The Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Aberdeen has awarded £27,500 to 21 students as part of its 2020 bursary programme.
With individual bursaries ranging from £500 to £3,000 available, a total of 71 students from undergraduate to PhD level applied this year from the Robert Gordon, Aberdeen, Strathclyde and Heriot-Watt universities.
Each winning student was presented with their bursary award at a ceremony hosted by SPE Aberdeen, which took place on March 12 at Robert Gordon University.
Five students were awarded this year’s top bursaries of £3,000:
• Amy Connelly, Aberdeen University
• Eilidh Heaton, Aberdeen
• Milena Zagulak, Aberdeen
• Sam Head, Heriot-Watt University
• Xiang Shi, Heriot-Watt
The 2020 awards also showed strength of diversity, with women representing half of this year’s recipients and three out of the five top bursary awards.
Rob Lee, head of petrophysics solutions at Shell UK, was head of the student bursary selection committee for 2020 and commended the calibre of this year’s applicants.
He said: “Although the majority of applications tend to come from petroleum engineering students, the field of studies this year covered a wide range – not only chemical, mechanical, environmental and safety engineering, but also industry management, economics and law.
“The diversity of the skills and knowledge demonstrated in those planning a future career in energy is extremely encouraging for our industry.”
SPE Aberdeen’s scholarship programme has been running for more than 35 years and in the last 10 years alone, the bursary programme has awarded about £200,000 of financial support.
Kenny McAllister, SPE Aberdeen chairman said: “We are delighted to once again support our industry’s next generation, particularly during a time when such huge emphasis is being placed upon nurturing talent.
“The amount of financial support our section has been able to provide for bursaries over the years is tremendous.
“This is made possible not only through the dedication of our volunteers, but also the support from our event sponsors and delegates who help to provide the funds we use to support our Stem initiatives.
“On behalf of SPE Aberdeen, I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate each of the winning students and wish them all the best in their future studies.”
For more information on SPE Aberdeen and a full list of award recipients, please visit www.spe-aberdeen.org/news
Recommended for you
