Posted 30 April 2025
On Tuesday 29 April, SVI thanked our generous Top-up Scholarship Program donors and celebrated the impact of their contributions.
Students commencing full-time PhD research at SVI are provided with a Top-up Scholarship, funded through the activities of the SVI Support Group and other donors.
Each scholarship is worth $19,250 over a three-and-a-half-year period. The scholarships help alleviate students’ financial pressure, so that they can dedicate more time to their critical research.
PhD students Ben Turner, Elissah Granger and Danise Ann-Onda spoke at the event and highlighted the impact of the donations throughout their research journeys.
Ben is completing his first year of PhD training in the Protein Engineering Group under Dr Chris Langendorf. Ben was in the top 2% of students for academic achievement at RMIT University in 2024.
Ben remarked, “The SVI Top-up Scholarship has really allowed me get off to the right start on my PhD, helping to minimise the distraction of stressing over finances.”
Elissah is in the second year of her training in the DNA Repair and Recombination Lab under Associate Professor Wayne Crismani. Elissah is already an author on 5 scientific publications as part of both her current work and projects at the CSIRO.
Elissah noted that “research is a long, slow process – but support like the SVI top-up scholarships helps speed it up and allows us to focus on the science.”
Danise is in the final year of her PhD training in the Diabetes and Metabolic Disease Lab under Dr Kim Loh. She is an author on 5 scientific publications and is listed as co-inventor on an international patent. She has received a number of different accolades for her work including travel fellowships, a Best PhD Seminar Award and the 2024 UniSuper Super Student Award.
Danise commented, “Thanks to the SVI Top-Up Scholarship, I was able to dedicate myself fully to this fast-moving and high-impact research project—without the constant stress of financial pressure. Your support didn’t just help me complete a project; it helped uncover a potential new treatment for obesity and metabolic disease.”
There are currently 53 PhD students completing their training at SVI. Since its inception in 1989, more than 120 students have benefited from a Top-Up Scholarship Program.
The generosity of our donors enables SVI to support emerging talent in medical research and continue making groundbreaking discoveries.
If you’re interested in supporting the next generation of medical researchers, please reach out to the SVI Foundation on (03) 9231 3265 or [email protected].
Find out more about how you can support us