Six Engineering DPhils receive highly competitive Clarendon Scholarships in latest awards

Clarendon offers over 200 new, fully-funded scholarships each year to assist outstanding graduate scholars, and give them the opportunity to join one of the most active, internationally diverse, and multidisciplinary communities at Oxford. The scholarships are competitive, prestigious and highly sought-after. By covering course fees, and providing a generous grant for living expenses, the funding helps reduce financial barriers that may stand in the way of the best students, from across the world, coming to study at Oxford.

Any full-time or part-time DPhil and Master’s students are eligible and are automatically considered for the scholarships when they apply. There are no restrictions on nationality, ordinary residence or field of study. Originally established to support Overseas students, the Clarendon Fund first welcomed scholars to Oxford in 2001. The scheme was expanded in 2012 to include students from the UK and EU, therefore providing funding for all fee statuses.

The Clarendon scholars for 2023/24 are:

Yunchuan Huang, supervised by Professor Justin Coon, who says, “Yunchuan Huang applied having received top marks and references from Southeast University (Nanjing) and Tsinghua University. At the time of application, he was at the end of his master’s studies (communication engineering) and had published three papers in reputable IEEE journals. Yunchuan will join the Information and Network Science Lab, where he will conduct research on communication and information theory.”

Hui Wang, supervised by Professor Orestis Aramidis, who says, “Hui has an outstanding research background, with already 6 papers published in international journals, including in top-tier journals for geotechnical engineering. He received his Master’s degree from Tongji University (TJU, selected in Double  First  Class University Plan, sponsored by Project 985), where he achieved a perfect GPA of 4.00/4.00 and graduated top of his class. He comes to Oxford after having been honoured with a series of awards, which include a National Scholarship for Undergraduate (2017, 2018), a National Scholarship for Graduate (2022), and being named an Excellent Graduate of Liaoning Province 1/58 (2020). He begins his research in Oxford with the generous support of a Clarendon scholarship. In Oxford, he will develop mathematical models that can capture the complex mechanics of granular soils in the vicinity of offshore renewable energy structures.”

Chenqi Li, supervised by Professor Tingting Zhu, who says, “Chenqi Li has an excellent track record of publications and awards during his undergraduate study at the University of Toronto. With the generous support of a Clarendon scholarship, Chenqi will apply novel machine learning techniques to improve wearable diagnosis in limited resource settings, particularly, bridging the gap between theoretical perception algorithms and their deployment under real-world constraints.”

Ziyao Zhang, supervised by Professor Wouter Mostert, who says, “Ziyao comes to us from Harbin Institute of Technology, where he ranked first out of a large cohort in his master’s programme, following on from a highly successful bachelor’s degree. On top of having several national scholarships for his outstanding scholarship in China, he has an amazing track record of first-author publications in the most well-regarded fluid mechanics journals. In his research he has dealt with two very difficult extensions of fluid mechanics, namely viscoelasticity and electrohydrodynamics, using state-of-the-art numerical tools along with physical insight and interpretation at a standard most often seen in advanced graduate or postdoctoral researchers. Here at Oxford, under the generous support from both the Clarendon Fund and a Magdalen Graduate Scholarship, Ziyao will investigate numerically the fragmentation dynamics of droplets in airstreams with application to too many important problems in engineering to try to enumerate. We look forward to welcoming him to the Department.”

Brandon Smart, supervised by Professor Victor Prisacariu, who says, “Brandon excels academically, standing out as the highest achieving student in his Bachelor's and Honours programs in computer science at the University of Adelaide in Australia. He has received numerous accolades for his outstanding performance and has published research in prestigious conferences, solidifying his expertise. Beyond academia, Brandon has achieved remarkable success by representing his university in renowned international competitions like the NASA Space Robotics Challenge. These accomplishments have showcased his exceptional skills on a global platform. Now, at Oxford, Brandon will explore 3D computer vision and scene reconstruction methods, focusing on their application in robotics. His aim is to extract valuable insights about the environment solely from visual input, pushing the boundaries of knowledge and contributing to the advancement of robotics and computer vision.”

Ziming Wang, supervised by Professor Christopher Proctor, who says,” Ziming comes to the Department from Nottingham University, where he completed a BEng in Electrical Engineering at the top of his class. He was also an Amgen Scholar at the University of Cambridge where he had a fruitful research experience in the Department of Radiology. Ziming’s DPhil research will focus on developing minimally invasive bioelectronic technologies.”