When Danielle Skropeta, an Associate Professor at the University of Wollongong, was completing her undergraduate degree she noticed that there were very few female academics in chemistry. So she set herself on an academic career path – one that has been driven by diverse interests, and has taken her to places all over the world.
After finishing her undergraduate at Monash University, Danielle did her PhD at the ANU.

In the modern scientific environment good research often requires a good communication strategy. But could you condense an entire thesis to only three minutes? This year Research School of Chemistry PhD candidate Bethany McBride managed to achieve that, becoming a finalist in the Three Minute Thesis Competition. While seemingly a step outside of the box that usually makes up her research, Bethany says she learnt a lot of valuable skills from the process.

Last week, the RSC celebrated the great work of its HDR students with a wonderful day of presentations in the Birch Lecture Theatre. A good crowd was on hand to listen to thirteen second-year HDR students who presented their research in an eight-minute format, during which they all talked about the personal motivation for choosing their PhD project. The presentations were uniformly excellent and there was a great vibe during the day, with a lot of interesting questions from the audience.