Speaker 1: These are the yeays of our lives. Busy and happy
Speaker 1: are not the same thing. We too rarely question what
Speaker 1: makes the heart seeing. We work, then we rest, but
Speaker 1: rarely we play and often don't realize there's more than
Speaker 1: one way. So this is a platform to hear and
Speaker 1: explore the stories of those who found lives.
Speaker 2: They adore the good, bad and ugly.
Speaker 1: The best and worst day will bear all the facets.
Speaker 2: Of Seizing your Yea.
Speaker 1: I'm Sarah Davidson or a spoonful of Sarah, a lawyer
Speaker 1: turned entrepreneur who swapped the suits and heels to co
Speaker 1: found matcha Maiden and matcha Milk Bark. Seize the Ya
Speaker 1: is a series of conversations on finding a life you
Speaker 1: love and exploring the self doubt, challenge, joy and fulfillment
Speaker 1: along the way. Hello everyone, I'm so glad that you've
Speaker 1: been loving our running miniseries, and as promised, I'm thrilled
Speaker 1: to have a second one for you kicking off today.
Speaker 1: This one has changed my perspectives and extended my knowledge
Speaker 1: just as much, but in a completely different way and
Speaker 1: in relation to completely different.
Speaker 2: Pathways to joy.
Speaker 1: But that is exactly the essence of Seizing your yea,
Speaker 1: it's meant to look different for everyone. The thing is
Speaker 1: so often you don't know what you want your future
Speaker 1: to look like until you can visualize it or see
Speaker 1: it represent it somewhere out in the world. But lack
Speaker 1: of exposure can really hinder people in finding their purpose
Speaker 1: because they simply don't know it exists. Enter one of
Speaker 1: the biggest challenges facing women in science, or the industries
Speaker 1: broadly referred to as STEM science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine. Today,
Speaker 1: only twenty eight percent of researchers are women, with less
Speaker 1: than twenty percent making up the most senior leadership positions,
Speaker 1: and only three percent of scientific Nobel prizes have been
Speaker 1: awarded to women. Numerous studies have also found that women
Speaker 1: in STEM fields publish less, are paid less for their research,
Speaker 1: and do not progress as far as men in their careers.
Speaker 1: There are so many different factors contributing to this disparity,
Speaker 1: but I'd say one is definitely the misconceptions surrounding what
Speaker 1: scientists actually do and the industries that they could end
Speaker 1: up working.
Speaker 3: In.
Speaker 1: Beauty and cosmetics, for example, is not quite the first
Speaker 1: industry you'd connect with, say engineering or mathematics, but our
Speaker 1: partner in this mini series. Lorrel was founded by scientists
Speaker 1: over one hundred years ago. So without science, Laurel and
Speaker 1: the many ways they have improved the lives of women
Speaker 1: around the world simply wouldn't exist, which is why, for
Speaker 1: over the past twenty years, the Loreal Corporate Foundation and
Speaker 1: UNESCO have been committed to women in Science to increase
Speaker 1: the number of women working in scientific research. In nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight, Loreal and UNESCO founded the for Women in
Speaker 1: Science Program to promote and highlight the critical importance of
Speaker 1: ensuring greater participation of women in science. Each year, the
Speaker 1: program recognizes the achievements of exceptional early career female scientists
Speaker 1: and awards them with fellowships to help further their research.
Speaker 1: And I'm so delighted to bring you the Neighborhood this
Speaker 1: meet series showcasing the five twenty twenty one fellowship recipients
Speaker 1: and the groundbreaking, honestly mind blowing work they're doing, highlighting
Speaker 1: just how diverse, dynamic, and deeply impactful pathways in science
Speaker 1: can be. If I'm honest, I've emerged kind of wanting
Speaker 1: to move into science myself and wish there had been
Speaker 1: programs like this when I was younger and at that
Speaker 1: early stage of forming.
Speaker 2: My idea of what careers actually existed.
Speaker 1: Wonderfully, Lorel's work also includes a Girls in Science program
Speaker 1: in partnership with UNSW and Melbourne University, where the Fellows
Speaker 1: that you will hear from today are connected with girls
Speaker 1: in schools to empower young women to forge careers in
Speaker 1: STEM and inspire them to be part of a much
Speaker 1: needed cultural change in the industry. Unfortunately, the in person
Speaker 1: Girls in Science events were unable to go ahead. There
Speaker 1: were two last year and they were hoping to redo
Speaker 1: them this year, but fortunately this miniseries has taken their place.
Speaker 1: So it's not just schoolgirls whose minds can be opened
Speaker 1: by these five fascinating women and the way they're changing
Speaker 1: the world. Even if you don't aspire to a career
Speaker 1: in STEM. I was captivated by these amazing humans and
Speaker 1: their stories, and I hope that you all are too so.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, there are five fellows across Australia and
Speaker 1: New Zealand, all doing different but amazing work that we
Speaker 1: are so lucky to have the chance to dive into.
Speaker 1: I could have talked to each of them four hours.
Speaker 1: As you all know, I am such a sucker for
Speaker 1: a niche community, but so that we could hear from
Speaker 1: all of them, we've done five mini interviews instead that
Speaker 1: will be spread over the next two installments of Yeas
Speaker 1: of Our Lives. In this episode, you'll be meeting two
Speaker 1: women working in the area of climate change, but from
Speaker 1: completely different angles. Doctor Mardoch Shaibani is an Iranian battery
Speaker 1: engineer working on cleaner alternatives to lithium batteries, and doctor
Speaker 1: Kirsty Nash is a marine biologist looking at the relationship
Speaker 1: between changing nutrient production from fisheries and coral reefs on
Speaker 1: the one hand, and micronutrient deficiencies in humans on the other.
Speaker 1: Next week, our three scientists focus more on medical breakthroughs
Speaker 1: across epilepsy, neuroscience, cardiovascular health, and anxiety. First up, we
Speaker 1: have doctor Mardoch Shay Barney, who, as I mentioned, is
Speaker 1: concerned with renewable energy sources and the battery supply chain.
Speaker 1: I'd never really thought about there being battery engineers in
Speaker 1: the world, but of course there has to be, and
Speaker 1: doctor Shay Barney has been an inventor in four filed patents,
Speaker 1: working not only on creating new greener batteries, which I
Speaker 1: just found so fascinating to hear about, but also in
Speaker 1: the policy area of bringing lithium battery technology manufacturing locally,
Speaker 1: where Australia happens to be the only nation worldwide who
Speaker 1: has access to all the raw materials necessary for that production,
Speaker 1: and somehow we still aren't actually doing that. Mardoch was
Speaker 1: born in Iran, attending Shiraz University for a Bachelor of Engineering,
Speaker 1: then completing a Masters in Material Science and Engineering at
Speaker 1: the coveted University of Tehran. Among the many things I
Speaker 1: learned was that women are actively encouraged to pursue science
Speaker 1: in Iran. So while many of us have heard of
Speaker 1: Iran only through stories of warfare or hardship, it seems
Speaker 1: they far outdo us in gender inequality in the sciences.
Speaker 1: I'll let her tell you the rest herself, but I
Speaker 1: hope you find her as fascinating as I do. Doctor
Speaker 1: Shai Varney, welcome.
Speaker 2: To the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2: It is so lovely to meet you.
Speaker 1: You are a fellow Monash girl, so I was already
Speaker 1: in love with you before I even started reading about
Speaker 1: the wonderful things you've gone on to do since then,
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Oh that's so cn. Yeah, I'm quite happy to be
Speaker 3: here asabe.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, you are just doing incredible work in
Speaker 1: renewable energy, which is an area I think all of
Speaker 1: us have started to pay a lot more attention to
Speaker 1: in recent years and in the recent decade. And something
Speaker 1: that I always say on this show talking about people's
Speaker 1: pathways and starting businesses or starting new pathways in life is, oh,
Speaker 1: you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You know, you
Speaker 1: don't have to all invent new things. You just have
Speaker 1: to do it differently. Whereas you over here are literally
Speaker 1: inventing new things all the time. So that's absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 1: I'm honored and humbled to be in your presence. You're
Speaker 1: a research fellow in mechanical and Aerospace engineering. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't even know where to start. I don't think
Speaker 1: I even have the language to have this conversation.
Speaker 3: You've been kind, I'm not nervous.
Speaker 1: So just to sort of kick us off, I'd love
Speaker 1: to go through, you know, the journey of how you
Speaker 1: got here and any messages that you have for other
Speaker 1: women who are aspiring towards a career in science or engineering.
Speaker 1: Or you know, any of the stem you know kind
Speaker 1: of career pathways. But I'd love you to give us
Speaker 1: a lay person's explanation of what you're actually working on
Speaker 1: at the moment and some of the patents you've got out.
Speaker 1: I know you've you know, you've developed the world's most
Speaker 1: efficient lithiumself about tree, like doing all these incredible things,
Speaker 1: but I didn't understand a lot of it. So just
Speaker 1: to kind of give us a lay of the land,
Speaker 1: can you tell us what your job is and the
Speaker 1: impact of kind of the work that you're doing on
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 3: Sure. Yeah. So I'm a battery engineer, and I work
Speaker 3: towards making rechargeable batteries to assort the energy of renewables
Speaker 3: son and bend, and also to electrifi our transportation, electric cars,
Speaker 3: electric process. Now, my focus is not only on making
Speaker 3: more powerful, longer lasting batteries, but also to make greener,
Speaker 3: more sustainable, and more affordable batteries as well, batteries basically
Speaker 3: to charge of our efforts towards fighting climate change. So yeah,
Speaker 3: that's basically what I do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my gosh, that is so cool.
Speaker 1: And I've also been reading that it's not just about
Speaker 1: the actual development of using Like I was reading about
Speaker 1: your favorite ingredients, I think it's in your Twitter bio.
Speaker 1: My favorite ingredients minor like avocado, chocolate, your the lithium, sulfur,
Speaker 1: silicon carbon.
Speaker 3: It's so cool, good that you find it cool.
Speaker 1: It's nerdy and cool. I think that's the best thing
Speaker 1: about it. Nerdy is cool these days. I know that
Speaker 1: a lot of your kind of policy work is also
Speaker 1: not just around developing new batteries, but also bringing that
Speaker 1: manufacturing locally, because there's a bit of a monopoly globally
Speaker 1: on in the sector of creating renewable energy technology. So
Speaker 1: can you talk to us a little bit about that
Speaker 1: as well, like what the landscape looks like, the countries
Speaker 1: that are currently producing for the marketplace, and what you're
Speaker 1: kind of trying to achieve back home.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, well I'm glad you brought that up. So
Speaker 3: I guess you may find it very interesting that Australia
Speaker 3: is the only country in the world that has access
Speaker 3: to all the ten minerals that are used to make
Speaker 3: littiar wine batteries they want, and only country, so we're
Speaker 3: truly blessed with them. But on the downside, I'm afraid
Speaker 3: I have to say that we don't make citti wine
Speaker 3: batteries in Australia, so as a Prime Minister are Iceleyan
Speaker 3: also sadly put it the other day, we are very
Speaker 3: good at digging and shipping. So that's basically what we
Speaker 3: do here. We mind for the battery minerals and we
Speaker 3: don't even process them. We sell them kind of as
Speaker 3: it is to other countries to basically profit. Process the
Speaker 3: battery materials, make the sales, make the batteries and then
Speaker 3: sell it back to us, of course with a profit.
Speaker 3: So that's why in addition to making batteries as of
Speaker 3: a few years ago, I've also started to advocate for
Speaker 3: making the batteries here in Australia in our land on
Speaker 3: shore because I know that if Australians want to drive
Speaker 3: more electric cars, and we don't really drive electric cars
Speaker 3: in Australia, if they want to install batteries for their
Speaker 3: solar panels to save on their electricity bills, we need
Speaker 3: to make the batteries here in Australia. So yeah, that's
Speaker 3: why I have made that an additional focus of Carrier
Speaker 3: to advocate for an independent local battery supply chain for Australia.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: I mean even the fact that there are so many
Speaker 1: of us walking around not even knowing that the landscape
Speaker 1: is like that. I've already learned so much just in
Speaker 1: the first five minutes of the conversation. It's crazy that
Speaker 1: we actually, you know, I imagine that sometimes the barrier
Speaker 1: to manufacturing is not actually having access to the ingredients,
Speaker 1: but the fact that.
Speaker 2: We're the only place that does. That's crazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's actually very true. So I guess with
Speaker 3: all the activities that now is happening around the climate change,
Speaker 3: you know that the United Nations Climate Change Conference is
Speaker 3: pretty close, is probably in three days time now.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: I find it quite heartened and quite encouraging that probably
Speaker 3: for the first time, our government has finally admitted that
Speaker 3: it's pretty critical to attend these sort of conferences and
Speaker 3: commit to what the world has started to commit to
Speaker 3: basic cut the emissions. They also unveiled their plan to
Speaker 3: reach net zero in twenty fifty yesterday actually, and I
Speaker 3: guess that puts a nicest smile on many of our faces.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, And how lucky is the industry, and I
Speaker 1: mean the country as a whole to have advocates like
Speaker 1: you who are actually pushing this cause forward. Well the
Speaker 1: rest of us are. You're having no idea that it's
Speaker 1: actually going on. But I'm so excited to be learning
Speaker 1: from you here today. What about your R and D
Speaker 1: experience in battery proto typing? Because I think a lot
Speaker 1: of us probably have heard the word lithium battery. We
Speaker 1: kind of understand moving towards electricity versus other kinds of fuels.
Speaker 1: But you know you've actually invented four filed patents. Can
Speaker 1: you talk to us a little bit about what a
Speaker 1: lithium battery is, what it's replacing. I read something in
Speaker 1: your research about a spoonful of sugar or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I guess I'll answer your question. We're giving
Speaker 3: you a quick bagger about the type of battery, the
Speaker 3: particular type of battery that I work on, which is
Speaker 3: called lithium sulfur battery. Because this technology is quite different
Speaker 3: from the commonly used lithium ion batteries that we rely
Speaker 3: on heavily on our everyday devices, So litium ion batteries,
Speaker 3: it's a very mineral intensive battery. We use a lot
Speaker 3: of basically heavy metals in making these batteries such as
Speaker 3: nikkel and cobalt, which are of course excellent for storing
Speaker 3: and delivering energy, but there are downsides towards using these
Speaker 3: materials which are as of the past few years, the
Speaker 3: climate scientists, the kilimeate engineers have started to unveil these
Speaker 3: outsides at the so called dirty secrets behind litium ion
Speaker 3: batteries because there is a lot of environmental concerns and
Speaker 3: also humanitarian concerns around mining for these materials. For example,
Speaker 3: most of us probably we think that by driving an
Speaker 3: electric vehicle an electrical we are saving the planet, we're
Speaker 3: contributing it. But it turds that the production of lithium
Speaker 3: ion batteries, it's accompanied with emitting a lot of carbon
Speaker 3: dioxide in the environment. So the batteries are not as
Speaker 3: killing as we think they are, which means that driving
Speaker 3: an ivy is not as positive as we think it is.
Speaker 3: That's why I'm working on lithium software battery. So it
Speaker 3: promises to be a much greener battery because it does
Speaker 3: not rely on any sort of heavy metals, no nikiel,
Speaker 3: no cobalt, anything at all. It relies on sulfur, which
Speaker 3: is pretty cheap, pretty abandoned element, and geographically you could
Speaker 3: find it pretty much on all the right prices in
Speaker 3: the world. The places that are basically there are stable countries, Whereas,
Speaker 3: for example, when it comes to cobalt, which is a
Speaker 3: key ingredient in making lithium ion batteries, almost seventy percent
Speaker 3: of the cobalt deposits are found in the Republic of Congo,
Speaker 3: which is not the sort of country that you want
Speaker 3: to rely on, and it's basically tens of thousands of
Speaker 3: children mining digging for cobalt in very harsh, very unfair conditions.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that's why I have my focus on a
Speaker 3: Patrick chemistry, which promises to be greener the for battery. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, mother, I've got goosebumps just thinking about
Speaker 1: the impact that your work is going to have on
Speaker 1: the entire universe.
Speaker 2: This is just absolutely mind blowing.
Speaker 1: But I think one of the things that's really interesting
Speaker 1: and I'd love to dive into now, is that most
Speaker 1: little girls don't wake up at five or six and
Speaker 1: go I want to work on batteries in the energy sector, Like,
Speaker 1: it's not usually the thing that you wake up as
Speaker 1: a young child. You know, we're often like I want
Speaker 1: to be a ballerina, or I want to be an
Speaker 1: actress or a singer. So one of the things we're
Speaker 1: very fascinated by here at this show at Eza is
Speaker 1: your part pathway, or we call it your path ya.
Speaker 1: So how you actually got into where you are today?
Speaker 1: And I think it's still perceived that for women in
Speaker 1: STEM it's a tougher industry to get into.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of barriers.
Speaker 1: That we face along the way, and also even outside
Speaker 1: of STEM, I think there is no linear pathway to
Speaker 1: anything these days. Everyone takes twists and turns, and it's
Speaker 1: just about trusting that you will eventually end up where
Speaker 1: you're supposed to, even if you know there are lots
Speaker 1: of diversions along the way. So can you take us
Speaker 1: back to, you know, maybe when you were at school
Speaker 1: or back at you know, Tehran University, like before you
Speaker 1: even knew that you were coming to Australia, Like how
Speaker 1: did you actually forge your way into engineering? And how
Speaker 1: has that pathway been for you?
Speaker 3: Sure? Yeah, So, well, I come from a different background,
Speaker 3: different country. I was born in Iran, as you said,
Speaker 3: and engineering is actually a very well defined profession for
Speaker 3: both men and women in my whole country.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So I guess at high school I was
Speaker 3: good at math and physics. And then I also found
Speaker 3: myself surrounded by successful engineers in my family, in the society,
Speaker 3: men and women. And I guess back then I had
Speaker 3: no difficulty picturing my future self in these engineers, again,
Speaker 3: men and women. It was clear as a day to
Speaker 3: me that if I wanted to design something, make something,
Speaker 3: change something for the better, to have an impact on
Speaker 3: my daily life, my family's daily life, I should become
Speaker 3: an engineer. But I guess when I came to Australia,
Speaker 3: I noted that the situation in Australia is a bit
Speaker 3: different and I'm afraid a bit concerning. So, for example,
Speaker 3: in Australia, the proportion of women across STDM qualified industries,
Speaker 3: it's currently around twenty eight percent, which is, i'm afraid,
Speaker 3: as good as the worst performing European country. In fact,
Speaker 3: we are wow, we are to day is below the
Speaker 3: average of where Europe was twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I no idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when when you compare these statistics like twenty percent
Speaker 3: with countries such as Denmark or Norway, the proportion of
Speaker 3: women in engineering in these countries is actually above fifty percent. Wow. Yeah. So,
Speaker 3: and then the most worrying statistics for me is amongst
Speaker 3: the STM field is engineering. Where as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 3: this number, this statistics is as low as twelve percent
Speaker 3: in Australia. No again, you know where I come from.
Speaker 3: It's fifty percent. Fifty percent of the engineers or women. Wow.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I guess something to worry about. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean we live in an engineering world, and if
Speaker 3: we fail to encourage our girls to take up mathematics
Speaker 3: and physics in high school and pursue careers in engineering,
Speaker 3: it's like we are sending i'd say, care team of
Speaker 3: five six perla years to the World Cup rather than eleven.
Speaker 3: It will lose.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: That's such a good analogy and it makes so much
Speaker 1: sense when you put it that way. But it's also
Speaker 1: really interesting because I think a lot of Australians consider
Speaker 1: that we're very progressive and consider that that applies in
Speaker 1: lots of areas, but would be very surprised by those
Speaker 1: statistics and to hear that you actually didn't encounter many
Speaker 1: barriers as a woman in science and technology until you
Speaker 1: arrived in Australia is actually quite a confronting revelation and
Speaker 1: something that definitely inspires me to want to change that
Speaker 1: for my future daughter and my future nieces or you know,
Speaker 1: the next generation of tomorrow. But I think it's something
Speaker 1: something else that you said about the fact that you
Speaker 1: were surrounded by examples that you could then use to
Speaker 1: envision your own future. That's why you are so inspiring
Speaker 1: today because all you need is to see yourself represented
Speaker 1: in around you. And I think that's the same with
Speaker 1: not just Korea, but sexuality, identity, you know, all kinds
Speaker 1: of things. We just need to feel represented or feel
Speaker 1: like there's a version of us out there. So you're
Speaker 1: already a wonderful role model for younger women who are
Speaker 1: trying to get into science since coming here. What are
Speaker 1: some of the barriers that you found as a woman
Speaker 1: in your career and what would you give as advice
Speaker 1: to any young women entering the industry in Australia to
Speaker 1: sort of helping change that statistic.
Speaker 3: Well, honestly, Sarah, as a woman, I haven't faced math challenges,
Speaker 3: but it's as an engineer how I faced the challenges.
Speaker 3: Because my personal viewpoint is that there is lack of awareness,
Speaker 3: lack of appreciation in Australian amongst Australian families for engineering
Speaker 3: for engineering jobs. I was reading an article in ABC
Speaker 3: about this high school year who was pretty good at
Speaker 3: math and physics at high school and she said that
Speaker 3: back then and she had no idea how it will
Speaker 3: be good for her for her future career. Parents didn't
Speaker 3: go to university, no one in the family goes to university.
Speaker 3: And then apparently she didn't learn much about engineering jobs
Speaker 3: their prospects at high school. So I would assume that
Speaker 3: if that girl had a bit of more knowledge about
Speaker 3: the perspectives of the engineering jobs, maybe some female engineers
Speaker 3: as their role models to look at, she would have
Speaker 3: probably taken a different pathway. She could have been a
Speaker 3: successful climate engineer saving lives now. So is the lack
Speaker 3: of appreciation for engineering jobs is in Australia That makes
Speaker 3: me a bit concerned. Yeah, both amongst I would say,
Speaker 3: boys and girls.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think there's also a very close association
Speaker 1: made between engineering and construction. So women automatically think, oh,
Speaker 1: I'd be out on a building side, or I'd be
Speaker 1: dealing with big machinery, and it's I mean, that's definitely
Speaker 1: part of engineering. But the engineers I've spoken to, even
Speaker 1: through this program or just read in articles, even when
Speaker 1: I was doing my research into you and then reading
Speaker 1: about some of your colleagues, like I was surprised at
Speaker 1: how non large machinery.
Speaker 2: Based your work is.
Speaker 1: What are some of the other unexpected parts of your
Speaker 1: job that might surprise someone who didn't understand the industry,
Speaker 1: Like you're doing very specific work on chemical compounds, you know,
Speaker 1: and I don't think people understand that that's also a possibility.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be out on building sites to
Speaker 1: be an engineer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess. Yeah, thanks for pointing data. I think
Speaker 3: it's very subtle what you pointed out. I'd say that
Speaker 3: it would be fantastic if our high schools, with the
Speaker 3: help of our successful female engineers, even male engineers, they
Speaker 3: tried to create more awareness about the simple definition of
Speaker 3: different engineering discipline Like what does a mechanical engineer do,
Speaker 3: What does a chemical engineer do? What does like a
Speaker 3: material engineer, a battery engineers such as myself does. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's definitely not all about construction. It's like one out
Speaker 3: of the many disciplines.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that battery engineers exist, although of
Speaker 1: course when you think about it, of course they do.
Speaker 1: But I think putting a name on it also really helps.
Speaker 1: And I mean that's why I'm so so inspired by
Speaker 1: Lorel's commitment to not only the fellowships that will allow
Speaker 1: researchers and incredible inventors like yourself to continue your work,
Speaker 1: but also then to provide access to that to girls
Speaker 1: in science and bringing the knowledge of what you do
Speaker 1: into schools, because I think you're right. I think it's
Speaker 1: at school age that you need exposure to these ideas
Speaker 1: because you can't know you want to be a battery
Speaker 1: engineer until you've heard it from one, or until you've
Speaker 1: met one, and you know that they exist, and you
Speaker 1: have a job and you love what you do, and
Speaker 1: to kind of understand all aspects of that is really exciting.
Speaker 1: So how has it felt for you to be part
Speaker 1: of the fellowship? What will it allow you to do?
Speaker 1: And do you get excited to be able to sort
Speaker 1: of spread the message to younger girls in science?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I agree with you, Sarah. I think that Lauria
Speaker 3: is doing is pretty awesome. When I first heard about
Speaker 3: the program out of curiosity, I could get to see
Speaker 3: whether there are other programs like this in Australia, and
Speaker 3: I'm afraid there aren't many of them. So what Loreal
Speaker 3: is doing is pretty awesome. And I looked at sort
Speaker 3: of activities that are designed for their fellows and this
Speaker 3: one talking to their high school girls about yeah, our careers,
Speaker 3: our patries, our golds and so on. That was the
Speaker 3: most exciting part of that activity, which yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 3: was so excited to know about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's so great because I remember also
Speaker 1: being in high school and I think part of the
Speaker 1: reason I ended up choosing law was because I only
Speaker 1: really knew about four jobs, you know, really thought that
Speaker 1: there was sort of law, medicine, teaching, become an athlete,
Speaker 1: which was I was obviously not going to do, you know,
Speaker 1: I just didn't The world seems so narrow until someone
Speaker 1: else helps you start to open it up. So and
Speaker 1: I think also, I mean, this is just totally off topic,
Speaker 1: but I think also our perceptions in everything can be
Speaker 1: quite narrow until we meet people from different cultures. And
Speaker 1: that's why I love travel so much. And again I'm
Speaker 1: so impressed by those statistics coming from Iran, which is
Speaker 1: a country I think again, Australians don't know a lot
Speaker 1: about Iran, and I think it's you know, we have
Speaker 1: a very specific exposure to Iran through the news or
Speaker 1: through the media, and the fact that then to hear
Speaker 1: that it's a more progressive country in gender equality and science,
Speaker 1: then Australia is quite shocking. So are there any unexpected
Speaker 1: parts about Iran that might surprise us just culturally to know?
Speaker 1: Obviously you haven't been able to go back in the
Speaker 1: past two years, but do you go back and visit,
Speaker 1: do you miss it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's been quite a few years then yeah, yeah, Well,
Speaker 3: I guess in Iran engineering is some sort of fair
Speaker 3: rescue past way for women to show that they could
Speaker 3: also be as good as men and even better. And honestly,
Speaker 3: I mean my personal viewpoint is that there are a
Speaker 3: number of engineering disciplines, at least if not many, that
Speaker 3: women could actually add perform in these sort of disciplines.
Speaker 3: I mean, as girls, women are always trying to pass
Speaker 3: through the narrowest gates and that has short passed us
Speaker 3: something somethingsdom So, yeah, strengths that maybe our male counterparts
Speaker 3: don't have that. And yet I mean there are disciplines
Speaker 3: such as, for example, in the automotive industry, you have
Speaker 3: to be extremely organized, and yeah, I assume women could
Speaker 3: shine in that industry as opposed to probably what the
Speaker 3: common belief is that it's like masculine discipline. It suits
Speaker 3: the boys the man. But yeah, we have certain qualifications
Speaker 3: that probably makes us outperforming certain disciplines of engineering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the girls. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you miss home or is Australia home?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: It's interesting.
Speaker 1: We've had one of the other fellows who I haven't
Speaker 1: interviewed everyone yet, but Jauen was saying that Australia has
Speaker 1: become home. I mean she left China not that long ago,
Speaker 1: but her transition to thinking of this as home happened
Speaker 1: really quickly, whereas for some people that.
Speaker 2: Take, you know, a lot longer.
Speaker 3: How do you feel, well, I definitely miss home, but
Speaker 3: I definitely consider Australia as home as well. And I'd
Speaker 3: say that Australia is the sort of country that there
Speaker 3: is nothing that you cannot like about this country. It's
Speaker 3: just the people are so nice. I've traveled a lot
Speaker 3: because of my career, different conferences here and there, and
Speaker 3: I mean Australia and people you just see them in
Speaker 3: the street and everyone has a smile on their face.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I remember our first year or two
Speaker 3: in Australia. My husband keep telling me that this country
Speaker 3: is not real.
Speaker 2: Really, that's so cute, that's so lovely. Oh my gosh. Oh.
Speaker 1: Is there a motivational quote that you think that guided
Speaker 1: you through your journey?
Speaker 3: Motivational quote that's a difficult one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love quote, so I just use them for every situation,
Speaker 1: but sometimes people like I don't really know. I don't
Speaker 1: really have quotes. But if you do, is there one
Speaker 1: that helped you?
Speaker 3: Well, I guess I could think of something that my
Speaker 3: husband actually once told me. So, we were friends when
Speaker 3: I was doing my bachelor and then I was trying
Speaker 3: to get into the best master's program in the country,
Speaker 3: which was in Tehran University, and my husband was a
Speaker 3: graduate of that university. And then he told me to
Speaker 3: study hard so that you could in a university that
Speaker 3: you could be able to breath freedom and power. So yeah,
Speaker 3: and I guess, yeah, studying engineering in the best university
Speaker 3: of the country. Yeah, I definitely felt that. I felt power,
Speaker 3: I felt freedom, that I could make things happen, I
Speaker 3: could change things for the better.
Speaker 2: Which you absolutely are.
Speaker 1: Again, I've I had goosebumps this whole entire conversation. That
Speaker 1: is so beautiful. What an amazing, amazing quote that obviously
Speaker 1: has guided you to be changing the world now and
Speaker 1: having such incredible power. And I'm sure many young women
Speaker 1: listening will be feeling very empowered to seize their yay
Speaker 1: on their way into a career in science and engineering.
Speaker 1: And lastly, do you have a we call them recommendations
Speaker 1: of a movie or a book, or a TV show
Speaker 1: or something that just made you happy that you joy
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be about engineering either, just anything in
Speaker 1: life that's made you really happy.
Speaker 3: Could it be about engineering?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 3: Could?
Speaker 1: I love how everything? I'm like, what do you miss
Speaker 1: about Iran? Tell us what I've heard? It's a beautiful country.
Speaker 2: Engineering in Iran. It's just like you live and breath.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess, yeah, Well, I hope I don't sound
Speaker 3: a bit outdated, but I'd say that some of my
Speaker 3: favorite books are those of Jules Verne, so yeah, in
Speaker 3: nineteenth century French author. I guess everyone at least my
Speaker 3: generation knows him quite a fit. He's famous for his
Speaker 3: revolutionary science fiction novels like to Travel from the Air
Speaker 3: to the Moon, or five Weeks in the Balloon and
Speaker 3: so on. So I'm not a big fan of science
Speaker 3: fiction books and movies myself. But what I like about
Speaker 3: Jewelerne's books is that he always argued that he's not
Speaker 3: writing about science and technology, but he's writing about how
Speaker 3: he may achieve his dreams by means of technological advances.
Speaker 3: I love this quote from him. He once said that
Speaker 3: I wrote Five Weeks in a Balloon not as a
Speaker 3: story about ballooning, but as a story about Africa. I
Speaker 3: always was greatly interested in geography, history, and travel, and
Speaker 3: I wanted to give a romantic description of Africa. And
Speaker 3: there was no means of taking the travelers of my
Speaker 3: history to Africa otherwise than in a balloon. And that's
Speaker 3: why I invented the idea of a balloon in my history.
Speaker 3: So I that's what I love about engineering or stem
Speaker 3: fields in general. They gave you the chance to not
Speaker 3: only dream your dream, but also pursue your dream and
Speaker 3: maybe leave your dream, whether it is to electrify the
Speaker 3: world or to develop a vaccine to save lives.
Speaker 1: So yeah, oh my gosh, I know I've used these
Speaker 1: words over and over again, but you are so inspired
Speaker 1: and I have goosebunce again. Oh my god, what a
Speaker 1: beautiful way to finish, Mada.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1: I just am so inspired and cannot wait to continue
Speaker 1: to follow your career in all the wonderful ways that
Speaker 1: you're making our world a better place.
Speaker 3: Thank you, sir, that's so kind. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I had this after every single guest, but I just
Speaker 1: want to spend more time around doctor Jay Barney and
Speaker 1: absorb some of her strength and intellect and class. And
Speaker 1: what an amazing woman and such a fascinating area of expertise.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how many people listening have never even
Speaker 1: thought about the job title a battery engineer. And how
Speaker 1: can any young girl aspuy into a career she's never
Speaker 1: even known to exist before. Our next guest is equally
Speaker 1: as impressive, addressing environmental changes from a different angle, being
Speaker 1: one of millions of us who wanted to be marine
Speaker 1: biologists when we were younger to play with dolphins all day,
Speaker 1: but then one of the few who actually went on
Speaker 1: to become one. Doctor Kirsty Nash looks at how fishing
Speaker 1: might maximize social and health outcomes through understanding the variation
Speaker 1: in nutrition content among different piece of fish and how
Speaker 1: environmental change will affect those food webs. I had no
Speaker 1: idea that vitamin A deficiency is responsible for over six
Speaker 1: hundred thousand premature deaths each year globally and up to
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand cases of preventable blindness in children. Nor
Speaker 1: did I ever consider the link between a change in
Speaker 1: climate nutrient content in our food and therefore whether our
Speaker 1: nutrient needs can be met by the planet, even though
Speaker 1: it's so obvious. Doctor Kirsty also shares some great insights
Speaker 1: on the barriers to women in science when it comes
Speaker 1: to motherhood, even creating her own online platform for parents
Speaker 1: in academia anyone else getting a total motivational kick up
Speaker 1: the butt from these women Introducing doctor Kirsty Nash. Kirsty,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us. I'm so so excited to get into
Speaker 1: everything that you're doing to impact the world for the better.
Speaker 1: It's one of those areas that, once I started reading
Speaker 1: into it, I just thought, oh my gosh, that makes
Speaker 1: so much sense. But how do none of us have
Speaker 1: any idea about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think that's the thing about science is a lot
Speaker 4: of it goes on behind closed doors and you don't
Speaker 4: necessarily know, you know, all the interesting things that are
Speaker 4: being learned about.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And even just in doing this series, I've sort
Speaker 1: of got so much motivation and fascination that I kind
Speaker 1: of wish I'd become a scientist. I'm like, this, is
Speaker 1: it too late for me to go and dive into
Speaker 1: stem myself, which is exactly a purpose of this show.
Speaker 2: I guess I don't think it's ever too late.
Speaker 4: And I think that's the great thing about you know,
Speaker 4: living in this time, you can change career. You know,
Speaker 4: it's never too late to decide that this is your
Speaker 4: dream now and you want to try something new.
Speaker 1: Oh that's so true And something I talk about so
Speaker 1: much on the show, the nonlinear nature of people's pathways
Speaker 1: to where they end up. I think we have such
Speaker 1: a narrow conception of careers when we're younger, and there's
Speaker 1: so much pressure to figure that out straight out of school.
Speaker 1: But nobody's journey happens in a really straight.
Speaker 2: Line kind of way.
Speaker 1: So I definitely want to chat through your own pathway
Speaker 1: into science. And I'm sure, all that twis in terms
Speaker 1: that took you to get there. But to begin with,
Speaker 1: can you give us a lay person's explanation of what
Speaker 1: you're working on? Now, it's impact for the world, so
Speaker 1: we can get a lay of the land. Micronutrient deficiencies
Speaker 1: is a huge health concern and something maybe some of
Speaker 1: us are considered on an individual level in terms of
Speaker 1: our day to day diet, but probably not on a
Speaker 1: broader global scale. So tell us what you're doing with
Speaker 1: seafood and fishing and how it relates to climate change.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's when my research sits between climate change,
Speaker 4: human nutrition, and coral reef fisheries. And so basically the
Speaker 4: soft of scale of the problem is that a lack
Speaker 4: of essential micronutrients, so that's things like calcium, zinc, vitamin
Speaker 4: a is a massive global problem. So it affects about
Speaker 4: two point five billion people worldwide. Yeah, so it's a massive, yeah,
Speaker 4: massive problem, massive impact, and the impact of those deficiencies
Speaker 4: is significant. So just if we take vitamina as an example,
Speaker 4: viamin a deficiencies have been linked to about five hundred
Speaker 4: thousand cases of preventable child blindness each year. Oh my gosh, yeah.
Speaker 4: So you think, oh, well, I don't have enough of these,
Speaker 4: and you go and take a vitamin tablet and you think,
Speaker 4: oh that's you know, I've solved problem. But actually the
Speaker 4: scale of it is really significant, and seafood is an
Speaker 4: important part of the diet of about a billion people worldwide.
Speaker 4: Many of those people live in developing countries, including those
Speaker 4: boarded by coral reefs. And the great thing is that fish,
Speaker 4: including those caught in coray fisheries, are a great source
Speaker 4: of a lot of these essential micronutrients, so things like
Speaker 4: calcium and se confitiment a. The problem is we don't
Speaker 4: currently know how environmental change will impact on this supply
Speaker 4: of nutrients we get from fish and from coray fisheries.
Speaker 4: So that's where my research comes in. Is we're looking
Speaker 4: at what nutrients were getting from cray fisheries today and
Speaker 4: how that might change in the future with a changing climate.
Speaker 4: And the reason that's important is that if we can
Speaker 4: find this out, it really has the potential to IMpower
Speaker 4: communities and governments to manage their fisheries and maximum the
Speaker 4: benefits they're getting from these resources, both today but also
Speaker 4: as the climate changes into the future.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it makes me so excited to hear
Speaker 1: about career paths that you just don't in your normal
Speaker 1: day to day life. You kind of take for granted
Speaker 1: so many things like access to nutrients in food. The
Speaker 1: nutrient profiles are different foods. You can google the profiles
Speaker 1: of what you're eating, but no one really Like when
Speaker 1: I think of climate change, I don't think straight away
Speaker 1: about our global human deficiencies in certain vitamins.
Speaker 2: I just wouldn't even connect that.
Speaker 1: So the fact that there's a whole career in figuring
Speaker 1: that out and forecasting that into the future to kind
Speaker 1: of solve those problems, I mean, we don't even know
Speaker 1: that you're the hero we all need, which is absolutely
Speaker 1: amazing to hear about today.
Speaker 4: What I find excitingly about this research is because it's
Speaker 4: so indisciplinary. You know, it's not me just sitting in
Speaker 4: a room on my own. It's really bringing together people
Speaker 4: who work in human nutrition, people who work in climate change.
Speaker 4: My background is coryphocology, so I spend a lot of
Speaker 4: time following fish around underwater and understanding how fish interact
Speaker 4: with their environ and so to do this side project,
Speaker 4: you know, you've really got to bring together a whole
Speaker 4: range of different people who have all sorts of different
Speaker 4: expertise and lean on that expertise to be able to
Speaker 4: answer this sort of question.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's the thing a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't understand and why it's so exciting to get
Speaker 1: girls in schools that's sort of you know, understanding or
Speaker 1: visualizing their futures, to get visibility of these kind of
Speaker 1: intersections between disciplines, because again, I think we silo like
Speaker 1: a science career is in a lab with test tubes,
Speaker 1: and you know, if you were doing fish, you'd be
Speaker 1: just looking at only fish that you couldn't merge climate
Speaker 1: change and coral. You know, it's so exciting to be
Speaker 1: able to expose people to the different ways you can
Speaker 1: start off in one thing and end up touching lots
Speaker 1: of different industries and areas without even having planned that.
Speaker 1: And on top of everything you're already doing, I read
Speaker 1: that there's another project you're working on in a different area,
Speaker 1: a free resource hub called academic Life. It's an online
Speaker 1: platform empowering parents in academia aunt balance work with caring responsibilities.
Speaker 1: So lots of balls in the air tell us about that.
Speaker 4: So the online platform is sort So I moved down
Speaker 4: to Tasmania to start my current job, and then I
Speaker 4: got pregnant and I had a baby, and you know,
Speaker 4: we were away from friends and family, and my family's
Speaker 4: in the UK, my husband's family is in the US.
Speaker 4: We didn't know a lot of people here and had
Speaker 4: quite a few struggles after I'd had my baby and
Speaker 4: I was taking time off, and then I got diagnosed
Speaker 4: with post natal depression. And I was so lucky with
Speaker 4: the help that I got from people and colleagues here
Speaker 4: and from the local health services, and then talking to
Speaker 4: people working at other universities around the world, I realized
Speaker 4: that actually a lot of people don't get that help.
Speaker 4: You know, our job, we move a lot for our job,
Speaker 4: and so people tend to be away from their support
Speaker 4: networks and they don't necessarily have access to people who
Speaker 4: can help them through some of these challenging times. And
Speaker 4: I found a lot of resources online that were really
Speaker 4: helpful to me, and I thought, well, you know, as
Speaker 4: a parent, you don't have a lot of time to
Speaker 4: find these sorts of things, and maybe I could build
Speaker 4: a resource that was online and free that people could
Speaker 4: then access a lot of this help even if they
Speaker 4: don't have it in their local area, you know, they
Speaker 4: could find their village online and they could find other
Speaker 4: people who are going through similar things and get that
Speaker 4: advice and get that support. And so this platform Academic
Speaker 4: Life is all about that. It's about finding your online village.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's so wonderful.
Speaker 1: We call it finding your neighborhood at CCA, like finding
Speaker 1: your tribe of people who really can you, empower you
Speaker 1: and support you through different experiences.
Speaker 2: And I think it's.
Speaker 1: Really wonderful that it's targeted specifically at academia balancing work
Speaker 1: and caring responsibilities because it's such a specific area that
Speaker 1: has its own needs and you've got different travel requirements,
Speaker 1: Like it's so important to be around people who understand
Speaker 1: the things you're going through. And we have spoken in
Speaker 1: a couple of these episodes about the fact that for
Speaker 1: women in science that can be one of the really
Speaker 1: difficult things. That the research world is moving at such
Speaker 1: a fast pace that even stopping to have children at
Speaker 1: all is kind of a challenge. So to have a
Speaker 1: community of people who understand those niche experiences, can imagine
Speaker 1: that the support would just be immeasurably valuable.
Speaker 2: So can we go.
Speaker 1: Back to the beginning to kind of trace how you
Speaker 1: originally became interested in that, and also go through the
Speaker 1: process of what spurred the move to Tazzi and how
Speaker 1: you ended up here, and just trace through all the
Speaker 1: different ways that your life has led you to where
Speaker 1: you are today, particularly how you discovered that the job
Speaker 1: you're in now was actually possible.
Speaker 4: So I guess when I was eleven, I went to
Speaker 4: the ECOT Center in the US and we saw this
Speaker 4: guy diving in a tank and I said to my
Speaker 4: parents that's what I want to do in my life.
Speaker 4: And my mum was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, whatever,
Speaker 4: you know, eleven year old telling you this. And then
Speaker 4: we went home and I found this book on my parents'
Speaker 4: bookshelf which was called Under the Red Sea, and it's
Speaker 4: primarily about this guy, Hans Hass and all the diving
Speaker 4: he did in the nineteen fifties in the Red Sea.
Speaker 4: But in the book there's stuff about his wife, who
Speaker 4: had been his secretary and then became his wife and
Speaker 4: she became one of his team of underwater photographers. But
Speaker 4: also because he had some TV shows fronting the show
Speaker 4: and I was like, oh, so you know, there are
Speaker 4: women out there doing this, and I just found this
Speaker 4: lady so inspiring and I was like, oh, this is
Speaker 4: maybe not just a pipe dream of an eleven year old,
Speaker 4: this is something that I could do. And I kind
Speaker 4: of held onto that, and at school people were like,
Speaker 4: are you sure this is what you want to do?
Speaker 4: You know, you surely do you want to really want
Speaker 4: to specialize so early? And I was like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: you know, I'm determined for this. I'm not going to
Speaker 4: give up on this. And so I went to university
Speaker 4: and did oceanography, and then I came to Australia, to
Speaker 4: Townsville and did a master's in tropical marine ecology. And
Speaker 4: that's when I sort of my academic career went off
Speaker 4: on a bit of a tangent. So I then spent
Speaker 4: about seven years working on marine conservation projects, teaching people
Speaker 4: how to do underwater surveys. And then I worked on
Speaker 4: a school ship in the Caribbean, teaching first year undergrads
Speaker 4: from the US how to dive and intro to marine
Speaker 4: biology and intro to oceanography. And I think, you know,
Speaker 4: in my mind at that stage, that's what I was
Speaker 4: going to do. I was going to stay very much
Speaker 4: in the field. I was going to teach diving. I
Speaker 4: was going to do these sort of conservation project type things.
Speaker 4: And then I had to come back to Australia to
Speaker 4: keep my residency. So I came back and when I
Speaker 4: arrived back in Townsville, it some friends. Randomly someone was
Speaker 4: advertising for a research system for six months and I
Speaker 4: was like, I could apply for that. When I went
Speaker 4: for the interview, the guy interviewing me, I could see
Speaker 4: him thinking, all this girl has done is wafted around
Speaker 4: the world in the tropics for the last six or
Speaker 4: seven years.
Speaker 2: It's still long vacation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, can she really do this? And anyway, I got
Speaker 4: the job, but I think he was pretty uncertain about this.
Speaker 4: And I remember my first meeting with him. We sat down,
Speaker 4: he said this is what I wanted to do, and
Speaker 4: then he left the office and I spent the next
Speaker 4: hour looking on Wikipedia all the things that he just
Speaker 4: asked me to do, because I had no idea what
Speaker 4: he died he just told me to do. I was like,
Speaker 4: way out of my league. Then, I think this is
Speaker 4: the thing that I find about answer is that I
Speaker 4: think at school you're taught it's all about knowledge but
Speaker 4: I think I've learned that actually science is all about
Speaker 4: experimenting and using your initiative and knowing how to look
Speaker 4: things up and knowing you to ask for help. And
Speaker 4: so I stayed in that job for six months and
Speaker 4: then it got extended for another year, and then he said,
Speaker 4: do you want to do a PhD? And then he
Speaker 4: employed me as a post doc and then he moved
Speaker 4: back to England and I was like, oh, I'm going
Speaker 4: to fend for myself now, and this great job came
Speaker 4: up in Tazzy and so we moved down here. So
Speaker 4: none of it has been really planned other than just
Speaker 4: sort of following my passion, I think, and in following
Speaker 4: my passion, I've ended up here. But it's I guess,
Speaker 4: just grabbing opportunities as they came up, rather than feeling like,
Speaker 4: you know, when I left school, I needed to know
Speaker 4: where I was going to go and that I was
Speaker 4: going to be an academic and a researcher. And this
Speaker 4: is you know, I had it all sorted in my
Speaker 4: head because I didn't do my PhD until I was
Speaker 4: you know, thirty two thirty three, and I'd done all
Speaker 4: these other things beforehand.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, if I could give that sound to
Speaker 1: my younger self when I was batching in school, like.
Speaker 2: It would have changed my whole holiday life.
Speaker 1: I think it's so important for younger people to hear
Speaker 1: that you know these pathways they're not planned with a
Speaker 1: tenue plan in advance, and they do often like there's
Speaker 1: so many sliding doors moments where it's just that you
Speaker 1: happen to see something in a newspaper and you just
Speaker 1: put your name down, or you just meet someone who
Speaker 1: exposes you to a different world.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things.
Speaker 1: That I loved about what you said about that science
Speaker 1: isn't necessarily about knowledge. I think you think it's all
Speaker 1: about having the answers. But I've noticed that scientists are
Speaker 1: all just really good at asking the right questions. They
Speaker 1: don't always know the answer straight away. But if you've
Speaker 1: ever found yourself just asking life's great questions and filling gaps,
Speaker 1: even with you know, the academic life platform, it was
Speaker 1: you finding a gap and asking the right question about
Speaker 1: a need, whether or not you knew that you could
Speaker 1: actually fill that gap yourself, and something else that came up.
Speaker 1: And I think I misquote this every single time I
Speaker 1: refer to it. But one of the things were women
Speaker 1: in general, but I imagine in science and STEM particularly
Speaker 1: because there are fewer women in you know, emerging into
Speaker 1: these careers. I hope that's changing, but is that you know,
Speaker 1: often we will There's a study on women and men
Speaker 1: applying for promotions in a corporate context, and men would
Speaker 1: apply when they had sixty percent of the criteria, knowing
Speaker 1: logically they could figure out the forty percent. And I
Speaker 1: love that you took that approach and just applied for
Speaker 1: the job and then google the rest because you've obviously
Speaker 1: been able to figure it out. But women will so
Speaker 1: often wait until they have one hundred to one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty percent of the criteria. So even if there
Speaker 1: weren't any kind of gender inequalities institution equalities aside, we
Speaker 1: miss out on the opportunities because of timing. So I
Speaker 1: love that you just figured I can figure this out
Speaker 1: as I go, because you always can.
Speaker 4: And I think actually one of the things that I
Speaker 4: found funny is when I started my PhD. About a
Speaker 4: week after I started my PhD, and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 4: this is so much to learn and I don't know anything,
Speaker 4: and someone sent me this article that was in a
Speaker 4: published in a scientific journal called the Importance of Stupidity
Speaker 4: in Scientific Research. I mean, this article is all about
Speaker 4: out If you know the answers about what you're researching,
Speaker 4: then you're doing something that someone's already done. If you
Speaker 4: feel stupid and a bit lost and you're uncertain, then
Speaker 4: actually that's the sweet spot. That's where you want to be,
Speaker 4: because that's when you're asking a question that is new
Speaker 4: and exciting and people don't know the answer to and
Speaker 4: could actually make a difference. And so if you don't
Speaker 4: feel stupid some of the time, then you're not doing
Speaker 4: it right.
Speaker 2: I love that. That's such a good one.
Speaker 1: So in your journey, did you find that you encountered
Speaker 1: any particular challenges as a woman forging a career in
Speaker 1: this industry, because I know they are industries where I
Speaker 1: think women are still a bit in the minority. A
Speaker 1: lot of us, you know, went through school without much
Speaker 1: exposure to females and scientific careers in things like engineering.
Speaker 1: We have this idea of equating to working into construction,
Speaker 1: you know. But this is you know, showing that there
Speaker 1: are so many women who have forged successful careers. So
Speaker 1: what are some of the barriers that you have faced,
Speaker 1: and the advice that you have for any women who
Speaker 1: are aspiring to a career in science.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of it is, as you say,
Speaker 4: not seeing people in those roles. I think that can
Speaker 4: be very confronting, where you see something you want to
Speaker 4: you know, you want to do something, but you're like,
Speaker 4: is this possible because I can't see someone else who
Speaker 4: is like me in that role, And so it's the
Speaker 4: uncertainty about am I going to be right for this,
Speaker 4: or am I going to be enough, or am I
Speaker 4: going to fit in or whatever. And I think something
Speaker 4: that I have found really helpful is having great female
Speaker 4: mentors along the way, people who are not necessarily in
Speaker 4: my field, but have worked in similar environments. So you know,
Speaker 4: you may want to be an engineer. You don't need
Speaker 4: to find an engineer mentor, but maybe you find someone
Speaker 4: who works in another SCIENTI field who is a female,
Speaker 4: and they're higher up and they have seen some of
Speaker 4: the challenges and the experiences and they can help guide you.
Speaker 4: Because I think that's such a crucial thing is whoever
Speaker 4: we are, we're always going to run into challenges and
Speaker 4: having that person to guide you is really important. And
Speaker 4: I think often we can be afraid to ask people
Speaker 4: to be a mentor, but actually anyone you ask will
Speaker 4: be flattered if you ask them to be a mentor.
Speaker 4: And so I think sometimes if you see someone you think, oh,
Speaker 4: I'm inspired by them, that actually just go and ask them,
Speaker 4: you know, can I come and chat to you every
Speaker 4: now and again or whatever. So I'd say that's one thing.
Speaker 4: And then definitely you see that even when women come
Speaker 4: into science, often we lose women as you go higher
Speaker 4: up the hierarchy, and there's a lot fewer women as
Speaker 4: you go, you know, to the top of the hierarchy
Speaker 4: within science. And I think that has a lot to
Speaker 4: do with the challenges of the short term contracts and
Speaker 4: if you're going to have a family, and the uncertainty
Speaker 4: and science often requires travel and things like that, so
Speaker 4: that's definitely can be a challenge. I think COVID has
Speaker 4: shown up a lot of those challenges in very stark terms,
Speaker 4: because you have a lot of women working at home
Speaker 4: and to do a lot of the caring responsibilities and
Speaker 4: trying to have their career, and you know, that has
Speaker 4: been really hard. But then at the same time, a
Speaker 4: lot of this moved to online work has also been
Speaker 4: very good because if, for example, you've just had a baby,
Speaker 4: you may not want to travel to that international conference,
Speaker 4: but you feel like it's important to your career. But
Speaker 4: if that international conference is now online, you can actually
Speaker 4: access that. And so I think this move to online
Speaker 4: work and flexibility is something that I hope we can
Speaker 4: stick to in the future because I think that challenging
Speaker 4: time when you're trying to balance work and family responsibilities,
Speaker 4: having some of these online opportunities can be you know,
Speaker 4: really really beneficial and ensure that as a woman you're
Speaker 4: not falling behind and you're staying competitive and you're getting
Speaker 4: access to all those great opportunities that you would do
Speaker 4: if you were a single man running around the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the kind of general move more heavily towards
Speaker 1: the digital landscape has also been really exciting for that
Speaker 1: kind of visibility of women in science because I mean,
Speaker 1: even through this program, being able to push it out
Speaker 1: digitally and we've recorded not in the same state, we've
Speaker 1: had international recordings as well, and it's so exciting to
Speaker 1: be able to share just girls in school, so you know,
Speaker 1: you might not otherwise have been able to go and
Speaker 1: speak to show them that these are the career paths,
Speaker 1: to have that visibility earlier in their pathway so that
Speaker 1: they know it is actually possible.
Speaker 2: It's just such a privilege to be.
Speaker 1: Part of this and so exciting to think of the
Speaker 1: impact this could have on a lot of young girls'
Speaker 1: choices as they go forward into the world. What has
Speaker 1: been part of Lorel's fellowship enabled you to do in
Speaker 1: your research? Because there's kind of two aspects to this.
Speaker 1: There's really making your stories accessible to younger women or
Speaker 1: not even younger women, just anyone who's earlier on in
Speaker 1: their career in science. But also a grant that's allowed
Speaker 1: you to push forward in your research. So what is
Speaker 1: it enabled for you that you might not have otherwise
Speaker 1: been able to do?
Speaker 4: So some of it is, you know, just doing the
Speaker 4: research itself, but I would say that a big thing
Speaker 4: is there's not many grants out there that you can
Speaker 4: use to contribute to childcare and to be able to
Speaker 4: apply for a grant that is supporting your research, but
Speaker 4: also you know, if I go and do a field trip,
Speaker 4: will help me work out the childcare during that. I mean,
Speaker 4: particularly as an example, you know, because I don't have
Speaker 4: family here, you know, one set of families in the UK,
Speaker 4: one set of families in the US. If I need
Speaker 4: to go into the field and you know, my husband's
Speaker 4: then on his own and he's trying to juggle childcare
Speaker 4: and all these other things, having been able to pay
Speaker 4: for that extra childcare is a massive, massive plus for me.
Speaker 4: And so I would say that that's a really great
Speaker 4: and unusual thing about this fellowship that you don't see
Speaker 4: in a lot of funding streams.
Speaker 1: Yeah, actually you're not the first of the fellows who's
Speaker 1: mentioned that. That was quite striking. And actually, when it
Speaker 1: really comes down to what enables women to forge a
Speaker 1: head in their careers in science, childcare is a really
Speaker 1: big barrier. It's not just getting research grinds, because there
Speaker 1: are many of those. So I think it's I've been
Speaker 1: so impressed that Lorel that's a beauty company, has been
Speaker 1: investing so heavily in science because I mean, science is.
Speaker 2: The ba of all their products.
Speaker 1: So I think, again, there's all these connections to the
Speaker 1: world of science that we don't necessarily otherwise make. Has
Speaker 1: there been a motivational quote or a mantra that's really
Speaker 1: guided you through your journey or something that you would
Speaker 1: sort of share with your daughter, or if she go through.
Speaker 3: Her own journey.
Speaker 4: I would say. There's one specifically to do with science
Speaker 4: that I really love because I feel like it sums
Speaker 4: up so much of what I have found about science.
Speaker 4: And that's one from Maria Montessori. I think she's the
Speaker 4: lady who started the Montessori schools or that sort of philosophy,
Speaker 4: and she said, we especially need imagination in science. It's
Speaker 4: not all mathematics nor all logic, but in somewhat beauty
Speaker 4: and poetry. And I just think that that sums up
Speaker 4: so much of or it corrects a lot of the
Speaker 4: misconception there is about science that you're sitting in school
Speaker 4: and you're taking exams, and you're so worried about that
Speaker 4: one particular grade, and you think that that is going
Speaker 4: to make or break your science career if that's what
Speaker 4: you want to be. And actually there's so many other
Speaker 4: skills that we can draw on to have a successful
Speaker 4: science career, and having some imagination about how you solve
Speaker 4: problems and drawing in on those skills can be so beneficial.
Speaker 4: I mean, as an example, this is not necessarily to
Speaker 4: do with imagination, but one job I got which was
Speaker 4: as a college lecturer teaching these students how to introduction
Speaker 4: to oceanographina and introduction to marine biology. And the reason
Speaker 4: I got that job above the other candidates was because
Speaker 4: I was also a diving instructor. Had nothing to do
Speaker 4: with my science background. It was because I had that
Speaker 4: extra skill that made me more useful to the company.
Speaker 4: And I think, you know, whether you have experience with
Speaker 4: accounting or marketing or you know, social media, whatever it is,
Speaker 4: so many of those aspects touched on science, and so
Speaker 4: don't feel that just being good at maths is the
Speaker 4: essential skill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually funny how many of the fellows have
Speaker 1: mentioned that you at the beginning of your career, you
Speaker 1: kind of perceived science is mutually exclusive with the arts
Speaker 1: or creativity or expression. But actually, in practice, if you
Speaker 1: don't have creativity or some kind of artistic flair, your
Speaker 1: research is kind of hindered by your inability to think
Speaker 1: outside of those boxes. So that's I mean, incredibly reassuring
Speaker 1: for anyone who feels like, oh, but would I lose
Speaker 1: my creative side? Absolutely not, it seems.
Speaker 4: And actually, if you speak to I think if you
Speaker 4: speak to a lot of scientists, so many scientists have
Speaker 4: some sort of artistic hobby, you know, whether they're into
Speaker 4: music or they you know, they play an instrument, they
Speaker 4: do some sort of art or you know, whatever it is.
Speaker 4: I always find it really interesting what people do, you know,
Speaker 4: outside science, their hobbies that help them keep that creative slant.
Speaker 1: And I love that you mentioned that too, because it's
Speaker 1: I mean, in science, but also outside of science. Something
Speaker 1: that I think happens a lot is that we've become
Speaker 1: we silo ourselves so much into I am.
Speaker 2: A scientist, or I am a lawyer, or I am
Speaker 2: or whatever, and.
Speaker 1: We really drop extracurricular activities or things that are just
Speaker 1: for leisure or pleasure because they're not productive or because
Speaker 1: they don't contribute to our overall.
Speaker 3: OK.
Speaker 1: But something I have loved and that this whole show
Speaker 1: is based around, is the idea that the more sort
Speaker 1: of additional but unrelated things you have in your life,
Speaker 1: like you're diving the intersection of your passions and your profession,
Speaker 1: whatever random combination that is, you never know when it's
Speaker 1: going to be useful. And one of our most popular
Speaker 1: episodes ever was Doctor Richard Harris, the twenty nineteen Australian
Speaker 1: of the year who's undernethotist, which is so medical and
Speaker 1: so unrelated to his passion which is technical cave diving,
Speaker 1: and then to sedate the boys to get them out
Speaker 1: of the cave, like he was the only person in
Speaker 1: the world with that really random combination of passions and skills.
Speaker 1: So that always reminds me someone out there is looking
Speaker 1: for exactly what you have, no matter how weird it seems.
Speaker 1: So whatever your passion is, and never think that just
Speaker 1: because you're a scientist, you can't do completely unscience related
Speaker 1: things in your life as well.
Speaker 4: And also that don't undersell the skills you have, even
Speaker 4: if they're not obviously directly relevant to know what you're
Speaker 4: looking at.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of things that are outside of your science brain,
Speaker 1: do you have any what we call recommendations of a
Speaker 1: movie or a book or a TV show. I mean,
Speaker 1: it can be related to science, but I think also
Speaker 1: it's really important to be able to get distance and
Speaker 1: let your brain have a risk. Is there anything that's
Speaker 1: just made you really happy that you've just it's given
Speaker 1: you yay that you've watched or rich I think.
Speaker 4: One of one of my favorite is a podcast called
Speaker 4: how to fail. I don't know if you listen to
Speaker 4: no and it's run by this lady Elizabeth Day, and
Speaker 4: she interviews people who have super successful careers and all
Speaker 4: sorts of different things, you know, celebrities or scientists or
Speaker 4: you know, whatever it is, but she asks them about
Speaker 4: three key failures they had along the way to where
Speaker 4: they are today. And I love it because you hear,
Speaker 4: you know, you see these people, you think, are they
Speaker 4: are so successful, nothing's ever gotten wrong in their lives,
Speaker 4: and then you hear these ridiculous stories of you know,
Speaker 4: either stupid things they did or things that went wrong
Speaker 4: or tragedies, and you just you're like, oh, everyone has
Speaker 4: this stuff, and being successful doesn't mean that you haven't
Speaker 4: had failures along the way and things haven't gone horribly
Speaker 4: wrong at some point. And I just so many of
Speaker 4: the stories in this podcast just made me laugh.
Speaker 2: I love that so much.
Speaker 1: I actually think failure is almost like a necessary ingredient
Speaker 1: of success, because those are the things. One of my
Speaker 1: good friends, Lisa Messenger, has this idea of failing forwards,
Speaker 1: like you can't actually grow or elevate yourself to the
Speaker 1: next level until you fail and stumble, because otherwise, how
Speaker 1: would you grow to the next thing unless you'd figured
Speaker 1: out what you weren't doing right. So it's a great
Speaker 1: opportunity to learn and advance. I think your tolerance for
Speaker 1: failure is what tends to make people more successful. Yeah, yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. This was so fascinating.
Speaker 1: You're the first real life marine biologist I've ever spoken to.
Speaker 1: I feel like so many of us because we love dolphins.
Speaker 1: When we're younger, everyone wants to be a marine biologist,
Speaker 1: but so few people actually become one. So it's been
Speaker 1: fascinating to read about the ways that you've used oceanogga
Speaker 1: and branch out in all these different areas and are
Speaker 1: continuing to change the world.
Speaker 4: So thank you so much, Thanks very much, Sarah.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I don't know how you could listen to
Speaker 1: these women and not be blown away, even if you
Speaker 1: have no interest in ever working in science. Their work
Speaker 1: and the way it could change the world or is
Speaker 1: changing the world for the better.
Speaker 2: Is so incredibly interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm thoroughly enjoying the nerd out right now and hope
Speaker 1: this series encourages and inspires some future leading scientists to
Speaker 1: push on with their yay in stem I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear what you guys think, or anything you've learned or
Speaker 1: AHA moments, or if any of you were considering a shift.
Speaker 1: It's always so great to know what the Yablewood thinks
Speaker 1: of anything new or a bit different like a mini series.
Speaker 1: And if you have any specific questions you'd like me
Speaker 1: to pass on to either Mardoch or Kirsty, please just
Speaker 1: click me a DM or email and I can definitely
Speaker 1: make that happen. I'm so excited to bring you more
Speaker 1: next week with our three medical Science Champions thanks to
Speaker 1: the wonderful team at Loreal and There for Women in
Speaker 1: Science Fellowship, So please stay tuned and in the meantime,
Speaker 1: I hope you're seizing your yay