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Annual Peter Rice Engineering Medal Awarded

11 January 2019

Dundalk Institute of Technology (DkIT) is delighted to announce that the prestigious Peter Rice Engineering Award has been awarded to Civil Engineering student, Durlav Pun, following the annual competition that took place on 12th December 2018 at the DkIT campus.



This event is organised annually by the DkIT School of Engineering and is run in conjunction with and sponsored by Engineers Ireland North East Region.

Peter Rice, who was born in Dundalk, worked for Ove Arup on projects such as Centre Pompidou, Lloyd’s of London, the Louvre Pyramid and Sydney Opera House and is considered to be one of Ireland’s most outstanding engineers.

The Peter Rice medal commemorates his life and work and the award is made annually to the best Level 7 Engineering and Construction student project in DkIT.

The event is also used to showcase project work within the School of Engineering, with student posters and projects on display during the event. For the competition itself, three candidates from a range of Engineering disciplines presented their Level 7 student projects to an audience of students, staff and a panel of judges from Engineers Ireland North East Region.

The finalists were Durlav Pun representing Civil Engineering, presenting his work on a gravity retaining wall for use in his native Nepal; Ixora Chuah representing Electrical and Electronic Systems who presented her work on the design of a fan controller; and Cormac Barry representing Mechanical Engineering who presented his work on the development of a hybrid tricycle.

Speaking at the event, Tom Dooley, Head of School of Engineering at DkIT commented:

“The diversity and creativity of engineering is on display with three very different projects, which all display the hallmarks of great engineering within their chosen disciplines. The judges will have a difficult job picking a clear winner from three such accomplished candidates.”

Following their presentations, each candidate was interviewed by the judging panel. The judging panel consisted of Barry Hyland, Chairman of Engineer’s Ireland North East region and Engineer with SQS; Andrew Crowley, Mechanical Engineer from Suretank; Sean McCarthy, Electrical and Electronic Engineer who is a Project Management Consultant; and James Baker, Manufacturing Engineer. The panel decided to award this year’s Peter Rice Medal to Durlav Pun from Civil Engineering for his project on a gravity retaining wall. The two other finalists each received certificates of commendation and commemorative plaques.

Congratulations to Durlav and all the finalists who took part in the competition.

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