Professor David Locker Scholarship
This scholarship was established in 2016 as a permanent endowment, thanks to a generous legacy from the estate of the late Professor David Locker.
About the award
The Professor David Locker Scholarship is a £7,500 scholarship for students with a social science or dentistry background who come to Sheffield to study for a Masters in Dental Public Health (MDPH). We are looking for talented students who wish to continue David’s work and contribute to the development of dental public health in their home countries
The award is paid as a contribution towards your tuition fee.
About Professor David Locker
Professor David Locker completed his degree in Dentistry at the University of Sheffield in 1971. He gained his BDS (Distinction) from Charles Clifford Dental School Sheffield in 1971 before gaining a Postgraduate Diploma in Health Services Management in Leeds a year later. He studied Sociology at the University of Kent where he completed a Postgraduate Diploma and eventually a PhD in 1975. From the outset, he was interested in research that broke disciplinary boundaries, publishing his PhD on disability in 1983 and a later book on social and behavioural sciences in dentistry.
He started his career as a lecturer in Social Science at St. Thomas' Hospital Medical School before being appointed as an Associate Professor in the Department of Community Dentistry in the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Toronto. He became a Professor there in 1990 and became the Director of the Community Dental Health Services Research Unit in 1991. He eventually went on to become Associate Dean for Graduate and Postgraduate Studies in 2003. He was also a Visiting Professor at Guy's Hospital Dental School, King’s College London and the Turner Dental School, Manchester from 2000 and at the Peninsula Dental School from 2007.
In his later career, Professor Locker maintained strong links with the University of Sheffield, working with colleagues at the Unit of Dental Public Health. He believed that good quality applied social science and dental public health would make a difference in the lives of patients and to oral health care in general. After his death, he bequeathed a sum of money to support students seeking to do social science research in the field of oral health and dental public health.
Eligibility
To apply for the scholarship, applicants must
- have an offer to study MDPH Public Health starting in September 2024
- be made an unconditional offer to study at the University before 2 September 2024
- not be funded by a research council, government, private enterprise, charity or any similar organisation.
- not have already studied outside of your home country
- be an overseas fee-paying student from a low or middle-income country (see terms and conditions)
How to apply
Applications are now open. The deadline to submit an application is 1pm (GMT) on 13 May 2024.
Apply for the Professor David Locker Scholarship
All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application before the end of May 2024. If you have any queries, contact Professor Barry Gibson (b.j.gibson@sheffield.ac.uk).
Selection process
This is a competitive process and not all applications will be successful; a panel of senior members of staff will select the strongest application.
The panel will be looking to see in particular if you have
- an excellent academic record
- provided a clear rationale for applying for a postgraduate course at the University of Sheffield
- outlined challenges to academic and professional progress and detailed how these barriers have been overcome successfully
- outlined examples of relevant work experience, including community and voluntary work
- clearly articulated future ambitions; these goals relate to the postgraduate degree you have applied for, and how your learning will benefit others from your country or region.
Terms and conditions
- The scholarship can not be deferred and students taking a leave of absence will not be eligible to receive the award when they return to their studies.
- The successful applicant will receive their scholarship as a contribution towards their tuition fees. No cash alternative is available.
- Receipt of the scholarship is subject to successfully receiving a visa to study at the University in September 2024.
- Your mode of attendance must be full-time.
- Scholarship recipients are not eligible to receive any other University scholarships advertised and awarded to prospective students.
- The list of eligible countries is the 2024 DAC list of low-income countries (least developed, low or low middle-income countries).