| Tasmanian Link Group Newsletter |
Hello and welcome to the WISENET Tasmania web page!
Tasmanian convenor:
Dr. Barbara Smith
Ice Core Analyst
Australian Antarctic Division
The Tasmanian Link Group of WISENET was launched on Thursday 22nd May 2003 at the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) in Kingston just south of Hobart.
Dr. Nan Bray, the former Chief of CSIRO Marine in Hobart helped us launch the group with about 60 people in attendance. Following the launch Dr. Dana Bergstrom, an ecologist with the AAD, ran a workshop on CV writing and job application skills. The feedback from the launch and workshop has been very positive, and through some media attention our existence is off to a good start! The launch was made possible by strong support from many AAD staff that provided assistance with media and administration tasks. I thank them deeply for their commitment.
The Mercury, Friday 23rd May 2003
The inspiration to form the Tasmanian Link Group of WISENET came from my visit to the “Women Achieving in Science 2” (WAIS2) conference last November held at the University of Sydney. Before attending this meeting I had had little contact with fellow women scientists outside my workplace (where there is the usual 10 % or so women scientists) and was quite unprepared for the benefits I would experience from interacting with more of them! I was delighted with the level of empathy and the strong feeling of being on the same wavelength as the majority of other people in the room. I had not experienced this before. The more presentations and workshops there were the stronger this feeling became, particularly as it emphasised that mentoring systems are useful and needed, and that it is alarmingly common for women to feel less than confident in their science careers. Couple that with having the traditional roles of family pressures and we’re already starting behind the start line.
I saw WISENET therefore as an opportunity to achieve so many things that would benefit everyone who wanted to participate. Here are just a few ideas to start with:
informal mentoring
new friendships
sharing of experiences from which we could learn how to manage our own careers
workshops on career-related subjects (for example job interviews, writing, and public speaking skills)
information dissemination via email and the internet (for example job advertisements, conference notices, scholarships etc)
encouragement to be more confident in what you do!
exploring ways of education in the workplace and school system to address the imbalance of women in science
This list complements that of the WISENET objectives and will be added to as the Tasmanian group evolves. I hope with it we’ll develop a unique Tasmanian flavour for WISENET with the opportunity to promote the amazing amount of science happening here, focussing on both local and Antarctic issues.
Dr. Barbara Smith (convenor)
Age: 36
Family status: living with partner, no children Qualifications: B.App.Sc (Hons, Geology) 1991, PhD (Geology) 1998, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).
Research areas:
Honours: coal-related sediments of the Hunter Valley, NSW
PhD: lagoon sediments and reef growth patterns of the southern Great Barrier Reef Province
Current research: construction of paleoenvironmental records from ice core analysis
Work experience:
Gold mines in WA, coal mines in NSW, tutoring and lecturing at UTS. Ice core research since 1997, including two field trips to Antarctica.
Aboard the Aurora Australis in January 2002 near Mawson Station (the Frames Mountains are poking up out of the ice sheet on the horizon).
Career decisions:
After two years off from school, one of which was spent back in the UK, I decided that I needed to get trained in something that would be interesting to me, and would have good employment prospects. Originally I had decided to do a degree in sociology and psychology, however during my two years off I realised how competitive it would be to get a job in that line, so I made a conscious decision to change to something less ‘mainstream’. Moving into a male-dominated area of work was not an issue for me at all. I just wanted to study something that I found interesting and would pay me!
Current job description:
I work in a group of 4 people who research climate records through ice core analysis. The main emphasis of my position is to manage the laboratory work and ice core storage facilities, however a significant portion of my work is also research. I have published a report and paper on snow accumulation in Wilhelm II Land, East Antarctica, and am currently working on the post-depositional migration of methane sulphonic acid in ice cores. Every couple of years I go to Antarctica to collect more ice cores or snow pit samples, and once I was fortunate enough to go on a Qantas overflight of Antarctica as an AAD representative.
This page will portray many women working in science in Tasmania. I have a booklet from the Forestry CRC that I will put up on the website soon.
If you would like to make a contribution to the page please send information to me on Barbara.Smith@utas.edu.au.
Thought for the month:
I wonder if we’ll still feel the need for WISENET if we ever get to the point of balance between male and female in the workplace. I think the answer would still be ‘yes’ because of the fundamental difference between men and women that stole my attention at the WAIS2 meeting: men and women think differently. I am by no means an expert on this, but we all know this as human beings. We relate to our same-sex friends differently than we do those of the opposite sex. As women we know that other women understand us better than men do, so when it comes to issues in careers it’s beneficial to talk to other women. When you’ve got so few around you in the work place like I do, then a mentoring system is the answer.
http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=10275