Australian International Education Excellence Award for Passionate Engineering Academics

2014 IEAA Excellence Award recipient team (from Left to Right):
Mdm Chew Moi-Tin, Dr Kuang Ye Chow, Dr Melanie Ooi and Prof Serge Demidenko

School of Engineering's Dr Melanie Ooi (Senior Lecturer) and Dr Kuang Ye Chow (Associate Head of School) are recipients of the prestigious 2014 Excellence Award for Best Practice/Innovation in International Education from the International Education Association of Australia (IEAA).

The IEAA represents nearly 200 major institutions and organisations around Australia from all sectors of the international education industry – including higher education, TAFE, vocational education, schools and English language colleges. IEAA works in close collaboration with industry stakeholders, affiliated peak bodies and all levels of government.

The IEAA Excellence Awards in Best Practice/Innovation recognise and reward outstanding contributions of individuals or teams to international education through ground-breaking achievements in international development, internationalisation of the curriculum, marketing or communication, support programs for international students, pathway initiatives, mobility programs or social inclusion activities. They provide a benchmark of the excellence and best practice for the entire industry.

Several years of intensive work in collaboration with the colleagues from RMIT University (Head of Centre of Technology, Professor Serge Demidenko and Head of Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Mdm Moi Tin Chew) yielded continuous improvement of the content and delivery of Electronic Test Technology within offered undergraduate and postgraduate engineering programs. In turn this significantly enhanced international work readiness and employability of electronic engineering graduates.

“Asia is a home to some of the largest multinational hi-tech industry players. By taking advantage of operations of Monash University and RMIT University in the region (Malaysia, Vietnam), and by collaborating with the major electronics companies, such as Intel, National Instruments, Freescale Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, and several others, our team has developed an academic framework which has been thoroughly reviewed by and aligned with the industry to ensure its currency and relevance” said the Project Leader Dr Melanie Ooi.

The award will be presented at the Australian International Education Conference (AIEC) - the largest event of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region on Tuesday 7 October 2014 in Brisbane. On behalf of the team Dr Melanie Ooi will also deliver a plenary talk on the award-winning framework program to the conference audience.