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Home > Work and life > Smart Women - Smart State Awards > Bright Future - Shining Stars

Bright Future - Shining Stars

Are you interested in a career in science, engineering or information and communication technology? Then take some time to listen to three successful women who are achieving great things in these fields.

Bright Future - Shining Stars was an interactive forum held in September 2006 for girls in Years 10 to 12, organised by the Office for Women and proudly sponsored by the Department of the Premier and Cabinet.

You can hear the panel discussion and questions from participating students (audio MP3 files), or read transcripts (PDF format) of their inspiring and down-to-earth advice.

Audio files are quite large. Tips on downloading audio files are available.

Panel presenters

Associate Professor Jennifer Martin

Winner of a Smart Women - Smart State Award in 2005, Jenny is a world-leading research scientist in the field of drug design and protein structure. Jenny was the recipient of the 2005 Roche Medal from the Australian Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and was the first woman president of the Society of Crystallogaphers in Australia and New Zealand.

Melissa Griffith

Melissa is a former president of Engineers Australia's Queensland Division, member of the National Women in Engineering Committee, and one of Australia's Top 100 most influential engineers in 2005. She is an engineer with the maritime and coastal engineering group of KBR in Brisbane.

Miranda Forwood

Miranda is a software engineer and project manager with the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design. In other words - she makes games for mobile phones. She also ran a workshop with the Australian Centre for Moving Image to teach the basics of mobile phone development to primary school children.

Miranda talks about working on projects which help sick kids, create interactive experiences of Indigenous culture and entertain mobile phone users.

Questions from the audience

An enthusiastic and lively audience of students bombarded the panel with questions and you can hear the answers or read the transcripts.

What kind of marks did you get in Maths A when you were in year 12?

(Understanding maths wasn't so hard after all.)

What inspired you and kept you going in your studies and career especially working in male-dominated fields?

(Being curious about how things work, great teachers, seeing results and having fun.)

Given that engineer graduates are earning more when they graduate than doctors and lawyers, do you see a time when we could see more female engineers - and is the money as good as they say it is?

(The money's great and women engineers are doing really well.)

If you hadn't gone into science and ICT, what areas would you have gone into?

(Some surprising answers involving art, music and drama!)

How did you manage your time? How long did you study?

(How the panellists fitted everything in, and some advice about starting projects early.)

You all seem to have an awful lot of qualifications. Did that take a lot of uni study and how did you manage costs and residence and those kind of things?

(Working hard at part-time jobs, scholarships, supportive parents - surviving, but enjoying it.)

How much opportunity do you have to choose a different area to work in within your discipline or industry?

(Lots of ways to move around between jobs and disciplines, and take skills with you.)

What are your future plans? Where do you see yourself in five or ten years and when you look back, can you say that you have achieved your dreams?

(Aiming for leadership skills, milestones in research and branching into new fields.)

Do you have to be a computer programmer to go into ICT design? What sort of background do you need?

(A wide variety of backgrounds - and from very different fields.)

Have you got one piece of advice for students considering science, engineering or information and communication technologies?

(Look for opportunities in unexpected events and do the things you love.)

Dr James Bradfield Moody

One of Australia's Top 100 most influential engineers in Australia in 2005, James is the Director of Divisional Business Strategy at the CSIRO Division of Land and Water; he participated in the Forum for Young Global Leaders at the World Economic Forum 2005 and 2006. He is also a panellist on ABC TV's The New Inventors.

Also available

Welcome and introduction by Karin Finsterle, Director, Office for Women

Bright Future - Shining Stars was a student event staged in association with the annual Smart Women - Smart State Awards 2006.

The Office for Women also works with the Smart Women - Smart State Taskforce, which is implementing strategies for increasing the number of women studying and working in the science, engineering and technology industries.

Last updated: 8 April 2008