Quinn mighty proud of 3-minute milestone
Published on 01 December, 2010
CQUniversity's industry-based research credentials received a significant boost when recent electrical engineering co-op graduate John Quinn took out first place in the prestigious Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers 2010 Australasian student three-minute thesis competition, held in Melbourne on November 25.
John also had the opportunity to deliver an ‘in depth' explanation of his research to IEEE Student Congress participants and received the runner-up award in this category.
His latest success follows a runner-up placing in the prestigious Present Around the World engineering competition, run earlier this year by the IET (Institution of Engineering and Technology) and Engineers Australia Queensland Division.
John is now looking forward to presenting a fully peer-reviewed paper which has been accepted for an international conference - AUPEC2010 - to be held in New Zealand in early December.
Recent graduate John Quinn pictured with IEEE International President Elect Gordon Day
The three-minute thesis competition was a feature of IEEE's ANZSCON 2010 (Australia and New Zealand Student Congress) and attracted representatives from universities throughout Australia, including the University of Melbourne, RMIT University and Monash University.
While most competitors were doctoral students, John based his presentation around his final-year Bachelor of Engineering thesis project titled ‘Closed Loop Voltage Control for Medium Voltage Distribution' which was developed in conjunction with Ergon Energy.
John graduated from CQUniversity in September 2010 with first-class honours in electrical engineering and now works for Ergon Energy, based in Rockhampton.
His original research helped to prove the efficacy of a system to reduce ‘out of limits' voltages to provide better quality electricity to isolated consumers in the Ergon network, minimising equipment failures and benefiting both industry and household users.
Competitors were judged on their ability to provide a concise overview of the research, including its research significance, in a language appropriate to an intelligent but non-specialist audience.
The competition was judged by an expert panel made up of academics and industry representatives including the International Foundation Director and Treasurer of IEEE, Joe Lillie from the United States.
IEEE is a not-for-profit professional body for electrical and electronic engineers with over 400,000 members worldwide and is dedicated to advancing technology for humanity.
John's thesis supervisors were Ergon's Alternative Energy Solutions Manager Trevor Gear and CQUniversity Power Engineering Research Group Leader Dr Aman Maung Than Oo.
His participation in the competition was enabled by a $500 travel grant provided by CQUniversity's IEEE Student Councillor Dr Shawkat Ali and IEEE's Queensland division.
In addition to his recent successes, John has won the Queensland section Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) ICPADM-Mat Darveniza student prize for the best final-year bachelor of engineering thesis in power engineering.
This is the second successive year that a CQUniversity student has won this award which is contested by other Queensland universities including UQ, QUT, USQ and Griffith. In 2009, the award went to CQUniversity Electrical Engineering Co-op student Nathaniel Dunnett for his earlier work with Ergon Energy in the same area as John.