DIVING SCHOLAR - from DIVER Magazine

DATELINE: 29th June 2001

DIVING SCHOLAR
The first Ł15,000 European scholarship for divers, involving a year of travel, adventure and experience in diving, has been won by 24-year-old Joe Stevens of St Ives in Cornwall.
Sponsored by Rolex Watch and backed by Diver magazine, the scholarship is the new European extension of the Chicago-based Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society, which promotes educational activities associated with the underwater world by some of the best-known people in diving.
Joe Stevens will work in the fields of underwater photography, conservation, medicine, archaeology, publishing, diving holidays and other diving-related professions and disciplines in the coming year. All appropriate underwater gear will be contributed, along with up to Ł15,000 expenses.
Stevens comes from a seafaring family and speaks French, Spanish, Portuguese and German. At 16 he embarked on his travels with a two-year scholarship at a college in New Mexico, USA.
At King's College, London, Stevens studied applied environmental sciences, taking a gap year to work as a volunteer at a Malaysian outward-bound school. He gained a 1st-class honours degree.
Stevens took up diving at university. As a PADI Divemaster, and deemed best student of his graduating year, he was picked for an exchange programme with the University of New South Wales. There he studied the Great Barrier Reef and waters near Sydney, developing his marine science skills and studying coral-reef and marine ecology and oceanography.
Now, as the first Rolex European Scholar, he wishes to pursue his interest in marine ecology and study models for marine reserves and sustainable fishing practices. He hopes to compare different approaches taken to these issues around the world and to help improve co-ordination of international efforts to sustain marine resources.
If you think you could qualify as the next Rolex European Scholar, visit www.owuscholarship.org and follow links to the European Scholarship pages for details and to download an application form.
Or contact the European Co-ordinator of the Scholarship, Elvin W D Leech, at PO Box 19, Lurgan, Craigavon BT66 7US, Northern Ireland, tel/fax: 028 3882 0462.