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Postgraduate Research Studentships for 2012/13
The School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science invites applications for a number of fully funded 3 year research studentships, commencing in October 2012.
Further information on studentships and individual projects available can be viewed at
http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/eeecs/Scholarships/PostgraduateResearchScholarships/
Academic Requirements
The required minimum academic qualification for the above studentships is a 2:1 honours degree or a qualification considered equivalent by the University. The qualifications must be obtained in Computer Science, Electronics, Electrical Engineering or a related discipline. Candidates must have official, final results of all qualifications to be used to meet the academic requirements before the start of the studentship.
Residence Requirements for DEL Awards
DEL Studentships are available to eligible UK and EU citizens. To qualify for the full DEL award (fees and maintenance) applicants must have been resident in the United Kingdom or elsewhere in the European Union (for fees only studentships) throughout the period of 3 years immediately preceding the start of the studentship (or would have been so resident had you, your spouse or either parent not been employed temporarily outside the UK).
Applications
Applications are invited to be made electronically through the Queen's online application portal at https://dap.qub.ac.uk/portal/
The deadline for applications is 29th February 2012.
For further information please contact Hilary Morrow (h.morrow@qub.ac.uk)
The IT and Computer Science Undergraduate of the Year Award,
sponsored by BT – Apply by 31 January
- Penultimate year IT and Computer Science undergraduates.
- They are looking for a winning mix of personal skills, career motivation and an excellent academic record.
The winner will be awarded a 12-week summer placement working within BT Innovate & Design, a brand new HP laptop and a chance to be fast-tracked to their graduate assessment centre.
Even if you don’t win, you still stand a chance of making the final shortlist of ten, all of whom will be royally looked after by BT and invited to the Undergraduate of the Year Awards as their guests.
So if you are a penultimate year undergraduate studying IT, computer science, electronics, electronic engineering, maths, physics or closely related subjects...
And you are expecting at least a 2.1...
And you have at least 280 UCAS points (exc. General Studies)...
And you think you're the best IT and Computer Science undergraduate in the UK, click the link below.
Closing date for entries is 31 January 2012. – apply online at: http://undergraduateoftheyear.co.uk/
How do I win it then?
It’s not easy to win the Undergraduate of the Year Award, and competition will be fierce. The process is demanding and only the truly outstanding and committed will make it to the final ten. There are three stages that you’ll have to get through.
Stage One:
Submit your personal data and answer three special questions posed by the sponsor of the award.
Stage Two:
Complete three online tests designed exclusively by our partners SHL, the world’s leading assessment provider. The online assessment will take you around an hour to complete and somewhere between 30 and 70 candidates will pass through to the next stage. The closing date for entry is 31 January 2012.
Stage Three:
BT will seek to find a shortlist of ten from the undergraduates who pass the first two stages. This will be done in a variety of ways including telephone interviews, assessment centres and further tests (depending on the sponsor). The final shortlist of ten is invited to the Undergraduate of the Year Awards in Canary Wharf London on 13th April where the winner will be announced.
Congratulations to EEECS student David Galbraith for winning "Universities' Brightest Business Brain"!
David Galbraith (centre) pictured with runners-up, Will Spain, University of Exeter and Philippa Naylor, University of Cambridge
David Galbraith, a final year Computing and Information Technology student at Queen's, is officially the UK Universities' Brightest Business Brain!
Friday the 9th of December saw 60 of the best students at the UK's top Universities descend on London for the Grand Final of Universities' Brightest Business Brain, with a view to fighting it out to be crowned overall champion. Launched in September, the competition saw more than 3,000 students register and take 4 online exercises designed by cut-e to assess the kind of competencies, traits and aptitudes associated with successful business people as well as identifying commercial awareness. Having taken the exercise students were immediately given their score which was posted on to the Leaderboard showing them their position and highlighting if they had made it through to the Grand Final.
The top 60 from off the Leaderboard were invited to the Grand Final in London to demonstrate further their abilities and commercial awareness through 5 face to face assessment exercises created and run by cut-e and the competition's sponsors including Cass Business School, CIMA, National Grid and RBS. The exercises reflected important competencies each of the sponsors look for in students as well as giving the Grand Final participants a feel for who the sponsors are and what they do. Exercises included a debate, team working and communication exercises and a business case study.
With students attending from all over the UK the competition throughout the day was intense yet friendly as everyone knew they were in with a chance of winning the £1000 first prize. In the end though there could be only one overall winner with 1st prize and £1000 going to David Galbraith from Queen's University Belfast, 2nd prize and £500 went to Will Spain from the University of Exeter and 3rd prize and £250 went to Philippa Naylor from the University of Cambridge. The day finished with drinks, food and networking and lots of excitement around next year's competition.
Liberty IT Announces 2012 Recipients of Prestigious Bursary
Pictured with William Hamilton, Managing Director of Liberty IT, are (left to right) Graeme Brown, Matthew Dorrian and Natasha Hodgins, University of Ulster recipient.
Established in conjunction with the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queens University Belfast and the School of Computing and Mathematics at University of Ulster, the scholarship aims to increase enrolment and retention of students in computer science and to increase the availability of well-educated and skilled employees in this technical area.
Graeme Brown and Matthew Dorrian, both MEng Computer Science students at Queens University, Belfast, have been awarded the £1,000 annual scholarship which includes an eight week placement at the end of their first year of study, a guaranteed placement year during their undergraduate programme and a potential graduate position upon successful completion of their degree.
Commenting on receiving the scholarship, Graeme said, "Being awarded the Liberty IT bursary means a lot to me. It will provide me with essential experience for a future career in IT and the opportunity to develop new skills. I am delighted to have the opportunity to be part of an exciting company providing me with excellent prospects for the future."
Matthew Dorrian stated, "The bursary award validates the hard work I've put into my studies to date. I am looking forward to the summer to start my career as an IT professional. The work experience will help me to choose the programming language I want to concentrate on at university. The extra finance will help reduce the need for part time work. It's also great to know that my placement year is already organised so my sole focus can be my studies. It is an amazing and exciting opportunity."
World Ranking for Electrical and Electronic Engineering
http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2011/subject-rankings/engineering/electrical-engineering
It also ranks no 9 in the UK for this subject in the Times Good University Guide (2012).
The University is also a member of the UK Power Academy which consists of the top 7 UK Universities for Electrical Power Engineering.
The School is also the location of the UK Centre of Excellence for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT).
ECIT maintains the lead in young engineers for space antennas
From left to right, Robert Cahill, Steven Christie, Neil Buchanan, Efstratios Doumanis.
Efstratios Doumanis, Research Associate in the High Frequency Electronics Cluster in ECIT, received the ESA young engineer award for the paper co-authored with George Goussetis, Robert Cahill, Vincent Fusco (ECIT) and Herve Legay (Thales Alenia Space, France), "C-Band Linear to Circular Polarization Conversion Surface on Honeycomb Substrate". This work aims to greatly simplify the antennas on board satellites, allowing for more functionality to be packed into them. Other research presented, included the work by Neil Buchanan, Steven Christie, Robert Cahill and Vincent Fusco on self-steered antennas, which remove the need to accurately point bulky satellite dishes.
This is the second year running that ECIT researchers received the young engineer award at the European Space Agency Workshop on Antennas for Space Applications.
ESB Electric Ireland Scholarship Announced
ESB Electric Ireland have announced that they will be offering a lucrative scholarship package for a first year student studying electrical and electronic engineering at Queen's University. This is the third successive year that they will be offering a scholarship.
In October 2009 ESBIE (as it was then called) formed a new partnership with Queen's University to provide scholarships to students from the MEng Electrical and Electronic Engineering programme on an annual basis. The package includes financial support, ongoing mentoring and provides practical experience through summer and corporate placements throughout ESB International's many energy sites across Europe. This will be the fifth scholarship provided by ESB Electric Ireland for the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen's.
More details to follow soon……
Professor George Irwin elected Fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC)
Prof Alberto Isidori, Prof George Irwin and
Prof Lennart Ljung
Prof George Irwin of the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science recently received a prestigious international award at a glittering banquet in Italy.
He has been elected a Fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) for his outstanding research contributions. The Fellow's certificate was presented on the occasion of the World Congress held in Milan by Professor Alberto Isidori, IFAC President, and Professor Lennart Ljung, who chaired the selection committee.
Professor Irwin, who is Research Director of Intelligent Systems and Control at Queens University said, 'I am very pleased to be honoured in this way and wish to acknowledge the contributions made by my colleagues and former PhD students over many years'.
Graduate wins UK Engineering Award
Christopher McElroy (right) is congratulated on his award by Professor Roger Woods and Dr Karen Rafferty from Electrical and Electronic Engineering in Queen's.
A graduate Of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Queen's has won a top UK Engineering Award for a project undertaken as part of his degree. Christopher McElroy, who graduated in July from the University, has won the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) Gerald David Memorial Prize for his final year project. The competition is open to students across the UK who gained entry to their degrees with a vocational qualification. Chris's project involved developing path planning algorithms for marine vehicles which comply with maritime laws. Chris was supervised in his project by Dr Wasif Naeem, who entered him for the competition.
Dr Naeem commented "Throughout the project, Chris had demonstrated determination through personal interest, dedication and enthusiasm. This award is a testimony to Chris's hard work and I hope it will encourage more students with vocational qualifications to pursue higher education. A very well deserved award indeed".
Chris commented "I am delighted to have received this award. Five years ago, during my HNC in Portadown I never would have imagined that I would end my academic career with a 1st class honours and a UK award. It is a real honour to have been awarded the Gerald David Memorial Prize, which I think highlights the fact that students who come from a vocational background can excel at degree level. I would also like to thank everyone who supported me throughout my entire academic career, because without them I would not be where I am today."
Chris, who is a past pupil of Southern Regional College in Portadown, is now working as an Electrical Engineer for NIE. His prize consists of a cheque for £750 and two years free membership of the IET.
£25K Awards Signal Major Success for Flish
Pictured (l to r) Stephen Wray, Professor Vince Fusco and Dr Neil Buchanan from Queen's University, with Steve Orr, Director of NISP CONNECT
Flish, a team from Queen's University Belfast who have developed a low cost, low power antenna capable of picking up satellite signals automatically, which could make satellite dishes a thing of the past, are 'flying high' after being announced as the 'the next big thing' to come out of Northern Ireland's research community at the NISP CONNECT £25K Awards last night.
They have walked away with a total prize fund of £13,000 as overall winners of the technology entrepreneur awards which are sponsored by the Bank of Ireland UK, QUB, University of Ulster and AFBI (Agri Food and Biosciences Institute) and supported by NI's Health and Social Care Trusts. Designed as a commercial experience the Awards aim to encourage researchers to act on their talents, ideas and energy to produce tomorrow's leading commercial opportunities.
The innovative equipment developed by Flish is a high gain antenna which has the ability to 'point' to distant signals such as a satellite. It does not need to be aligned, like a satellite dish, and has no moving parts.. It enables satellite dishes to be replaced with flat panels on walls or roof tiles that need no set-up or calibration and will have particular relevance to the commercial satellite broadband market with the long-term aim of replacing the cumbersome domestic satellite dishes. It also has potential application in transportation as it can fit around the curves of vehicles or aircraft. The more compact antenna which has the ability to point to a signal in milliseconds has further application in the military and disaster relief market when a team may only have minutes to setup a lifesaving video link.
Neil Buchanan from Flish said: "It is a great honour to be crowned the overall winner of the £25K Awards. We have worked in conjunction with the European Space Agency to fine tune our unique analogue circuit design and have been able to produce an end product that is more power efficient, lighter and less costly than anything else currently available. The global market value of antennas was estimated to be $10.1billion in 2009 and expected to increase to $13.3billion in 2014 and we believe our innovation has the potential to be a real game changer for the industry. We plan to capitalise on our learning experiences from the £25Ks to seek funding to see the business through to profitability."
The £25k Awards category winners were as follows, each picking up a cheque for £2,500:
- Hitech: Flish (QUB), both category and overall winners
- BioTech: OncoTech (QUB), Ran Biomarker is a diagnostic assay suitable for both tissue and blood that can identify cancer patients at high risk of metastasis.
- CleanTech: BMT (QUB), a device for measuring the temperature of a polymer preform profile during the injection stretch blow moulding process largely used in the multi-billion pound packaging industry.
- Digital Media & Software: Future Healthcare NI Ltd (HSC/ C-TRIC &Altnagelvin), clinical Communicator is a hosted clinical dashboard on the cloud platform which works as an accident reporting tool, task management tool and a change management tool.
NISP CONNECT Director, Steve Orr, said: "The £25K Awards offers a showcase for regional research talent to display their world-class innovations while providing a valuable training and development process towards commercialisation of their innovations. I would like to congratulate all the category winners for their innovative entries however special acknowledgement must go to the overall winners, Flish, who wowed the judges with their pioneering antenna device, which offers great commercial potential.
"This is an extremely exciting time for the team and moving on from the initial stages of business development I have no doubt that Flish will be able to benefit from other NISP CONNECT programmes which are designed to inspire, encourage and nurture local technology entrepreneurs during idea conception, growth and improvement stages."
Clare Guinness, Regional Business Manager, Bank of Ireland UK added: "Once again the £25K Awards have been a resounding success with the spotlight shining on Northern Ireland's research community who have worked hard to produce truly innovative projects with real commercial potential. At Bank of Ireland UK we are delighted support the Awards and look forward to developing our relationships with the teams and other local entrepreneurs who are committed to the commercialisation of knowledge for the benefit of our local economy."
The awards were presented at a gala ceremony in the Titanic's Dock & Pump-House at the Northern Ireland Science Park.
Surgical Innovation a finalist in IET Awards
Empedocles in action
Congratulations to Dr Karen Rafferty and Dr Stuart Ferguson whose Virtual Surgical Simulator, Empedocles, has been selected as a finalist in the 2011 IET Innovation Awards, taking place on November 9th in London.
Empedocles is a laparoscopic surgical simulator which was developed to improve the training and assessment of the laparoscopic technique among surgeons in training. Currently Empedocles is a working demonstrator that can respond haptically and visually to user interaction.
The overall goal of this product is to improve patient safety by reducing the need for on patient training by providing surgical teams with the tools required to improve surgical outcomes. Collaboration is ongoing with doctors in the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children. A working prototype has been used in surgical training field trials and work continues on this.
Undergraduate Scholarships – Apply Soon
There are a number of scholarships available for our undergraduate students this year, as follows. Don’t miss the deadlines, apply soon!
Asidua Scholarship (worth up to £25K)
Open to first year students on the following courses –
- BSc/BEng/MEng in Computer Science
- BEng/MEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering
- BEng/MEng in Software and Electronic Systems Engineering
Apply by Friday 28th October at 5pm.
For further information, visit the Asidua website.
Liberty IT Scholarship (worth up to £25K)
Open to first year students on the MEng in Computer Science
Apply by Friday 28th October.
For further information, visit the Liberty IT website
Power Academy Scholarships (worth over £25K)
There are 67 Scholarships (£25K) available to Electrical and Electronic Engineering students in just 7 UK Universities, including Queen’s.
Please note that Electrical and Electronic Engineering students in all year groups (except final year) may apply. You can also re-apply if you applied and were unsuccessful before.
There will be an information session for the Power Academy scholarship scheme in the School as follows –
Power Academy Information Session
Wednesday 5th October 2011
1-3pm (light lunch included)
Room GM001 Ashby Building
Stranmillis Road
For further information on the Power Academy Scholarship Scheme, click here.
ESBIE and NIE Scholarships
Please note that ESBIE and NIE will also be offering scholarships this year for Electrical and Electronic Engineering students. Information will be available on these at a later date.
For further information on any of the above scholarships, contact:
Gemma O’Donnell, g.odonnell@qub.ac.uk
ECIT Researchers Use Liquid Crystals To Replace Space Motors
Researchers at the Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) and the Northern Ireland Semiconductor Research Centre (NISRC) at Queen's University Belfast have devised a way to eliminate the need for motors in space borne radiometers by incorporating liquid crystals in their Frequency Selective Surface (FSS) antenna arrays.
The project has attracted funding of £0.5 million from the European Space Agency (ESA) and £100,000 from economic development agency, Invest Northern Ireland. It is expected to result in significant weight savings in satellite payloads and greatly reduced power consumption in weather monitoring instruments.
The technology has other important potential applications as well. These include eradicating the attenuation of mobile phone signals passing through energy efficient glass and creating buildings that can be locked down to block radio signals at the flick of a switch.
The innovative ECIT project addresses frequencies ranging from millimeter wave up to 1 THz. Measuring radiation in this waveband is a key technique used to study the earth’s atmosphere to improve global weather forecasting and understanding of climate change.
Current generation remote sensing radiometers that collect this data incorporate a turntable-mounted mirror operated by an electric motor to calibrate the instrument before each scan by directing their field of view between cold and ambient targets.
The ECIT/NISRC research team however has devised a technique for making such motors redundant. This involves sandwiching layers of liquid crystals between the FSS’s metalized quartz layers to act as an electronically controlled shutter. Applying a small voltage to the structure then enables the radiometer to be switched from calibration mode to signal detection mode without mechanical components.
The team believes that using this technique to replace the motor and turntable could produce potential weight savings of 10 per cent per radiometer. It would also greatly reduce power consumption requirements as a motor represents a radiometer’s single biggest power requirement.
Prototypes are being built at Queen’s University’s Northern Ireland Semiconductor Research Centre with ESA support and the devices are expected to be used in space missions from 2025 onwards.
School to create two new Professorships
The School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science wishes to appoint two new professors to strongly enhance its international reputation for research in the following areas:
Full details on each professorship can be viewed by clicking on the relevant link above.
The deadline for applications is mid-day on Friday 14 October.
Dr Simon Cotton receives his award from outgoing Academy President, Lord Browne of Madingley
A Belfast engineer, who is working to pioneer networks which will carry mobile phone signals between human bodies, has won the UK's premier award for early-career engineering.
Dr Simon Cotton, a Research Fellow at The Queen's University of Belfast, has won the Royal Academy of Engineering's Sir George Macfarlane Award for outstanding technical and scientific attainment in his work.
The 34-year-old from Greenisland in Co. Antrim, has made a significant impression on engineering in Northern Ireland and across the UK since starting an HND in electrical and electronic engineering in 2000. He graduated from the University of Ulster in 2004 before taking a PhD in Wireless Communications at Queen's, where he went on to become a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. He is currently a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow.
Dr Cotton's work is focused on wireless communications, particularly on how wireless signals transmit around the human body; from person to manmade infrastructure and also from person to person. His research has allowed him to develop innovative short-range applications designed to advance society. The goal is to create "body-to-body" networks in densely populated areas, where wireless devices positioned on people could replace mobile base stations to facilitate voice, video and data traffic.
Recognised as an international expert in his field, Dr Cotton has published papers in several leading engineering journals and has featured in the national press. As well as his academic work, Dr Cotton has recently co-founded ACT Wireless Ltd, a company to take his products into the marketplace. He also regularly gives practical engineering demonstrations in schools.
Commenting on the award, Professor John McCanny CBE FREng FRS, Director of the Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology, based at Belfast's Northern Ireland Science Park, said: "The growth of communications continues apace and pervasive body-area networks are an intriguing future possibility.
"Here we have a top-rate engineer who is establishing a worldwide reputation. He is also an inspirational advocate of engineering and is able to translate cutting edge research into easily-accessible messages to help capture the imagination of the next generation of engineers."
Professor Stephen McLaughlin FREng, Dean for Research at the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Edinburgh, added: "Dr Cotton clearly has a first rate intellect and this is coupled with a desire to see his ideas converted into something practical and useful; key attributes for an engineer."
Story reproduced by permission from www.raeng.org.uk
Best Paper Awards for Dr Kang Li
Prof Professor Luis A. Aguirre from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil (right) and Prof Kaspar Althoefer from King's College London, UK (left) present Dr Li (middle) with the certificate.
Dr Kang Li, a lecturer in the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen's University, has been presented with the Young Author Best Paper Award at the 2011 International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control (ICMIC 2011), held in Shanghai, China in June.
The Award was for work on "Modelling of Melt Pressure Development in Polymer Extrusion: Effects of Process Settings and Screw Geometry", which Dr Li co-authored with his PhD student Chamil Abeykoon and colleagues from the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Queen's and the University of Bradford. This work is part of the research linked to two current EPSRC projects on polymer extrusion for energy saving and process quality improvement and the £2.3 million Science Bridge project on sustainable energy and environment, for which Dr Li is the Principal Investigator or a main Co-Investigator.
 Prof Dianguo Xu (right), Assistant President of |
Dr Li commented "This award represents recognition within a wider research community of the quality of the work carried out by our multidisciplinary research team. In our team, we focus on both research quality of the highest standard as well as knowledge transfer to make impact on industry and engineering sector, especially the work on advanced process control assisted with the latest ICT technology to target energy intensive industry as well as high value added manufacturing to improve the global competitiveness". Dr Li is also one of the recipients of the highly commended paper award by the International Journal of Systems Science in 2008 and the best paper award by the 2010 LSMS-ICSEE conferences. In recognition of his academic achievements and international collaboration initiatives, Dr Li has recently also been honoured by Harbin Institute of Technology as a Visiting Professor in July 2011. |
Dell rewards 'High Performing' Student
Dr Peter Kilpatrick (Queen’s University),
Colin Boyd (Dell), Paul Kelly and
Dr Ivor Spence (Queen’s University)
Paul Kelly, a final year computing student at Queen's University Belfast has been presented with a Dell laptop computer for coming top in a High Performance Computing challenge as part of his degree. Paul, from Lisburn, completed the program challenge as part of his MEng Computer Science finals at the University.
Colin Boyd, Account Executive with Dell Northern Ireland, who presented Paul with his laptop, commented "On behalf of Dell, I am delighted to present Paul with his prize. He is obviously a very talented student and I wish him all the best for his future career.
"Dell has a five year strategic partnership with Queen's University Belfast to develop, enhance and exploit the High Performance Computing Infrastructure available within the University, so we are pleased to have the opportunity to sponsor this prize."
Commenting on behalf of Queen's, lecturer Dr Ivor Spence said "We are grateful to Dell for their continued support at both a strategic level and also in activities such as this, which provide real benefit to our students".
