A key knowledge exchange output of SUPA comes from its six hundred graduate students. Many of these students have industrial sponsors, either through one of the four Centres for Doctoral Training, or via another arrangement between their host university and industry. An excellent illustration of the benefits that can accrue from industrial involvement in a PhD is provided by a recently completed studentship from SUPA’s INSPIRE programme.
The studentship was a collaboration between the University of Edinburgh and Toshiba Medical Visualisation Systems Europe and concerned the development of acquisition and analysis methods to image coronary arteries and cardiac function. The student, Chengjia Wang, supervised by Keith Goatman (Toshiba Medical) and Scott Semple (University of Edinburgh), successfully defended his thesis at the end of June. This topped off an extremely successful collaboration with two manuscripts in preparation with Chengjia as lead author to add to the multiple conference presentations, co-authored papers, and a patent on the registration of medical images.