Latest News
Chinese Government awards Swinburne PhD student
March 2009
If Qiang He had any doubt about keeping his motivation up as he nears the end of his PhD thesis, he needn’t worry anymore.
He was recently announced as one of 19 research students in Australia to receive the 2008 Chinese Government Award for Outstanding Students Abroad. “It feels great,” he says. “There were so many competitive applicants ... I didn’t expect to win at all.”
Qiang is just weeks away from submitting his thesis for a joint PhD between China’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) and Swinburne.
He spent his first year at HUST and the last two years at Swinburne’s Centre for Complex Software Systems and Services. Once his thesis is finalised he will return to China to complete his research.
“I’m working on service level agreement management for quality of service aware service composition. Sounds complicated, doesn’t it?” he laughs.
It looks quite the mouthful, but Qiang's research has the potential to make our everyday lives just that little bit easier. When we go on holiday, for example, we can now book our flights, hotel and car hire as one composite service. He is looking at agreements between such multiple online providers to ensure the consumer gets the same service they would have received had they booked separately.
“Australia is a very good choice for research students if they want to study abroad,” says Qiang. “It’s one of the great places to go.”
He says working with Swinburne’s Professor Yun Yang – who is one of four of Qiang’s supervisors – has been amazing. “He’s a very kind, experienced, thoughtful, helpful supervisor. Without him I couldn’t have done so much.”
One of the favourite memories he’ll take home from his time in Australia was when Hawthorn won the Australian Football League (AFL) premiership last year and fans gathered in the thousands to cheer them on at Glenferrie Oval.
“I was there with all the fans applauding and screaming,” he recalls. “It felt so great. It felt like I was one of them. Australia is a wonderful country. People here are so warm and friendly.”
