With its unique natural resources, Australia could play a significant role in the global aerospace industry. The potential of the local industry has received a significant boost with the presence of Professor Xinhua Wu at Monash University. Xinhua is an established expert who has the attention of the biggest names in aerospace industry and in the podcast she talks about what it's like to collaborate with industry and to stand up for herself in a male-dominated world.

Xinhua moved from Europe to Australia to head the ARC Centre for Excellence for Design in Light Metals, a collaboration of six universities and more than 100 researchers. In the podcast, Xinhua talks about her approach to leading a team and the importance of delegation.

In the video, Xinhua talks about the importance of having her mentor believe in her at a young age. In her career, colleagues including male colleagues have provided her support to pursue her goals and be successful.

Water is essential for human existence, indeed for life’s beginning. The deep circulation of water and other fluids lubricates the deep-seated dynamics that keep Earth geologically alive, and its surface habitable. 

The ARC Centre of Excellence for Core to Crust Fluid Systems, led by Sue O'Reilly, integrates previously disparate fields - geochemistry, petrophysics, geophysics and numerical and thermodynamical modelling - to reach a new level of understanding of Earth’s dynamics and the fluid cycle(s) through time. In the podcast, Sue provides us a better understanding of the impact of the Centre as well as how she manages her workload and her teams. Sue also talks about how she strives to provide a supportive and family-friendly environment. 

Creating positive relationships is central to Sue's success. In the video, she explains the importance of having a mentor, being a good contributor to a team environment and having effective interpersonal skills to flourish in academia.

As a child, Sue was greatly influenced by her father who was an amazing, self-taught natural scientist. He instilled in her the love of observation, thinking, sorting out 'why' and today she is inspiring the next generation of scientists to connect with people and make a difference.

With the popularity of fresh salads, smoothies and other healthy products, Australians are consuming increasingly more fruit and vegetables raw. Unfortunately, sometimes our produce can become contaminated with food-borne illness pathogens, such as salmonella, listeria or e-coli, which is problematic for the community as well as the industry. As the Director of the ARC Training Centre for Food Safety in the Fresh Produce Industry, Robyn McConchie leads a team that conducts industry-focused research to develop practical solutions to prevent or minimise food safety risks in fresh produce across the value chain. In the podcast, she talks about the benefits of collaborating with industry and the tremendous impact her work has had.

Her Centre also trains the next generation of food safety researchers and in the video, Robyn provides wise advice to early-career researchers around time management, resilience and prioritisation. Today, Robyn only engages in activities that are directly related to her field or mentorship-type of activities.

Working in a field that is male-dominated inspires Robyn to advocate for women and create opportunities for them. In the video, Robyn openly talks about challenges faced by women in academia and offers some suggestions on what can be done at an institutional level to support women better.

Her English teacher at school predicted that Margaret would be most engaged with something between social sciences and humanities. Knowing where she is today, this prediction was quite prescient. Margaret went to the University of Sydney to study English literature and history but she fell in love with anthropology in her first semester.

Today, Margaret is a leader in the anthropology profession, who has written extensively on gender in the Pacific, on exploratory voyages and travel writing, missions and contemporary Christianity, maternity and sexuality, cinema and art.

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In the video, you will get to know Margaret and hear some of the intimate and meaningful stories that have defined her career. She also touches on the cultural change required to foster academic productivity and quality.

Since her undergraduate days, Margaret has been a strong advocate of gender equity and you can listen to her views on what can be done institutionally to account for the fact that men and women generally have very different lives and carer responsibilities.

Despite being one of the smallest producers of rice, Australia is one of the largest rice traders in the world. And it is questions of the quality of rice, both within Australia and internationally, that informs food scientist Professor Melissa Fitzgerald’s research. Driven to conduct applied research that can positively impact people’s lives and be meaningful for industry, Melissa has held a variety of academic and industry roles, including Head of Rice Quality and Evaluating at the International Rice Research Institute, Director of the ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre on Transforming the Food Industry for Australia, Asia and beyond, and holding the Australian Food and Grocery Council Chair in Food Science and Technology in the University of Queensland’s School of Agriculture and Food Sciences.

In order to succeed in these diverse roles, Melissa has had to develop effective leadership strategies, and she reflects on her experiences as a leader in the podcast. Melissa’s interest in industry and undertaking research that matters has also impacted her approach to equipping her students with the necessary skills to enter industry work-ready, and Melissa explains how she supports such learning within the podcast. The podcast and video both see Melissa engage thoughtfully with questions of gender in the sciences and academia more broadly, particularly in terms of what women need in order to succeed. Linked to this analysis, in the podcast Melissa offers an insightful explanation of unconscious bias, and how we can conceptualise its impact within the individual.

There's no doubt Nanda was destined to pursue a career in science. At a time in India, where high-achieving students would study science just because that's what 'clever' students did, Nanda and her parents saw that there was more to science than just status. More importantly, science suited Nanda's strengths and innate interests.

As you can tell from the video, Nanda has many stereotypes to overcome when strangers ask her about her job. These misconceptions are associated with the disciplines she deals with, namely nuclear physics, but also the fact that she is a woman in a male-dominated field.

In the podcast, Nanda talks about how her father and other male mentors and colleagues have truly made a difference in her career to be successful. Nanda was the first woman to be tenured in the Research School of Physics and Engineering at the Australian National University.

Nanda has a very optimistic approach to writing an application for a grant, which she shares in the podcast. As part of her Laureate, Nanda has undertaken a number of activities in support of increasing the profile of women in science. The outreach activities have spanned high school students through to supporting workshops involving teachers, early career researchers and senior women. In 2017, Nanda together with Laureate Professor Nalini Joshi, initiated and developed the Mentoring and Guidance in Careers Workshop for early career women and gender diverse researchers in science. This workshop, held annually, explores the many facets of forging a career in academic, government or industry settings, and discusses the building blocks for success and resilience.

Professor Lorraine Mazerolle has had a long and distinguished career in the field of criminology. Working particularly in the areas of policing, crime prevention and regulatory crime control, Lorraine has partnered with various police agencies in Queensland and New South Wales, as well as schools with high-risk students. Her Laureate research in particular, focussed on third-party policing, and the ways that partnering the police with schools in targeted ways can serve to reduce truancy, and divert troubled youths away from the justice system. Lorraine’s achievements and contributions have most recently been acknowledged by the peak body in her field, The American Society of Criminology, who have recently awarded Lorraine the Sellin-Glueck Award, and welcomed her as elected fellow of the Society.

Working with industry partners throughout her career, Lorraine has plenty of experience with negotiating, and she explains her approach to negotiating within the video. Lorraine also describes the centrality of creativity and innovation to her research, a discussion which demonstrates her passion for both her area of expertise, and the process of researching.

A keen athlete, Lorraine has also recently taken up golf, an activity she makes time for at least once a week. This focus on physical and mental wellbeing is something Lorraine reflects on at length in the podcast, as well as the importance of maintaining strong boundaries between work and home life.

Lesley Head is a geographer who wants to understand how humans have physically changed earth’s systems, how we think about our place in nature, and how these two things are connected.

In the podcast, Lesley reminisces on how having young children helped her manage her time effectively. Having a demanding career requires support, resilience and discipline and in the podcast, Lesley shares how these have contributed to her success.

After many years at the University of Wollongong, where she became an ARC Laureate Fellow, Lesley moved to The University of Melbourne where she became the Head of the new School of Geography. In the podcast, she reflects on being a female leader and why it took her a while to apply for promotions and leadership roles. ​

In the video, Lesley talks about the impact of her and she also shares some encouraging thoughts on career progression for women in academia.

Almost every minute, one child in Africa dies from malaria. Around the world, the mosquito-borne parasite kills about 450,000 people each year, most of them children and pregnant women, while another 200 million people suffer illness as a result of malaria infections.

Based in Bio21 Institute at the University of Melbourne, the Tilley lab led by Professor Leann Tilley is working as part of a global effort to understand and control malaria. Her lab investigates the basic biology of the parasite and action of and resistance to antimalarial drugs, with a view to designing better drugs.

In our podcast, Leann explains how cross-disciplinary collaboration is a key to the success of her lab. She is assisted by collaborations with experts from other disciplines, ranging from molecular parasitologists to organic chemists to biomechanical engineers and optical physicists.

As a Georgina Sweet Fellow, Leann is committed to supporting women through the Awards for Women in Quantitative Biomedical Science. You can listen to her thoughts about what the ARC could do to increase the number of women Laureates and Centre Directors.

Leann reflects on the attributes of an effective and successful academic in the video.

For Professor Kerrie Wilson, effective environmental policy needs to benefit both the environment and the people who live within it. As a result of undertaking her postgraduate research at both Cambridge University and in South America, Kerrie’s perspective as an environmental scientist is strongly interdisciplinary, which has equipped her to assume multiple leadership positions in this field – both within and outside of academia. Most recently, Kerrie has been awarded an ARC Future Fellowship at the University of Queensland, and from 2017-2018 was the Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED).

The Centre’s focus on environmental management and monitoring in order to facilitate improved conservation outcomes aligned closely with Kerrie’s own research interests, which include engaging with issues of resource allocation and quantifying the benefits of investing in conservation efforts. Kerrie’s research is highly significant as environmental futures become increasingly uncertain, and she reflects on the importance of being able to articulate the impact of one’s research in the video.

Partnering with industry throughout her career has also helped Kerrie develop effective time management skills, and she explains these strategies within the podcast. Within the podcast and the video, Kerrie also considers the role that networking and sponsorship plays in allowing women to combat entrenched inequalities within the academy, and reflects on how her relationships with senior women have helped her succeed.