The trust made bursaries available for the first time in January 2007 and these are available annually thereafter. The bursaries will be made with the intention of recognising and rewarding promising junior research students.
The trust has about £10,000 per annum to distribute. The Selection Committee has discretion to set the amount of the individual bursaries. It may distribute the money to more than one student and it may withhold funding if no suitable candidates present themselves. A recipient in one year may apply for subsequent years but there is no guarantee of a repeat award being made. The bursary is made without constraints on what the applicant might spend it on. The trust has supported a variety of students; from those requiring funds to cover living expenses through to those wanting to purchase a data set or travel to a conference.
The Rabin Ezra Scholarship Trust has been set up with the purpose of making available bursaries for post-graduate students. Dr Rabin Ezra was an undergraduate at Queen Mary and Westfield College in the late 1980s and then went on to obtain his PhD in 1994 in the Department of Computer Science. He specialised in computer graphics, and continued to an eminently successful career at Canon Research Europe, Criterion Software and finally Sony Computer Entertainment Europe in London. Rabin passed away on Monday, June 27th 2005 while he was in Malta on company business, after having been taken ill with pneumonia.
Uma Ezra, Rabin’s mother and the “mother of this Scholarship” as one of its founders, passed away on 11th November 2015, a day after her 83rd birthday. Uma was hugely passionate about this Scholarship and it continues on in her memory, as well as Rabin’s.
The applicant will be a post-graduate student studying full-time for a PhD or equivalent level degree. The applicant will be studying at a UK institution. Applicants may be of any nationality, but must be resident in the UK during their studies. They must have started the course already. Note that the applicant must have met any financial commitments that the institution requires in order to start the course. Applicants should therefore not rely on receiving or continuing to receive the bursary if this would impact the financial viability of their continuing. The applicant will normally have at least a full year of their course of study remaining. Students planning to submit within a year will not be prioritised though they may apply.The trust will support students in any area of computer science or information technology. However, because of Rabin’s own research interests, the election committee will favour applicants in computer graphics-related areas. We particularly encourage innovative research related to real-time computer graphics. The applicant need not be in a computer science department.
The recipient is expected to write a two page report on their research progress and present this to the Selection Committee, Board of Trustees and invited guests, approximately one year after receiving the bursary. If the recipient leaves their studies without successful completion within a year after receiving a bursary, the trust may request that the bursary be refunded in part so that another student can be supported. The recipient will be expected to acknowledge the trust in written work and oral presentation of research that was completed when a recipient of a bursary.
Solomon Ezra (Chair)
Paul Davison
Yinnon Ezra
Colin Hughes
Sarah Lemarié
Richard Matthews
Richard Parr
David Reeves
The Rabin Ezra Scholarship Trust is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom, charity number 1116049.