Only 5 years after arriving in Australia and starting to learn English, Faezeh Nabiollahi has completed a Biomedical Science degree and hopes to become a surgeon or medical specialist one day.

Faezeh grew up in Iran's second-largest city - Mashhad (also known as Iran's holiest city, 850km east of the capital Tehran and with 6.5 million inhabitants) - and worked as a dental technician before marrying and immigrating to the much smaller regional Australian city of Rockhampton with her husband.

She started out at TAFE before starting her degree program at CQU Rockhampton, where she has recently earned a Vacation Scholarship from the National Heart Foundation to carry out a research project over the summer.

She will work alongside fellow student Anna Voss on a project entitled: "Assessment of changes in plasma markers of inflammation, oxidative stress and nitric oxide following a rural tertiary outpatient cardiac rehabilitation program".

Both Anna and Faezeh are planning to continue into an Honours program at CQU in 2008.

Supervisor Dr Andrew Fenning said a total of 5 CQU students were selected by the Heart Foundation on a nationally competitive basis, which took into account the strengths of the research proposals, their personal results and the reputation of the Biomedical Science degree at CQU.

Summer scholars a hearty bunch