In a meeting that was held on May 1, 2017 at SUT’s International Affairs Office, Dr. Ren Yi, the Executive Director of International Research Training Partnerships of Macquarie University came to Sharif. From SUT, Dr. Mokhtari, Dean of Industrial Relations, Dr. Massoumian, International Affairs Consultant, Dr. Mehrany, professor at Electrical Engineering department, and Ms. Benmorad, Head of Strategy at International Affairs Office participated in the meeting. During the meeting, the recently signed jointly supervised PhD agreement between SUT and Macquarie University was discussed. As Dr. Yi stated, Macquarie is keen to start this program and he asked SUT to introduce several PhD students to enter into this program. As he put it, this program is research-based. Following the meeting, Dr. Massoumian suggested the establishment of a joint research center at Sharif with the cooperation of Macquarie. She pointed to a similar cooperation that has happened with the University of Melbourne- another prominent Australian university. Dr. Yi accepted the suggestion happily but said that it can be done after SUT’s students come to Macquarie and do some research. This can help to build trust between the two institutions which can, in turn, lead to the establishment of such joint research centers.
Moreover, Dr. Khashayar Mehrany, professor at SUT’s Electrical Engineering Department, was chosen as the SUT’s representative to take care of issues related to SUT-Macquarie relationships. Finally, Dr. Yi said that in a near future, he will introduce Macquarie University and its opportunities for SUT’s PhD students through a webinar via SKYPE.
It is worth mentioning that SUT and Macquaire have already signed an MoU and a Dual Degree Program Agreement. The details of this agreement can be found here