Student success

In the world of cricket, our trainee sport and exercise psychologist, Sahen Gupta, joined Scotland’s Men’s U19 squad at the Cricket World Cup in the West Indies, in what he described as the ‘experience of a lifetime!’.

He had been working with the Scotland Men’s U19 squad since 2020 thanks to a partnership between the University and Cricket Scotland. He was invited to join the team when they were given a last-minute ticket to the World Cup, having narrowly missed out on direct qualification.

During the competition, Sahen spent a month in a COVID-19 bubble with the squad, travelling to many countries in the West Indies to provide mental health and wellbeing support to players and staff.

Engineering students at the University put into action a school pupil’s idea to use Scotland’s rainfall as a source of power and went on to win the top prize at the Leaders Awards competition run by Primary Engineer.

The students worked on designing a ‘Hydro-Paddle’, an idea created by Kinross High School pupil Heather Cox when she was in just Primary Seven. Heather’s idea was to have a hydro-turbine in a drainpipe, fed by water from the gutter, to use rainfall to generate power for a house.

Mollie Reid, one of the University students who worked on the project, said: “One of the main factors in the Hydro-Paddle’s success was its aim to tackle climate change on a small scale, which can be done domestically by using what we see a lot of in Scotland − rain!

“The design was brought to life using skills we had learned throughout our modules and further research on similar small-scale hydro turbines.”

In the continued battle against COVID-19, our applied health professional (AHP), nursing and paramedic students were part of a 12,000-cohort that supported the NHS while undertaking their placements.

Scottish Government Health Secretary Humza Yousaf praised their commitment and contribution to the NHS.

He said: “As part of their professional programme of education, and throughout the pandemic, these students have worked tirelessly to support our NHS, making an invaluable contribution to the delivery of care as part of their supervised practice in health and social care environments.

“I wholeheartedly thank them for their hard work during this difficult time.”

Ukrainian refugee Dmytro Dorofeiev was delighted to have been offered a place on the University’s Biological Sciences degree through our clearing process.

It meant the 21-year-old would be able to continue his studies in the field of biology.

Dmytro had completed his third-year BSc Biology studies at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy when he and his family fled just before the war broke out.

He praised the University staff for their help and for pulling out all the stops so that he can continue with his passion for biology. His dream is to become a researcher in microbiology.