Please contact us if you are a current award holder and would like your news or profile featured on this page.  The profiles can be based upon a specific event or award, or just give a general outline of your studies and experiences.

NB: When sending a profile through the contact form, please mark it clearly as 'Award Holder Profile'.

MRI SCANNING BREAKTHROUGH
Australian Scholar Kerrin Pine arrived at the University of Aberdeen in September 2006 to commence his MSc in Medical Physics, which focuses on the application of physics to medicine, covering medical imaging and radiotherapy among other areas of healthcare. It was at Aberdeen itself that, 25 years ago, the first patient in the world was successfully imaged with MRI, using a technique invented at the university.

During his Scholarship, Kerrin has had the opportunity to work on an MRI scanning breakthrough that could save lives. As he explains, ‘I am working with researchers on a different approach where the magnetic field is quickly varied during the imaging process. This new technique will grant doctors access to a new sort of contrast – and the opportunity to detect cancer, Alzheimer’s and other diseases earlier than before’.
Kerrin’s own efforts concern the localisation of volumes in this ‘Fast Field-Cycling MRI’. He hopes to continue with a PhD in the same field, and shape its commercialisation when it is ready. Although a big change from his life in Australia, he views his time in the UK as ‘an opportunity to gain knowledge which I could not have found back home’.

SCHOLAR PARTICIPATES IN ALL-PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUP
Sabelo Dlamini, a Commonwealth Scholar from Swaziland, is currently working towards a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). One of the requirements of the DrPH is that candidates undertake a Professional Attachment, which offers the opportunity to analyse the operation of a public health organisation. For his Professional Attachment, Sabelo has been working with the All-Party Parliamentary Malaria Group (APPMG). The APPMG is a forum where UK parliamentarians, many interested organisations (members of scientific, academic, media, charitable and support communities) and representatives of the public and private sector come together to promote a new and united voice to help fight the world’s number one killer disease – malaria. The need to take action on this is greater than ever, explains Sabelo. ‘Malaria kills more than one million people every year, 90% of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa. The greatest death toll occurs in children under five. Despite the availability of preventive and treatment methods, the burden of malaria remains high. The present status casts a gloomy picture for the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goal of halting the spread of malaria by 2015. ‘One objective of my Professional Attachment was to determine the adaptability of the APPMG model to Least Developed Countries (LDCs). The Abuja Declaration resulted in African governments resolving to allocate 15% of their national budgets to health. To this day, only two countries have achieved this undertaking. Bad governance, lack of accountability and competency, legitimacy and representation are common among governments of LDCs. There is a need to quicken the establishment of new forms of governance globally to ensure freedom and participation of all in government agenda setting.’

SCHOLARS INVOLVED IN GENETIC STUDY
For the past six months, Australian Commonwealth Scholars, Joanne Gale and Damjan Vukcevic, who are both working towards DPhils in Statistics at the University of Oxford, have been involved in a genetic study of seven common human diseases. The study recently published its results in the journal Nature (‘Genome-wide association study of 14,000 cases of seven common diseases and 3,000 shared controls’), and received worldwide press coverage.
The study involved collecting data from 17,000 individuals in an attempt to isolate genetic variants associated with the seven diseases. The results will lead to new insights about the mechanisms underlying these diseases, and hopefully to more effective treatment and prevention strategies. Damjan explains that the most significant aspect of the study is the fact that it focussed on socalled common diseases. ‘Previously, it was mainly rare diseases that could be studied for genetic factors, where generally only one or very few genes are involved. With the recent development of new genotyping technologies we have been able to implement a new approach (a “genome-wide association”) that is better able to identify genetic associations. This approach was controversial for a while and was seen as an expensive but futile “treasure hunt” by some, but the discovery of many new genetic associations to numerous diseases in our study shows that this approach is ultimately successful.’ Damjan feels that although it has been challenging to be involved in the study it has definitely been worthwhile. ‘Both Joanne and I have been involved with this study on top of our other DPhil research projects, so have been quite busy! So it is nice to have this extra work pay off so well. We are very excited to have been involved in such a ground-breaking study, and plan to present some of our related research at the upcoming meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics in San Diego, USA, in October.’

ANCIENT SPACES ONLINE
In addition to his doctoral studies, Michael Griffin (Commonwealth Scholar, DPhil in Classics, University of Oxford) has created a website which aims to bring his field of study to the attention of the public. www.ancientspaces.com ‘aims to create an interactive, accessible 3D simulation of ancient society and culture on the Internet, ratified by academia and open to the public.’ Although Ancient Spaces is still in its early stages, the contributors aim to develop a software package which will allow interactive engagement with the Greek and Roman worlds and simultaneous interaction with other players, for educational applications. He feels that global media such as the internet and interactive entertainment ‘offer an instrument for tackling global challenges’ and are ‘an avenue for reaching today’s young people’. Michael hopes to combine his love of Classics with the use of digital media upon his return to Canada and feels that other academics should consider this option, and ‘embrace this medium’s opportunities for student-driven education’.

ACADEMIC FELLOW TAKES UP ADVISORY POSITION
Professor Mangala De Zoysa (Commonwealth Fellow, University of Bangor) has been appointed as an Advisor to the Water Retention by Land Use (WaReLa) project, following an invitation to attend a workshop on ‘Results and exchange of experiences of the WaReLa Project’, held at the University of Trier, Germany, in November 2006. The WaReLa Project is a European Community initiative, which supports transnational cooperation among the member states of Germany, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, and the UK. Professor De Zoysa, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka, comments that ‘the WaReLa project is presently of the view that the implementation of the sustainable management of land, forest and water resources by the European Community should include initiatives within the EU as well as EU-sponsored activities in Third World countries through a mutually supportive approach for the sake of meeting new environmental needs and problems across the globe’.

COMMONWEALTH SCHOLARS RECEIVE RECOGNITION
M Asim Rehman Shaikh (Commonwealth Scholar, PhD in Power Electronics, Imperial College London) won the Best Research Poster award at the launch of the Energy Futures Lab at Imperial College. Many departments participated in this competition and the posters highlighted the institution’sresearch in a range of energy-related topics. The title of Asim’s poster was ‘Interface Technologies for Distributed Generation’, which presented the future of electrical power networks; the emerging role of power electronics in interfacing the renewable energy technologies with main grids was underlined. Asim’s research is in the application of smart power electronic devices to improve the quality and reliability in electric power networks; this technology will help fulfil the growing need for electric energy especially in the developing world.

Commonwealth Scholar Hukum Chandra (PhD in Social Statistics, University of Southampton) was awarded the prestigious Student Paper Competition Award at the 2006 Joint Statistical Meetings in Seattle, USA in August 2006. The Joint Statistical Meetings are sponsored by the leading statistical societies of the United States and Canada and are considered the pre-eminent North American statistical meetings of the year. Hukum was awarded the prize for his research work on ‘Small Area Estimation for Business Surveys’. His research is focused on the development of small area estimation techniques in survey sampling.