The Siddall Sheffield Scholarship is possible thanks to a generous gift by Mrs. Brenda and Dr. Graham Siddall. The Siddall Sheffield Scholarship recognizes academic excellence and covers the full tuition fee for a one-year Engineering Masters plus a stipend of £18,000 (2026 value) which brings the total value of the award to around £50,000.
Graham Siddall was born in Sheffield and was the son of a local steelworker. He received his BSc in Production Engineering and Management with First Class Honors from the University of Nottingham before completing his MSc and PhD in Natural Philosophy (Physics) at the University of Aberdeen. During this time he met Brenda who was studying for her BSc in Physiology.
After working in surface metrology at Rank Taylor Hobson in Leicester, England, Graham was awarded a Lindemann Research Fellowship to the United States where he joined the team at Stanford University working on the NASA/Stanford Gyro Relativity Experiment. Brenda’s career continued in the Departments of Physiology and Psychiatry at Stanford Medical School for a further 20 years, and Graham went on to have a distinguished career in precision engineering and instrumentation. Following several Executive and Board positions in the semiconductor equipment industry, most recently as Chairman of the Board of DCG Systems, Graham retired and relocated with Brenda to the Pacific Northwest. In 2016 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate (DSc) by the University of Aberdeen for his technical, business and philanthropic achievements.
Although Brenda and Graham have been based in the USA for many years, they have kept strong roots in Sheffield and generously endowed this scholarship to contribute to the city’s future growth and success.
Eligibility
To be eligible for a Siddall Sheffield Scholarship students must:
- Be a US citizen who has formerly studied in the US, a non-UK resident, and not lived in the UK.
- Hold a Bachelor degree in a relevant field before departure to the UK.
- Have a preferred GPA of 3.7 or higher.
- Be successfully accepted to study one of our one-year full-time Masters programs in the Faculty of Engineering by the time the scholarship is awarded. For more information on our range of Engineering Masters courses, please visit www.sheffield.ac.uk/engineering/study/postgraduate
Selection criteria
- Academic merit (50%, based on information in your application).
- Applicants should demonstrate a record of high achievements with a strong commitment to technical innovation.
- Contribution to research in the Faculty of Engineering (25%, demonstrated by a 500 word proposal for a research project within a specific research area).
- Civic engagement (25%, demonstrated by a 500 word essay).
- Applicants should demonstrate how they will contribute to the development of the Sheffield community, as evidenced by activities in their own home city, for example volunteering, or other forms of service to the wider community. This could also be evidenced by extra-curricular activities at the applicant’s college. The goal of the scholarship is to not only improve the career experience of the awardee but to improve the lives of other members of the Sheffield community.