The League of Remarkable Women in Science

"We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves"

“There is more than one way to lead effectively, to manage effectively or to get the job done”

image

Dr Lynne McIntyre works at CSIRO Brisbane, where she is a research director for the Agriculture Flagship.

Can you tell me a little about you? For example, how did you become interested in science?
I was brought up to believe that it was important that women could be financially independent. I am a product of the seventies with this “Girls can do anything” attitude. I am the eldest of three girls, my parents were very keen that their daughters could achieve their potential, that we used the talents we had been given. That was always in the back of our mind, it wasn’t really conscious, it wasn’t really stated but when I look back, it was obviously a strong influence for my sisters and I.
When I was at high school, I was reasonably academic, I liked humanities subjects but couldn’t think of a career in this area. I also really liked sciences and could think of jobs that I would enjoy doing. The more I was into sciences, the more I was interested in genetics and molecular genetics, which was only just starting. I decided that was what I was going to pursue. It then became a question of what kind of genetics: medicine or something else? I decided I wanted to do agriculture and plant genetics. As a teenager I went through a phase when I thought that it was better to feed the world than to save it, I thought that you needed to provide food before providing medicine. That made sense when I was sixteen! I contemplated doing medicine but the more I thought about genetics, the more I changed my mind. In year 11 or year 12 at high school, I decided that I wasn’t going to be a doctor but I would do agriculture and I was going to focus on genetics and make more food.

How does it feel to do exactly what you thought you would be doing when you were sixteen or seventeen?
It feels good! I actually thought I would do a PhD when I was still at high school. I kind of had everything sorted out! I had a doctor for an uncle and my grandfather was in academia, at the University of Sydney. I asked them a few questions, I don’t remember the conversations but I know we talked about these things. I knew that you had to have a PhD to be in charge. I was very introverted and very quiet but I always thought “Let’s do a PhD now”: I wasn’t sure I would want to be in charge but at least, having a PhD, I would have the choice!

Keep reading

“If you are enjoying what you are doing, you are probably doing it right”

image

Prof. Tamara Davis works at the University of Queensland, where she studies the properties of dark matter and dark energy.

Can you tell me a little about you? For example, how did you become interested in science?
I was fascinated by space from an early age, I loved science fiction books, fantasy books. I remember being inspired by the space program and watching space shuttle launches. One of the earliest memories I have of being amazed by space was watching Halley’s Comet when I was a little girl. We went on a houseboat for a family holiday. Out there, away from city lights, the comet was spectacular, it was lighting half the sky and I remember looking up and thinking “Wow!”.
There was never a decision made to do science, it was just one of these things that clicked up on me. It wasn’t like I stood up one day and said that I would become a scientist, it was just curiosity throughout my life that ended up leading me to being a scientist. All these tiny decisions that we make every day made me what I am at the moment.
I never really decided what I would do. I really like the idea of relativity and bending of space and time, just hearing about these things was completely fascinating. Out of curiosity, I kept going, looking at more of these things. I didn’t get too much out of my way to find information about these things but every time I encountered them, I thought it was really, really cool. So when I had to decide on a university subject, I just chose a subject that looked like the most fun. I ended up focusing on astrophysics.
Doing a PhD wasn’t really a big decision to make. It seemed really obvious. In your last year of undergrad, you do a research project. I hadn’t quite finished my research project by the end of the year so my supervisor said “Why don’t you stay and start a PhD with us, so you can finish up your project?”. And so I did! I had already thought that maybe I should keep going and do a PhD and I ended up staying at the same university because I had such an interesting project that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a very easy decision, really, it was more about continuing what I had been doing. It was one of these tiny things, one of these little changes. It wasn’t so different from doing research as an undergrad. It didn’t feel like a big deal.

What has been your career path? What drives you and makes you enjoy your current work position? What keeps you motivated when everything seems to fall apart?
During the last year of m PhD, I attended a conference in Canberra, at Mount Stromlo. I asked quite a few questions during this conference and at the barbecue towards the end, a researcher from ANU came up and asked me what I would be doing when I finished my PhD. At the time, I said: “Actually, I am not entirely sure: I want to keep doing research and I know I am supposed to do a postdoc overseas. But I have to stay in Australia for another year because I am playing ultimate Frisbee. World championship will happen next year and I am vice-captaining Australia. So I need to stay here to train!”. He was like, “Oh, really?” and he made up a job for me. His name was Brian Schmidt and his team was one of the ones that discovered that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. He had been approached by another team that was trying to design a space telescope but he didn’t have time to do the work himself. He thought he could employ me as a postdoc so I could communicate between the two teams and make sure that the knowledge from both teams would be shared for the project. I ended up being paid by a lab in the US but working in Canberra. It wasn’t a massive decision again, it was something that came up, I didn’t even have to apply for that job, it simply happened. The job after this one was actually the first job I had to apply for… I took ten years to do undergraduate and my PhD (I did a double degree of arts and science) and then I had this two-year postdoc position so the first time I had to apply for a job was twelve years after I finished high school!
After I worked with Brian in Canberra, I went to the University of Copenhagen. They were starting a new centre, called the Dark Cosmology Centre. It was designed to try and understand dark matter and dark energy, which is the topic that I have been studying. I went over and I worked there for a couple of years and then moved back to Queensland in 2008. I only stayed for two years in Copenhagen but I would have probably stayed longer if there hadn’t been this job in Queensland. When I left, we arranged for the University of Copenhagen to pay two months per year of my salary, so I would go back for the European summer, continuing the collaborations. It has been extremely fruitful, we have generated a couple of very interesting new science results, and we have been one of the Top 10 science discoveries for 2011, as voted by Physics World Magazine, for example. I have had a bunch of Danish students and post-docs come to Australia and I have a student now doing her PhD both at UQ and Copenhagen. It was good that we kept those strong links.
I love coming to work every day to try and figure out how the universe works. You get to work on something you are inspired by, you get to work with a bunch of inspirational people who are passionate about their work. It’s a privilege to work with the amazing colleagues that I have. The projects we work on take a long time, the shortest project I am working on will take five years. People often believe that it may be really frustrating not knowing the answer before these five years but actually, no! We learn a lot in the meantime. The big questions such as “What is dark energy?” or “How do the laws of physics work?” are not easily answered. There are a few a-ha moments but, no matter how hard you work, there is no guarantee you will have many of those. There is a lot of luck, as well as hard work, involved. I compare my work sometimes to playing computer games: the end result, like finishing the game, is important but is not the only thing. You are doing it because you are enjoying it. No matter what your occupation, if you enjoy what you are doing every day, you are doing something worthwhile. That’s something that I tell students as well: sometimes you hear people saying, you know, if I battle through this for years at university, even though I hate it right now, I will be qualified for something that is really good/I will earn a very high salary. And I am like, no, no, no, don’t think like that! If you battle through a university degree that you hate, then you will be qualified for something that you hate and that’s not the way to go! Do something you love. You’ll spend your whole life loving what you do.

Keep reading

It has been quite a little while since the last post… Things have been a little bit crazy around here. But there are good news, very good news. I have been busy working on an exhibition that will be launched in exactly 47 days!

And here is a sneak peek:

image

“The League of Remarkable Women in Australian Science” exhibition will be held at CSIRO Discovery in Canberra from the 5th to the 31st of August. All the (many) interviews that have been done for this exhibition will be collated as an e-book. Isn’t this great?

More details coming very soon!

(photo credits: Ashton Claridge, Flinders University)

“There is no satisfaction greater than tangibly making a difference in the lives of people”

image

Dr Josephine Birungi works at Biosciences eastern and central Africa at the International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, where she is the Technology Manager.

Can you tell me a little about you? For example, how did you become interested in science?
My first understanding of what it meant to work or how to earn a living was watching my father go to work at the Uganda Virus Research Institute, where he worked as a mosquito biologist. I frequently visited his office as a child and got fascinated by the kind of work he did and the various displays of mosquitoes, microscopes and other equipment. Being a child who looked up to my father, I didn’t need any other motivation when I started school. I had received my motivation boost by watching my father and I was going to excel at sciences no matter what!
I truly exceled more in sciences and had little excitement with humanities. I viewed the world with the goggles of a scientist and everything just made sense and seemed more applicable from this perspective.
My fascination with the sciences led me to question many things like why are we the way we are, why are humans different among many other questions. This inquiry led me to ultimately pursue higher education and a career in molecular genetics. A lot of my questions are being answered by this pursuance but I also acknowledge that many things are not to be answered because they can only be answered by a greater being who is God who I believe curved out my path to make a difference in the world by improving the lives of people.
Outside work, my family is a great motivator to building my career in my adult life. I am married to Dr Vincent Ssembatya and I have been blessed with 4 lovely boys (13, 7, 6 and 3 years old). Bearing in mind that who I am today is strongly based on my childhood exposures, I strive to excel so that I can be an example to my boys and also so that my boys can grow up knowing that women are as good as men and deserve to be treated as such.

What has been your career path?
Growing up, I wanted to be a pharmacist, having taken on sciences in high school. I was instead selected to take on a Bachelor of Science in Zoology, Botany and Psychology at Makerere University in Uganda. In my final year I took on Zoology and Psychology. I immediately pursued a Master’s degree in Zoology (Entomology) at Makerere University where I became interested in molecular biology. Just as I was completing my Masters write-up, I applied for a PhD fellowship with funding from DANIDA. I received the award and did a PhD in Molecular Genetics, Evolutionary Biology and Conservation Genetics at Makerere University/University of Copenhagen, Denmark, with specific interest in population genetics and phylogenetics of wildlife populations.
I returned to Uganda to set up a DNA lab at Makerere University. Unfortunately there was a ban on recruitment during that time so I applied for a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University School of Medicine. Having enjoyed the field of Entomology during my MSc, my postdoctoral work involved the application of genetic tools to understand the invasion biology of the dengue fever vector Aedes albopictus in the US, Brazil and Asia. I also worked on the population genetics of sand-fly species of South America. I also volunteered as a taxonomist at the Yale Peabody museum.

Keep reading

“Challenge yourself to get out of your comfort zone!”

image

Dr. Maricelis Acevedo works at North Dakota State University, where she studies rust pathogen virulence evolution and the utilization of host resistance to manage cereal rusts. Her work is part of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, an international consortium working on wheat rust research and enhancement of wheat productivity worldwide.

Can you tell me a little about you? For example, how did you become interested in science?
I was born and grew up In Puerto Rico. I have two sisters (I am a middle child). My mom was a social worker and ran a child care centre for low-income families. My dad was an agronomist at an agricultural experiment station of the University of Puerto Rico. While my sister and I were kids, my dad was working on his master’s degree and many of the Sunday family trips ended at the research station fields and laboratories. One of my most vivid childhood memories is waking up in the middle of the night and sneaking out of my room to check on my dad who was working on his stats homework at the dining table. My grandparents on my mom’s side of the family and my dad’s family both have small farms. As far as I can remember, I was always interested in science from a research point of view. I remember playing to be a medicine doctor and an agronomist as a kid.

What has been your career path? What drives you and makes you enjoy your current work position? What keeps you motivated when everything seems to fall apart?
I went to the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez where I got a bachelor’s degree in Biology then a Masters in Agronomy in the area of Crop Improvement. I was working on common bean resistance to virus. Since my master’s project was on genetics of disease resistance I decided to get a PhD in Biology with a specialization in Plant
Pathology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. My thesis project studied the virulence diversity of the bean rust pathogen and its co-evolution with wild beans in Honduras.  
Before finishing my degree, I was offered a postdoctoral research appointment with the USA Department Agriculture in Aberdeen, Idaho where I began my career on cereal rust diseases, including some work on Ug99 resistance. Stem rust races of the Ug99 group are virulent on most of the current wheat varieties worldwide and are a major threat in Africa. This got my foot in the door of the international community working in East Africa for identification and utilization of new sources of resistance to combat this pathogen.
In 2010 I accepted a tenure track faculty position as a wheat rust pathologist at North Dakota State University. In this position I get the opportunity to manage a research program, mentor graduate students and teach. One of the most enjoyable aspects of my position is to mentor students and provide leadership to the junior researchers in my program. I enjoy when new projects are born during an informal conversation with my students; sometimes I provide the initial idea but often, they bring a question or a concern and a new project is born! Moreover, the best moments so far have been those moments when the students or myself finally figure out the answer to a research questions; the ta-da moments! 

Keep reading