July 15, 2019, by Communications
International Research Collaboration Award
It’s one year since I started my post as its hard to know where the time has gone! I’ve been working tirelessly to understand how to enhance the research environment at UNM, and my second year will focus on implementing many of the plans that I have been co-developing with staff and PGRs. From now onwards, these blog posts will now be circulated to all.
In this blog post, Prof Deborah Hall, Vice-Provost (Research and Knowledge Exchange), announces the first winners of a new PGR award aimed to promote collaborative links with world-leading institutions overseas and to enhance the PhD experience.
A number of funding initiatives are in the pipeline for early career staff and PGRs, the first of which is the International Research Collaboration PGR award. From nine applications, we have awarded two prizes worth up to RM15,000. These enable the PGR student to expand their research work in new directions and enable the primary supervisor to establish a new relationship.
One recipient is Wong Zheng Wei in the School of Pharmacy, supervised by Dr New Siu Yee. Zheng Wei’s award will enable him to spend 2 months working in a world-leading laboratory within the Dept of Materials Science and Engineering at Peking University, China, under the supervision of Prof Hou Yanglong. Peking University is ranked as one of the best universities for research in China, and Prof Hou has published more than 100 articles in nanotechnology. The visit will allow Zheng Wei to learn new technical skills in using magnetic nanoparticles for detecting molecular biomarkers. This is a new scientific frontier and so we anticipate that the skills and knowledge gained will give Dr New a competitive advantage in Malaysia in developing industry and clinical links in health-related research and development.
The other worthy recipient is Nur Izzati Ridzuan in the School of Biosciences, supervised by Dr Christina Vimala Supramaniam. Izzati’s award will enable her to spend just over a month in Centre for Ecology & Hydrology based at Lancaster University. This is a UK Centre of Excellence for integrated research in hydrology, terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems and their interaction with the atmosphere; funded through the Natural Environment Research Council. Izzati will be supported by Prof Niall McNamara who leads a group working on plant-soil interactions. The visit will allow Izzati to develop new skills in soil analysis. One exciting opportunity is to learn about using a new commercially available soil sample analysis kit that is sufficiently portable to be used in the field. We hope that her new skills can be cascaded to Dr Vimala’s team, enabling them to conduct future soil analyses in the plantations, rather than having to send them to other laboratories locally or overseas for processing.
Thank you to Dr Tissa Chandesa for managing the competition, and to Prof Dominic Foo and Dr Seow Hsin Vonn for being our internal reviewers.
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