The Subject Fund in Engineering
Thanks to the generosity of over 110 donors, Engineering (one of the largest subjects at Queens’ with 18 undergraduates and approximately eight postgraduates admitted each year) has now become one of the 18 endowed subject funds established by the College.
In 2024 we raised £400,000 for The Osborne Reynolds Fund in Engineering, which provides a total annual sum of £12,000 to support our undergraduate and postgraduate students. These funds are allocated at the discretion of the Director of Studies in Engineering, Prof Andrew Gee, to provide financial assistance with the following:
- Books and other study materials / equipment
- Attendance at conferences, lectures, and other events
- Research expenses
- Subject-related travel expenses
- Dissertation-binding costs
The Fund will be known as The Osborne Reynolds Fund in Engineering. Osborne Reynolds FRS graduated from Queens' in 1867 as the seventh wrangler in Mathematics (the Department of Engineering was not established until 1875). Reynolds "had an irresistible liking for mechanics and the physical laws on which mechanics as a science is based". He went on to transform our understanding of laminar and turbulent fluid flow, and the transition between the two. Reynold's work remains central to contemporary fluid dynamics and is taught in Part I of the Engineering Tripos.
Professor Andrew Gee with Engineering graduands in 2022 (left) and Angus meeting the Badjao people to talk about their water supply (below)
Professor Andrew Gee with Engineering graduands in 2022 (left) and Angus meeting the Badjao people to talk about their water supply (below)
Angus Chisholm is an Engineering student who benefitted from Queens' funding last year. With support from the College, Angus spent the summer of 2023 on a Summer Humanitarian Academy, organised jointly by Lingnan University in Hong Kong and Batangas State University in the Philippines. The photograph below shows Angus meeting the Badjao people to talk about their water supply. With feedback from the villagers, Angus went on to improve an existing water testing kit supplied by Cambridge-based Waterscope.
"We first spent time visiting local communities; for my group’s project - improvement of the Waterscope kit - as well other projects, including improvement of a chocolate coated banana chip manufacture process and improvement of a solar powered irrigation pump. This was a particularly eye opening experience in which we were immersed in local culture (especially the customary five full meals we were given a day!) as well as having an opportunity to meet the people who would be the users of such a test kit and who we would be designing for. Across about a week we went through the entire design process - one that I had been taught as part of the coursework in my first year of engineering. We developed ideas and arrived at a final prototype, which we presented to local officials and received their feedback. From this we finalised our design and presented it to members of the BSU, Lingnan and local government officers... The six weeks were truly incredible, and I will be forever grateful to have been able to have this experience."
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