I initially chose to do electrical engineering as I wanted to improve people’s lives through developing new technologies, I was inspired to do electrical engineering as my dad and brother both did this degree and as a girl I wanted to prove that I was just as smart as any boy and could do just as well as they did. As I progressed through my degree I learnt more about the how programming can be useful in developing new technologies and I was inspired to develop assistive technologies, hence I made a dementia care fall assist wrist band. After completing an internship at Cochlear I became even more excited about the possibility of using programming to improve people’s lives by developing technologies that assist deaf people to hear. I am now completing a phD in using machine learning to predict cancer survival likelihood in CT images. I made short a video about my phD topic, please watch it and share it, if you wish to know more.

Earlier this year I was involved in the UOW STEM camp for girls, this camp involved running various STEM related activities to encourage 55 girls from over 20 different high schools, aged 14-17 to choose a career in STEM. I participated in the camp as both a group leader and mentor with individual responsibility for four girls. I also taught some STEM activities where I discussed my research and showed how programming and electronics can be used in humanitarian projects to report floods in Jakarta and prevent unnecessary deaths or injuries.

I currently work as a STEM Ambassador for the university where I run STEM activities for students in primary and high school. These activities include making bristle bots or moving tooth brush robots, running 3D printing workshops using tinkerCAD, building electronic circuits with a raspberry pie. I have also helped to develop workshops on making an electronic piano using an Arduino, making sandwiches by writing pseudo code and I have plans to teach students about the philosophers round table threading problem with ramen and learning how to do bubble sorts through partner dancing.

In addition to this, I am an executive of the women in STEM society and as a postgraduate I have used my network to encourage my peers to return to the university to discuss their experiences working as women in STEM. I have run a seminar on unconscious bias in the workplace and plan to run another seminar on return to work mums as I think these are important topics that most people don’t wish to tackle. I also run extra coding workshops within the society aimed at people who have never coded before but want to learn. I have also created a local IEEE WIE affinity group that I am the chair of and I regularly update my blog on working as a woman in tech.