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Where did you grow up and go to school?
I was born in Geelong but grew up in Tasmania, so I'm a Tasmanian at heart. I attended The Friends' School from junior school through to Grade 12. That's where my love of science started.
Where did your love of science come from?
In junior school my teacher used to run fun little science experiments. Things like making bouncy balls, using potatoes to run a clock, bicarb soda + vinegar volcanos, and my favourite: putting two coke bottles together with water inside and creating vortices. At high school I joined the CSIRO "Double Helix Drama" group. We put on educational shows for students and taught them about biology, DNA, ethical issues of cloning and other scientific ideas by dressing up as sheep or DNA molecules, amino acids, to make it fun for the kids. It was a great way to learn and helped me realise at a young age that there is no such thing as a stereotypical "scientist" because science has many different facets to it (like physics, biology, chemistry).
How did you get involved in computer science?
I love computer games and started to teach myself computer programming to write my own games. I made a few fun things and even wrote my own game on the SEGA Dreamcast. Learning Physics in Grade 12 gave me an additional kick-start by showing how things move using algorithms, which can be applied to 3D games. I've been programming for almost 10 years now and have learnt a great deal. If you love something enough then you've just got to get in there and do it, there is no better way.
What did you study at uni?
After Year 12 I went to university. I loved pure science and biology, but computer programming had surfaced as something I was naturally good at. Consequently, I couldn't make up my mind exactly what to do so I started out doing both Biotechnology and Computing subjects, before eventually I settled on a Computing degree.
What did you do after graduating?
I got a job at Federal hotels and Resorts (Wrest Point Casino) as a "Graduate Analyst programmer", writing enterprise applications using the Microsoft .NET framework. They are a great employer and fully support further learning and are very flexible, so I've returned to uni part-time to do a "Master of Computing". As part of the degree I'm writing a thesis to create an automated tutoring system for students who are starting to learn how to program in Java. When I finish my Masters I plan to pursue my interest in biology and do a Bachelor of Biotechnology.
What other interests do you have?
I'm still highly active in promoting learning in the community, even though I'm not dressing up as a sheep anymore! I now run monthly meetings for the .NET community in Hobart and organise speakers from Microsoft and other development companies. I'm the President of the Internet Developers Society at the UTAS and encourage the students to help each other develop, as well as organising our social events. And I'm on the Australian Computer Society's Branch Executive Committee as student representative.
What do you love about science?
Science is that it is like a TV series, you can keep yourself updated and informed on a topic (like the latest happenings in Quantum computing) and read the updates each week or month in magazines like New Scientist and Scientific American. It's exciting to be able to continuously read and learn with no end in sight. As long as there is science, there will always be a new discovery.
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