Nine students from Flinders have accepted 2019 Nicolas Baudin student mobility grants designed to encourage Australian university students to undertake a research internship in a French laboratory in collaboration with an industrial partner in France.

“We’re very pleased to see so many of our outstanding students follow in the footsteps of the inaugural interns who have benefited from both international travel and unparalled opportunities to work with engineers and defence technicians from companies such as Naval Group and Thales,” says Flinders Defence Partnerships Director Tony Kyriacou.

“To have our University take offers of one-third of this year’s internships highlights the place Flinders occupies in the defence sector and this initiative further enhances our engagement with leading French defence-related industrial and academic partners,” Mr Kyriacou says.

All four internships offered by Naval Group have been awarded to Flinders students. They will head to France later in the year:

• Aaron Baker PhD (Engineering) – who will travel to Ecole Centrale de Nantes’ Research Laboratory in Hydrodynamics, Energetics and Atmospheric Environment to work on a project entitled ‘Online performance monitoring in marine composite propellers’.
• Daniel Abraham B Eng (Robotics) Hons / M Eng (Electronics) – will join the Lab-STICC at ENSTA Bretagne on a project entitled ‘Simulators for Unmanned Autonomous Marine Vehicles.’
• Nathan Wuttke B Eng (Robotics) Hons – will study at ENSTA Bretagne on ‘Development of a high physical/visual fidelity wave model.’
• Tristan Freeth B ComSc Hons – will be at ENSTA ParisTech working on a project with industry partner Naval Group investigating ‘Automatic test generation for functional software coverage’.

Flinders students also secured all three maritime-related internships sponsored by Thales Group:

• Sarah Merrington B Eng (Electrical) Hons – her project, entitled ‘Natural language applied to interactions in a SONAR environment’ will be conducted at Université Paris Saclay / CentraleSupélec.
• Vincenzo Francica B ComSc Hons – ‘Enhanced user experience with eye tracking’ at the Thalès DMS Underwater Business Line at Université Côte d’Azur.
• Elliott Jew BSc (Nanotech) Hons – ‘Correlation of interfacial changes during seawater exposure of adhesively bonded structures’ will be carried out at ENSTA Bretagne.

Thousands of jobs are expected to be created in Australia as a result of the $50 billion Australian Government Future Submarine Program.

Flinders University has been involved in a series of partnerships, MoUs and collaborations with leading French Graduate Schools of Engineering and companies such as Naval Group and Thales.

Left to right: Jean-Philippe Brunet and Pascale Solé (Thales) with Flinders 2018 interns Caitlin Kramer and Jayden Grigg and Tony Kyriacou, Flinders Defence Partnerships and Flinders Professor Karl Sammut, director of the Centre for Maritime Engineering, Control and Imaging at ENSTA Bretagne, France.

In addition, under the Nicolas Baudin laureate travel grant program:

• Brandon Lu BEng (Mechanical) Hons will work on a project entitled ‘Marine and Offshore: Building up a 3D Submarine Drone on 3DEXPERIENCE Platform’ with industry partner Dassault Systèmes.
• Laura Stephenson will  join him at Université Paris Saclay and CentraleSupélec to expand her double degree in international relations and French language. She will work on international projects management with the hosts’ international relations section.

Born in Germany, Brandon Lu says he’s looking forward to returning to Europe to “make friends and new connections and apply myself in a challenging way to pave the way for my future”. “The defence industry looks attractive as a career pathway, especially in South Australia,” he says.

Sarah Merrington (also pictured) has not been to Europe so is looking forward to the experience to “gain confidence and independence as well as new interesting skills which are not directly related to my studies”.

“Right now I am particularly interesting in automation and control systems engineering of some kind,” she says.

“I would also love to work in sustainability but have many interests which I hope to develop in my remaining time at uni, which will help shape my career plans.”

The student mobility program is named for the French explorer and botanist Nicolas Baudin, who in 1802 – and at the same time as Matthew Flinders – charted the coast of New Holland (Australia).

Under the Internship in France initiative, eligible Australian university students are subsidised for travel expenses to undertake a research internship in a French laboratory in collaboration with a French company and receive a monthly stipend during their time in France.

Flinders University is looking forward to hosting French students under the new Matthew Flinders scholarship program.

2018 Nicolas Baudin interns from Flinders University – Arslan Ahmad, left, and Dalton Rieck, right – with Marc Zolver, Vice-President for International Affairs, and Geraldine Ofterdinger, French section, CentraleSupelec, University Paris Saclay.