CRC-P PhD students –where are they now?
Mark Turner commenced his PhD studies in 20 09 with Professor Min Gu at Swinburne University of Technology. After submitting his PhD thesis at the end of 2012 on Biomimetic chiral gyroids for photonic microstructures, he continued his photonic research interests as a Post Doctoral Fellow at Swinburne. In February this year, Mark moved to Silicon Valley in California, USA, to take up a position with pioneering laser company IMRA America.
Dr Mark Turner at the IMRA Laboratories
Reflecting on his time as a student with the CRC-P, Mark says “Doing my PhD with the CRC-P gave me exposure to a diverse community of scientific peers. The connections I made during my PhD were very useful to my research project, particularly at the latter stages where I had to collaborate across multiple institutions with people in completely different fields.”
The CRC-P offers its PhD students extracurricular training opportunities such as the annual Polymer Summer School and also in the business aspects of science such as intellectual property, media training, project management and commercialisation. As a participant in the CRC-P’s Education program, Mark says “The CRC-P encouraged entrepreneurship within the centre and even sponsored me to undertake a part-time course in research commercialisation. It was a great introduction to what was involved in taking research from the lab to a commercial state. I think this certainly helped push me towards my decision to move to Silicon Valley to continue my career in an environment rich with technical start-ups.”
The CRC-P has supported 30 students to undertake postgraduate studies over the last five years and is now recruiting again.
Visit our website to learn more about Scholarship opportunities.
