Southampton nanoelectronics student is joint UKESF Scholar of the Year

Masters student Eliza Law has been named joint UK Electronics Skills Foundation (UKESF) Scholar of the Year at the TechWorks Deep Tech Hub’s annual awards.

She becomes the fourth University of Southampton student to claim the title in the past seven years and will share the honour with Jamie Tupholme from the University of Leeds.

The talented students were highlighted in a wide-ranging awards ceremony and gala dinner at The O2 in London on Thursday, which also included nominations for Southampton Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) graduates Andrew Betts and Josh Oldfield under Young Engineer of the Year.

The TechWorks Awards 2017 brought together over 400 executives and professionals from across the industry for a dinner and networking with guest speaker and BBC Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones.

Eliza, who is sponsored in her UKESF scholarship by SWINDON Silicon Systems, has started an MSc studying biodevices and nanoelectronics* this semester having graduated from a BEng in Electronic Engineering at ECS earlier this summer. Eliza was thrilled and surprised to receive the award, saying: “Truth be told, I wasn’t originally going to apply for the Scholar of the Year award. I have thoroughly enjoyed each of my challenging summer placements, and love the outreach work involved in my roles in student representation, but to me those have always felt like privileges rather than things I should be congratulated for."

Geoff Merrett, Associate Professor and Member of the UKESF Strategic Advisory Group, says, “Many congratulations to Eliza on this prestigious award, recognising her excellent contributions to her sponsoring company and STEM advocacy. The UKESF offers some really excellent opportunities to students, and it’s great to see the quality of Southampton students acknowledged yet again.”

The UKESF is a collaboration between industry, universities and the public sector that aims to secure a sustainable supply of quality and industry-prepared graduates. Southampton has seen great success in the collaboration’s scholarship scheme in recent years, with a higher success rate and more posts awarded than any other university since the programme began.

Many ECS students in all but final years of BEng or MEng degrees containing a substantial amount of electronics content are eligible to apply for UKESF scholarships. Successful candidates are matched with sponsoring companies for scholarships that include annual bursaries, paid summer work placements and industrial mentoring.

The UKESF Scholar of the Year Award recognises students who have made a significant contribution to their sponsoring employer through a work placement and actively promoted electronics and STEM subjects to young people. Recent Southampton winners of the award include Josh Oldfield, Ashley Robinson and Adam Malpass.

* Eliza is studying for an MSc in Biodevices. This programme has now been incorporated into our MSc in Micro and Nanotechnology.