Students from Heriot-Watt University have done exceptionally well in the 2013-14 Society of Petroleum Engineering (SPE) bursary competition, winning a total of 4 awards including one of the top prizes.
Maya Hussain, studying MSc Petroleum Engineering at the Institute of Petroleum Engineering, received an award of £2,500 as one of the top 3 outstanding students, while Kishan Soni (MSc Reservoir Engineering Management), Anthony Okwananke (PhD student) and Hamidreza Nasriani (PhD student) all won £500 each. All of the winners attended the prize giving ceremony at the Aberdeen Douglas Hotel.
SPE Aberdeen Student Bursary Programme
The SPE Aberdeen student bursary programme is an annual competition open to full-time undergraduate and postgraduates students studying engineering or oil and gas industry-related courses at Strathclyde, Dundee, Heriot-Watt, Robert Gordon and Aberdeen Universities.
More than 100 written submissions were independently assessed and funding worth nearly £20,000 was awarded to 24 students, taking SPE Aberdeen's total rolling investment in successive generations of oil and gas engineers to over £300,000 since the competition was first launched over 15 years ago.
SPE Aberdeen Student Development Committee
This year's bursary applications were of a high standard, boding well for the future of the oil and gas industry. The winners were recognised not only for the quality of their written submissions, but also for their industry involvement through professional societies such as SPE
SPE Aberdeen has a dedicated Student Development Committee, consisting of industry professionals, representatives of SPE Aberdeen student chapters and academic sponsors. The committee provides opportunities for students to enhance their technical knowledge and professional competence through industry events and specialised conferences, as well as more informal meetings.
Shankar Bhukya, chair of the Student Development Committee, said all University SPE Aberdeen chapters had responded with a great mix of students from courses at Bachelor, Masters and PhD stages, with students studying a wide range of relevant courses. Shankar added: "The quality of the applications this year has been exceptionally high and due to this we had to choose the winners who have achieved more than a 70% collective average score from the judges. Winning students were recognised for the calibre of student, quality of their answers and the opinions/views they articulated, and thirdly for their involvement in the industry through the likes of SPE. The students winning the biggest award amount really stood out, and were considered worthy recipients."
A full list of 2013-14 bursary winners can be found on the Student Development Committee pages of the SPE website.