The Governor of Western Australia has presented a Curtin University town planning student with the inaugural Jeff Dobell Memorial Scholarship.
First-year urban and regional planning student Thane Browne attended the Indigenous Australian Engineering Summer School in 2008.
After completing the summer school, Mr Browne completed high school and achieved the grades for university entry.
His Excellency Dr Ken Michael AC presented Thane with the $3000 scholarship, based on his achievements in the summer school.
Engineering Aid Australia chairman Jim Mantle said the new scholarship commemorated the late Jeff Dobell who founded EAA and had coordinated the summer school since 1997.
“The scholarship is one of the ways EAA tries to encourage students to pursue engineering,” Dr Mantle said.
“Dobell was intent on increasing the number of indigenous engineers.”
This year, Curtin hosted the summer school for the first time.
Applications for the 2011 program are now being invited from interested secondary students.
Details are available at www.engineeringaid.org/.