A high-achieving computer student from Dundee University is gearing up for a trip to Switzerland later this month with the internet giants Google after success in a scholarship competition.
Shazia Akbar (21) is a finalist in the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship 2012 and has been invited to visit the Google Engineering office in Zurich for a ”networking retreat”.
The scholarship aims to encourage women to excel in computing and technology, and become active role models and leaders.
Places are awarded based on the strength of candidates’ academic performance, leadership experience and demonstrated passion for computer science.
The former Morgan Academy pupil was ”absolutely delighted” upon learning she had been selected for the honour and is now looking forward to her trip abroad.
”I initially wasn’t even going to apply for the scholarship but I got great encouragement from staff in the school of computing to go for it and that has proved to be great advice,” said Shazia, who graduated top of her year with an applied computing degree from Dundee last year.
Shazia is now studying for her PhD with the school of computing’s Computer Vision & Image Processing group, supervised by Professor Stephen McKenna.
Her research is developing computer software to analyse histopathology images of breast cancer, in collaboration with Professor Alastair Thompson and Dr Lee Jordan in the medical school at Ninewells Hospital.
Professor McKenna said: ”Shazia will join a select group of 87 female computer science students from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Google’s Scholars’ Retreat. We are delighted that Google has selected Shazia for what should be an inspiring event that should help her with her PhD and on her path to becoming a leader in computing.”
The aim of Shazia’s research is to detect tumours with minimal input from a pathologist, using machine learning techniques.