Nine PhD students from The University of Western Australia will receive up to $24,000 annually as recipients of the first round of the WA Agricultural Research Collaboration (WAARC) Postgraduate Research Scholarship Program.
They are among 23 successful candidates State-wide to receive the scholarship to support living expenses while completing their PhDs, which is part of a new program to inspire future leaders and grow agricultural innovation in WA.
The students will also be part of a professional development program aimed at building their agricultural research and development knowledge, skills, networks, and first-hand industry experience.
Agriculture and Food Minister Jackie Jarvis and WAARC Director Dr Kelly Pearce were among about 90 industry leaders and stakeholders who congratulated the scholarship students at the program’s launch event on July 26.
The UWA Institute of Agriculture Director Hackett Professor Kadambot Siddique, head of the UWA School of Agriculture and Environment Associate Professor Matthias Leopold, Dr Qiaoyun Xie, and professors Yinglong Chen and Erik Veneklaas were also in attendance.
“We are very pleased to see our nine PhD students receive WAARC scholarship support, which will help them to undertake some cutting-edge research highly relevant to WA agriculture,” Professor Siddique said.
Image: Dr Kelly Pearce, Hackett Professor Kadambot Siddique, Professor Yinglong Chen, Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis, and Associate Professor Matthias Leopold with the PhD scholarship recipients from UWA.
The scholarship students will be supervised and supported by the collaboration’s university members – UWA, Curtin University and Murdoch University.
Dr Pearce said WAARC was excited and encouraged by the level of interest shown in its scholarship program and the quality of applicants and research topics.
“The PhD topics chosen by our scholarship recipients are innovative and diverse – from unlocking the potential of nitrogen use efficiency genes in wheat, to human factors affecting the adoption and diffusion of novel biotechnology, and seed and plant production of Noongar plants with cultural significance for food and medicine,” she said.
“Several PhDs will be linked to broader WAARC research projects further enhancing those students’ experiences with cross-organisation collaboration and industry linkages.”
“We look forward to seeing the results of these transformative research projects over the coming years.
Dr Kelly Pearce
The scholarship program is a $2.25 million investment by the State Government in the WAARC to encourage bright research minds into the agriculture and food sector. WAARC’s non-university members CSIRO, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development and Grower Group Alliance will provide access to leading industry researchers as possible co-supervisors, world-class research facilities, field sites, grower groups and industry networks.
The UWA-based WAARC scholarship recipients and their thesis titles are:
- Darcy Lefroy: Human factors affecting the adoption and diffusion of emerging biotechnologies
- Chloe Rout: Evaluating the benefits and overcoming barriers to adoption of intercropping and companion cropping of canola or cereals with legumes
- Montana Walsh Baddeley: Understanding the genetic factors influencing meat quality and performance of rangelands beef cattle throughout the WA supply chain
- Roberto Lujan Rocha: A novel approach for scalable weed prediction and mapping to enable integrated weed management in Western Australian cropping systems
- Saira Azmat: Effects of phosphorus availability and root morphological traits on adaptive responses to salinity stress in barley (Hordeum vulgare)
- Mahnaz Afsar: Developing demand-driven extension strategies to improve adoption of precision agriculture technologies in south-west Western Australia
- Yusi Zhang: Assessing and enhancing pasture and rangeland resilience in Western Australia: integrative approaches for productivity mapping and climate impact analysis
- Angelia Tanu: Enhancing field establishment potential for the next generation of climate-resilient canola
- Huyen Pham: Unravelling the impact of rhizosheath size in wheat (Triticum aestivum L) on drought and nutrient use efficiency