Past prizes and scholarships

Students in all Schools at The University of Western Australia were eligible to receive one of thirty two Convocation Prizes for academic excellence each year.

Post 2016 one prize valued at $1000 each is made in each of the 32 Schools of the University.

Each prize is awarded in the form of a certificate and a cheque to each winner. In some Faculties, the amounts may be pooled for several of its Schools in order to offer one or more prizes of a larger amount.

Due to 2016 UWA renewal project UWA has restructured with four faculties and school of indigenous studies.

As such five new Convocation Faculty Student prizes are currently being formed for 2018.

Graduate Women WA Scholarship

As a commemorative gift in its 90th year, Graduate Women WA funded a scholarship at all five universities within Western Australia.

The award was open to female postgraduate students across all disciplines, and was intended to assist the recipient with practical aspects associated with their research, such as providing funds for travel to conduct field-work, access resources, or collaborate with researchers inter-state or overseas.

Award

The Graduate Women WA 90th Anniversary Scholarship was awarded to Ms Tegan Davies (also the recipient of the 2013 Geoffrey Kennedy.

About Graduate Women WA

Graduate Women WA is a not-for-profit organization that welcomes women graduates interested in advancing the education of other women and promoting international harmony and friendship. For 90 years, Graduate Women WA has been the voice of graduate women who seek to serve and empower women and girls through education and advocacy at a local, national and international level.

At the state and territory level, the Australian Federation of Graduate Women helps women undertaking postgraduate studies by providing bursaries. Graduate Women WA traditionally provides five annual bursaries, a scholarship to a student resident of St Catherine's College and two grants to enable female high school students to attend the Science Summer School at Murdoch University. Funds for these bursaries come from donations and from the academic dress hire service run by members and volunteers.

In 2010 the University of Western Australia's Cultural Precinct established an international design competition for an innovative temporary shelter design for Pacific Rim countries hit by disaster. The competition was open to recently graduated architectural students around the world.

The $10,000 prize was won by two Italian graduates, Elisa Mansutti and Luca Pavarin, graduates from the University of Udine, in north-east Italy. By using traditional Japanese techniques they designed a temporary shelter that is easy to construct, and displays many sustainable principles.

"We studied origami and its theory of self-supporting structures, in our architecture units," Luca said.

"It is a very simple structure to erect," Elisa said. "Just 13 aluminium poles in the ground, then the seams of the fabric will hold it up."

The honeycomb-like design provides for 12 private sleeping compartments around the outer part of the pavilion, with a big communal area in the middle. The designers were given a brief for an economical shelter (less than $12,000), easily deliverable to remote areas, and using green technologies.

They brought together the best of several tent designs, rejecting those that needed guy ropes and the traditional emergency tent that does not provide any private compartments. They adapted the idea of the nomadic tent, using layers of fabric, depending on the weather (ensuring their design could be made with different densities of fabric), and the family camping tent, which uses zips to enclose or open out areas of different sizes.