There are real
problems in attracting and retaining female
engineers, so I am delighted to see these
young women bringing such skill and
enthusiasm into the profession.”
Two students to University of
Southampton’s MSc in Engineering for
Development
Laura Coleby, and Joanna Mason, both
Cambridge University graduates, are using
their Panasonic Fellowships to broaden their
experience of international development
issues.
Laura, 31, is an experienced water engineer
who has just returned from two years’ work
managing well construction and repair in
Chad for the Action Partners Ministries,
including writing budgets and reports in
French. She has previously worked with the
British Geological Survey in Bangladesh and
the UK. “The Southampton MSc should add
greatly to my knowledge, especially in the
area of infrastructure, and equip me to make
a much more effective contribution to water
supply work in developing countries,” she
says.
Joanna, 27, has recently returned from three
months as a volunteer with the Karen
Hilltribes Trust, helping to install potable
water systems to remote villages in North
West Thailand. During her degree course she
concentrated on aerospace and defence
engineering, with an MoD sponsorship, but
she has now decided to change track towards
charity work. “I feel strongly about there
being so many places in the world where
people lack even basic standards of living,”
she says.
Two students to MSc courses at Cranfield
University
Cassandra Crick is starting
Cranfield’s MSc in Engineering & Management
of Manufacturing Systems while Darren Furse
is doing an MSc in IT for Product
Realisation.
Cassandra, 27, has a manufacturing systems
engineering degree from the University of
East London. She aims ultimately to set up
her own consultancy company and likes the
emphasis her MSc course places on
analytical, design and management skills.
She spent this summer as a researcher on BBC
Tomorrow’s World and previously worked as an
IT consultant for CT Plastics, but she has
also used her technical training in more
unexpected ways. “I have just completed 200
hours as a Millennium Volunteer at the
Downshall Centre in Seven Kings,” she says.
“I designed a 12-week teaching programme in
robotics for 11-14 year olds and am planning
a trip for the group to see how robots are
used in industry.”
Darren, 27, has a BEng in engineering from
Coventry University and is driven by the
satisfaction he gets when faced with a
challenging engineering project. He loves
engineering design, even in his spare time,
and his final-year university project was an
innovative way of resetting weight-training
equipment to provide more of the fitness
benefits of working with free weights while
retaining the safety of the mounted weights.
MSc in Multimedia Technology at the
University of Bath
Sujitha Herren, 28, graduated in
electronics and communications engineering
from the University of Bristol and has been
working for two years with Motorola in
Swindon, developing base stations for
next-generation mobile phones. She hopes
this MSc course will help to pave the way
for a career in design and development of
future telecommunications technology. “I
believe the future of the civilian telecoms
market is low-cost satellite communications
supporting multimedia products,” she says.
ends
Notes for editors
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The Panasonic
Trust Fellowships were endowed by a
£500,000 gift from Panasonic UK Ltd in
1997 to assist students on full-time
Masters courses in environment-related
subjects. The Panasonic Trust itself was
founded in 1984, managed by the Royal
Academy of Engineering, and has enabled
over 900 young engineers to take
part-time modular Masters courses to
update their skills – it was one of the
first grant schemes actively to promote
continuing professional development.
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The Royal Academy
of Engineering aims to pursue, encourage
and maintain excellence across the whole
field of engineering in order to promote
the advancement of the science, art and
practice of engineering for the benefit
of the public. The Academy comprises the
UK's most eminent engineers and is able
to use their combined wealth of
knowledge and experience to meet its
objectives.
For more information please contact:
Jane Sutton at the Royal Academy of
Engineering
Tel: 020 7227 0536 (direct) / 07989 513045
(mobile)
[E-mail Jane]
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