[Music playing]
(Sharon Kent) I first sort of came into
contact with a scientific organisation
when I was... twice actually, when I was about 14 and 16.
I decided that marine science was sort of the thing that I wanted to get into
sort of through fishing and diving and all the rest of it,
and I actually went down to
CSIRO Fisheries when they were based in Cronulla,
because I lived just down the road, and sort of went up and said,
“I want to be a Marine Biologist, what do I do?”
And at that stage I was told,
“Do you want to work in the field, or do you want to work in an office?”
And I said, “In the field.” And they said, “Do a technician certificate.”
I really enjoy working here,
and I really enjoy working as a technical assistant.
When I’m at sea, on the ship, it’s a fairly messy occupation,
especially working off Tasmania, because it’s rough and its cold,
and people get seasick, and the shiftwork is quite demanding as well
because we work eight hours on and eight hours off most of the time.
And the wet lab can, you know, be very messy,
there’s a lot of blood and guts and all the rest of it, but it’s fun. (Chuckles).
[Birds chirping]
(Beau Anderson) Most of my work at Camden is concerned
with testing potential preparations for vaccine.
We’re addressing the question
will this preparation that we’ve made over in...
at CSIRO work in protecting sheep against getting footrot?
The work in the laboratory is fundamental to what we do out here.
In the laboratory we actually manipulate the genes
to make the organisms that we’re going to use in the vaccines,
and once we have those organisms we come out here and we inject the sheep.
[Noises in the labratory]
(Dr. Foley) I really love this job.
In fact when I began it I was a little bit nervous
about it because it was a new area.
The people I work with are just great,
and the work I’m actually doing is very exciting and very stimulating.
[Noises in the labratory]
The project that I’m working on at the moment is very new
and it’s making an Amorphous or glassing material out of metals,
and it’s basically getting bits of mild steel, melting them up together,
and then by a process of melt spinning you’re able to
eject the material onto a fast spinning wheel
and make these long thin ribbons.
Equipment is maybe a bit daunting at first sight when you think,
“Oh, I’ve got to learn how to use this,”
but it’s just like using a new kitchen gadget, or a new vacuum cleaner,
or a new car or something, just you know might spend
half an hour feeling a bit nervous that you might do something wrong,
but then you get use to it and it’s very easy to use the equipment,
and challenging still because you’ve got to get the right results out.
So that’s... it’s good.
(Hilary Newman) The three projects that I’m working on at the moment
involve firstly vine breeding,
and I’m breeding grapes that may be suitable as table grapes,
dried fruit, root stocks, or wine varieties.
And I’m also working on dried fruit evaluation, and this
involves evaluating some of the seedlings in the field
in the hope of producing a drying variety that
has disease resistance and also produces well.
I think the most exciting part of my job is every year when
the seedlings from the preceding year’s pollinations come up,
and all the work that has gone into producing these
seeds and planting the seeds,
and when they first come up it’s very exciting.
The sort of job I have doesn’t really involve clock watching.
You can get involved in projects that are so exciting
that you come out at night to continue working on them or,
especially if they’re going well, or on the weekend.
There doesn’t ever seem to be enough time to do everything I’d like to do.
(Dr. Sleigh) I seem to have been interested in science,
or in wanting to be a scientist as long as I can remember,
but I can’t really understand why that was.
I’ve always liked solving problems.
Well the challenge is not in thinking of the problems,
but in thinking of ways to solve them, I think.
That’s really where I get my high
out of science is starting off with a problem
and then putting together inputs from a whole lot of areas,
like reading scientific literature, talking to people,
and suddenly thinking, ah-ha,
there’s maybe a way to find out the answer to this problem.
So then you go away into the lab and you work out some experiments to do,
and eventually you get results
and then you figure out whether you were right or wrong.
So it’s really putting up an idea and then working out,
you know, how can I sort this problem out
and coming up with an answer in the end
which may prove you’re right or wrong, but the process is pretty exciting.
In the lab I have three people to group in directly with me or for me,
but I’m also collaborating with lots of other people so that...
and it’s much more rewarding
if you can get lots of ideas put into an area,
rather than sitting in isolation in your lab and
not really going out into the world and talking to people.
So I think one of the really good aspects of what I
do is that you’re always moving on to something new,
you’re learning something all the time,
becoming aware of some new aspect of what you’re doing,
interacting with new people,
and I think I’d find it very boring
if I was really doing the same thing day after day.
But the way that it works is really much more exciting than that.
[Music playing]
(Dr. Andrew) Geology has a broad section of people,
there seem to be people from all sorts of backgrounds,
and it’s not a traditional male field,
even though this is generally thought to be the case,
and there’ve been lots of women geologists in Australian history,
and as many in the past as there are now.
[Music playing]
Geologists in general are very interesting people
because they travel a lot,
and they see a lot of different places and different people.
Most geologists you meet have been all over the world lots of times.
I’ve been working on a large project in association with
Mount Isa Mines on the origin of the copper ores at Mount Isa,
and we’ve been looking at where the sulphur
and the copper ores has come from.
Most of the time it’s good fun doing field work, and
going to places like Mount Isa is especially so,
where you get to go underground and you can be a kilometre and a half
beneath the surface, and it’s just a different environment.
At present I’m looking at the stable isotopes
of water and plants and rocks.
These sort of studies are useful for looking,
particularly from my point of view,
for looking at fluid processes in the earth’s crust,
and more specifically fluids that are associated with ore deposition.
(Stephanie Davenport) I enjoy the job tremendously.
I consider myself very lucky to have a job where I can combine
a love of the sea with adventure,
and the challenge of collecting information
and doing something with it later on.
What we’re doing when we tag the sharks,
we bring them aboard, tag them, and release them,
this will later provide us with information
on the size of the shark populations,
their migration,
and it will assist with our studies on age and growth of sharks.
[Boat motor]
The work I’m doing on tropical sharks is very important
because shark populations are very sensitive to overfishing.
In this situation
we already have an existing Taiwanese and Australian fishery,
and it’s important that the stocks be conserved
so the fishery doesn’t go into rapid decline.
[Boat motor]
My job as cruise leader involves discussions
with the ship’s skipper and crew
on methods of fishing,
where we’re going to fish, how we’re going to fish.
Very often we’re fishing well out of sight of land,
sometimes over a hundred kilometres from the nearest land,
so you’re not likely to see another ship or the shore or anything.
On the boat, well that’s the highlight of the job, really.
You get away from shore bound life.
Being at sea, thrown together with a group of people,
your experiences are all equal, you have times of rough weather,
long hours of work, you all enjoy the same beautiful sunsets.
You’re thrown together, and there is a real camaraderie that develops.
And an intimacy which is very hard to define
to someone who hasn’t experienced it;
it’s a real joy for me, and as I said, the highlight of the job.
(Dr. Foley) Because I’m a research scientist I’m my own boss.
I know exactly what I have to get done.
When I do it, or how I go about it, is my own business.
It really is up to me how it all... how my day is planned.
It’s fantastic like that, and it’s probably one of the
few jobs where you would have the freedom to work in,
I guess in the way you want to,
depending on how you’re feeling at the time.
So I’m very lucky.
(Hilary Newman) At CSIRO we do have probably
more male scientists than women,
but it’s never posed a problem because I think you’re treated as your...
on your own merits.
And if you show initiative, and particularly if you’re interested
in your work, then what sex you are doesn’t come into it.
I think you’re put into a category
depending on how much interest you have in your work.
(Dr. Sleigh) One of the things I find most interesting about
science and my job is the chance to do a variety of things,
not just to do lab work, but also to be involved in policy making,
and seeing the broader issues of science
and how they relate to society.
I think, to me anyway, that’s a much more interesting thing than just
working in the lab and working in isolation from the rest of the world.
Certainly when I started in science I really had no idea
that 50% of my time would be spent communicating in some way,
either by writing or by going out
and talking to people about what I was doing.
(Dr. Foley) I guess one of the most important things is
communicating the sort of work that you’re doing.
It may be the world’s greatest science and so relevant to everyone,
but if you just do the experiments in your laboratory
and maybe make some lab notes
and stick it away in a drawer (chuckles),
it doesn’t do anybody any good.
One of the most interesting parts of being a scientist is you
do meet a lot of people through this dissemination of information.
You often go overseas.
Like I was in the United States last year
for six months on a scholarship which I won,
and I met just wonderful people all over the States,
and it was just an opportunity which you wouldn’t get normally.
[Birds chirping]
(Beau Anderson) I think anybody can go into this sort of research,
provided they’re enthusiastic and they’re motivated
about wanting to make achievements
in that particular area that they’re working in.
You don’t have to be necessarily really bright.
You don’t have to be the sort of person that came top of the class
that was always very well behaved and very favoured by the teachers.
You have to be somebody who’s innovative, perhaps creative,
and willing to work reasonably hard.
But of course if you like your work then you want to work hard.
(Stephanie Davenport) It doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female;
you’re treated in the matter which you carry out your work.
People do what they can do.
If you can’t handle a shark you ask for help.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re male or female,
there’s going to be a shark that you can’t get your hands around
and you ask for help.
And each person knows their own limitations
better than anyone else does.
On the boat there’s warmth,
camaraderie, people working together under
sometimes very difficult conditions,
and it’s just a matter of getting the job done.
It doesn’t matter who does it, it gets done.
[Music playing]
(Beau Anderson) I’m a person that likes a challenge.
Science is very challenging mentally and physically.
Intellectually it’s very stimulating, very challenging.
That’s what I really like about the job, the challenge.
[Music playing]