News & Media

Student success stories at winter grads

The UOW campus is always a-buzz during the biannual graduation week – with thousands of students, their families and friends celebrating years of study and achievement.

The Winter 2009 ceremonies, being held from 22 - 24 July, have so far been no exception – bringing with them a number of uplifting and unique stories.

Today (Thursday) a group of Indian graduates took the chance to assemble for photos and celebrations before their ceremony. Nabeel Habeeb, Vipin Gopan, Sachin Ramachandran, Anoos Parameswaran, Jacob Paul and Prince Rajan Chunackara studied their Master of Engineering together at UOW.

During this morning’s ceremony for Arts, Creative Arts and Engineering graduates, Dr Kimberley McMahon-Coleman received her PhD in English Literature. In a story of remarkable achievement, Kimberley enrolled in her PhD part time in 2002 when she had two very young children. In 2004 she was diagnosed with choriocarcinoma and underwent an extensive course of chemotherapy to overcome her cancer. Kimberley then returned to study and completed her thesis while teaching at the Shoalhaven Campus, editing the Association for Canadian Studies in Australian and NZ Newsletter and volunteering for the NSW Cancer Council in the Shoalhaven. She was joined on her graduation day by her husband Tony and her two children Jamie and Robert.

Dr Sima Aminorroaya-Yamini was awarded a PhD for her thesis examining the effects of titanium additions to low carbon, low manganese steels on sulphide precipitation. Sima was named the female entrepreneur of the year in 2004 in her homeland state of Isfahan in Iran in light of a company she established. At UOW she has been working alongside Professor Hua Liu from the Institute for Superconducting and Electronic Materials.

Ace Bourke graduated from a Master of Arts – Research from the Faculty of Creative Arts. Ace and his friend John Rendall have become known worldwide as the duo who bought ‘Christian the Lion’ from Harrods in the 1960s. The story of Christian went viral on YouTube in 2008, with millions of people watching the reunion between the lion and the two men years after they set him free in the wild. At the same time that he was handing in his thesis for his Masters, Ace was dealing with global media attention – including an appearance on Oprah. Dean of Creative Arts, Professor Amanda Lawson said this was “quite an achievement” to deal with the massive amount of media attention and focus on his studies at the same time.

Peter McLean and David Aylward graduated yesterday (Wednesday) with their PhDs, both from the School of Marketing and Management. Peter's research looked at the Australian mining industry, specifically the impact of a performance rating system on coal miners in the Illawarra, and how they dealt with what they saw as the insult of being rated by a misinformed above-ground management. David's PhD research looked into the organsiation and impact of research and development structures within the Australian wine industry. Peter and David studied together and are both members of the People and Organisation Research Centre - causing their supervisor Associate Professor Michael Zanko to dub them the mines and wines duo!

More stories can be read in the captions to the right, and at the graduation photos page: http://www.uow.edu.au/student/graduation/photos/index.html

Last reviewed: 23 July, 2009