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Summer
Jobs Program for Undergraduate University Students | |
This year's Summer Jobs Program wound up on 6 February 2006 with a seminar session at which the nine employed students gave presentations about their research work over the summer. Six of the students worked at CSIRO Minerals, one student worked at Curtin University of Technology and two students spent their time at Murdoch University. Harshad Bhikha and Linus Naik joined the program from the University of Cape Town (South Africa), while the other seven students were from Western Australian universities. The South African students took part in the program through the collaborative relationship between the Centre and the University of Cape Town. The jobs scheme differed this year in that the funding came predominantly from industry - namely four of the Centre's Industry Participants. Alcoa World Alumina funded two of the students and jointly funded another with Rio Tinto; Rio Tinto also separately sponsored another student; BHP Billiton sponsored two students and jointly funded another with Minara Resources; Minara Resources also separately funded another student and the final student was funded by the Parker Centre. While all the students were supervised by Parker Centre researchers, two of the students also had an industry supervisor and another student had additional supervisors from Curtin University. |
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Congratulations to Carla Zammit who won the prize for the best presentation for her talk titled “An Evaluation of Methods for the Extraction of DNA from Microbes Inhabiting a Bioleaching Environment”. "All the presentations were good but there were three that were quite outstanding," comments Education Program Manager Dr Jane Rosser. "And the judges felt that of these three, Carla was the one who really knew her stuff.” Carla will be staying with the Parker Centre for the time being as she has now started an Honours project (with a Parker Centre Honours scholarship) that will extend her summer work. After all the students had spoken, the students and their supervisors were asked for feedback on their experience over the summer. "The students said they really appreciated the opportunity to do hands-on research, to be able to decide what direction to take and to try it and see if it worked, rather than just doing bits and pieces that they are told to do," says Dr Rosser. "They appreciated being treated like scientists but still having all the help and support that they needed.” |
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"It has been an amazing learning experience," says Harshad Bhikha from the University of Cape Town. Carla Zammit says that working with the Parker Centre gave her the opportunity to gain invaluable experience in all aspects of laboratory work. "I really enjoyed having the freedom to plan my own experiments and being responsible for my own research," she says. "Once I have completed my Honours, I would like to continue my studies and complete a PhD before pursuing a career in this field." "We found the students were intelligent, helpful and enthusiastic and fitted in very well with the rest of the team," says one supervisor. Dr Rosser says the supervisors felt that the jobs program gives an added advantage to students when they are starting their Honours, particularly if their summer research was related to what they do in their Honours project, which is the case with Carla Zammit. Comments from
other Parker Centre researchers who were involved with the students
over the summer included: |  More networking over drinks |
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