Romana DEW

Student of The University of Adelaide, Australia
Exchange to Chiang Mai University, Thailand

In early November 2015, I accepted an Endeavour Australia Cheung Kong Research Fellowship to travel to Thailand for five months in 2016. I am currently undertaking this fellowship in Thailand as part of my PhD candidature looking at the tectonic evolution of Thailand. This fellowship is integral to my research giving me the time and the funding necessary to collect samples I require from all across Thailand.

For my fellowship I am based in Chiang Mai in northwestern Thailand. My host is Dr. Christopher Morley who is based at Chiang Mai University and has 35 years' experience looking at the geology and tectonics of Southeast Asia. Chris is a principal adviser to my research, so this visit and collaboration with him and his colleagues is highly beneficial to my PhD research. My fellowship begun in January, and I have had great success collecting the required rocks. The plan for second half of my fellowship has been devised to ensure that samples are collected from all necessary areas and can be prepared as much as practicable for geochemical analyses prior to leaving Thailand at the beginning of June.

Through this experience, I have had the opportunity to study a 45-hour Thai language course, attend a ceremony in Bangkok where I was awarded a certificate for this Endeavour Fellowship from the Australian Ambassador to Thailand and also travel all over Thailand and to some neighbouring countries. The experiences from this fellowship have expanded my view of the world and its people's diversity and capabilities. I thank the Cheung Kong Group for the scholarship opportunity, which has broadened and strengthened my PhD research considerably. I look forward to the rest of my Cheung Kong Fellowship and also the rest of my PhD candidature and continuing to delve into and unravel the tectonic evolution of Thailand.

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