Editors’ welcome

Emily Finch and Yee Lian Chew

EMCR Pathways Co-editors and EMCR Forum Executive members
@wormychew  @DrEmilyFinch @EMCRForum

Hello and welcome to the first issue of EMCR Pathways for 2022!

Firstly, a huge thank you to 2021 newsletter editors Dr Mary McMillan, Dr Raffaella Demichelis and Dr Maithili Sashindranath. I’m sure you’ll agree they did a phenomenal job of delivering engaging and relatable EMCR news to your inbox last year. We have enormous shoes to fill, but we’ll give it a red-hot go!

We’re starting the year (albeit four months into the year) off with a bang! This issue our outgoing Chair, Dr Yee Lian Chew, reflects on the past year and the challenges that have arisen for EMCRs. Thank you, Yee Lian, for your incredible leadership during this difficult time!

We’re also welcoming five new members to the EMCR Forum Executive. You can meet Dr Emma Burrows, Dr Emily Finch, Dr Angela Laird, Dr Charlie Morgan, and Dr Rowan Trebilco in the Welcome to new members, where they introduce themselves and why they’re here.

With this influx of new members, we also bid farewell to outgoing Executive members: Dr Zsuzsa Banhalmi-Zakar, Dr Michelle Christie, Dr Jinzhe (James) Gong, Dr Patrick Taggart, and Dr Mary McMillan. Thank you for all your wonderful contributions to the Forum!

At the beginning of 2022, we also bade a fond farewell to EMCR Forum Program Manager Laura Navarro. In this issue, Laura reflects on her time in this role and her fantastic achievements. Thank you, Laura, for your incredible work with the Forum – your guidance, ideas, and enthusiasm were an invaluable asset and we wish you all the very best in your new role!

2022 seems to be the year of change, and we’re excited to welcome Zach Ghirardello to his new role as Director of Diversity and Inclusion at the Academy. We’ve already been having a great time working closely with Zach over the past few months, and in this issue he’s popped by to say hello and introduce himself to you too.

We loved meeting many of you at our Science Pathways event in late 2021! In this issue, we are thrilled to share an article from our SP21 Major Partner, Curtin University, with EMCR representatives from Curtin sharing their reflections of the Science Pathways event.

Speaking of meeting EMCRs, this issue we’re meeting two incredible Superstars of STEM! Dr Bianca Lê shares a day in the life of a cell biologist and Executive Director at Cellular Agriculture Australia – a very cool job – and our inspiring EMCR is geologist and palaeontologist Dr Marissa Betts, who is taking science outreach to a whole new level by engaging her regional NSW town in science through movies!

Finally, Agony Aunt returns to tackle pandemic fatigue, burnout, and being kind to yourself.

Remember to get in touch if you would like to contribute to any of these sections, have an EMCR group or event you would like to see featured, or have a question for our Agony Aunt. You can reach us at emcr@science.org.au.

 

© 2024 Australian Academy of Science

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