Pamela Mace, MFish Chief Scientist, informed that the scholarships were available to PhD students at $30,000 per annum for up to three years, and to Masters students at up to $25,000 per annum for up to two years. She made it clear that candidates for Quantitative Fisheries Science Postgraduate Scholarships should have majors or minors in both biology and a quantitative field like mathematics, statistics, economics, engineering or computer science.
It is also said that the quantitative discipline is critical to MFish mandate to conserve and manage New Zealand’s fisheries, but there is a world-wide shortage of trained graduates. Pamela told that the main aim of MFish is to attract top performers into the field, particularly in fish stock assessment. Their Masters or PhD work will also make a significant contribution in our priority research areas.
According to Pamela the number of scholarships available would depend on the quality of applicants. She said that they expect applicants to have a strong quantitative background with statistics, calculus or mathematics courses to at least second-year level. She told that if a student is awarded a scholarship, their project will be supervised jointly by NIWA, MFish and their university.
