Editorial
I am thrilled to be presenting to you my first WISEnet Journal as Journal Manager. I must, right up front, thank Anna Robinson for her immeasurable guidance and assistance in “showing me the ropes”. There have been so many small though important bits and pieces to the process I could not have hoped to have done it successfully on my own. Thank you very much Anna. Thank you, also, to Karen Edwards and Juliet Lloyd-Smith for helping out with the editing. And a big thank you to everyone who has given their time and energy to write an article for this edition. I know you’ll enjoy reading them.
As a relatively new member of WISEnet I am still finding out what it’s all about. It has been so wonderful for me to come into contact with so many other women scientists. I feel that I must have been in a void for the past 10 years. The women in science and engineering whom I have come across have been few and far between. Perhaps I just haven’t been getting out enough (highly probable). But then I am an engineer, with a background in electrical/electronic engineering at that, where the women are just as thin on the ground as when I graduated from my Bachelor’s 11 years ago!
I have found the articles in this edition particularly inspiring. I was one of the fortunate ones who attended the awarding of the Prime Minister’s Science Prizes. It was a thrill to see Frank Fenner and hear about his amazing achievements. And, to add to the excitement, it was fabulous to see that the Malcolm McIntosh Prize for a researcher in the physical sciences under the age of 35 went to a woman and the prizes for excellence in science teaching for both primary and secondary teaching also went to women. That one of the women had ostensibly retired and was so wrapped up in her teaching that she went back to it, still loving it and still being enthusiastically praised by her students, was inspirational.
I have noted that several of the articles directly address or at least touch on the public’s perception of science and scientists. In general it seems that we are seen as out of reach, unapproachable. The question is how much is this our perception and, further, how much of it is brought about by our own attitudes? It seems to me that the problem is with us, the scientists (and engineers) and not with the public. If we condescendingly assume that people won’t understand what we’re doing and therefore don’t put in the effort to explain it in an accessible way, then – they won’t understand what we’re doing! For instance, I am a telecommunications engineer and consider myself to be well-versed in that field. However, I am a member of the general public when it comes to, say, biology or even materials engineering. So, while I am a scientist it doesn’t mean that I am knowledgeable in all areas of science. Anyway, from the initiatives and opinions described within, such as the Science Meets Parliament day, and a discussion of how to better communicate science to the general public, it looks as if things are improving. This can only be good for all of us and the future of science.
I hope you enjoy this edition of the WISEnet journal. Happy and inspirational
reading.
Haley Jones