FREE EVENT
Test Tube Trailblazers
Moderator: Lish Fejer • Jane Carey and Laura Dawes
The scientific contribution of Australian women deserves to be celebrated – and interrogated. But for too long, this rich and remarkable history has languished in the dark. Ignored. Sidelined. Uncredited. A new book sets out to change that. But has the STEM world changed for women?
Presented in conjunction with ABC Canberra
Artist
JANE CAREY is an Associate Professor in history at the University of Wollongong where she was a founding co-director of the Centre for Colonial and Settler Studies. Her work spans across settler colonial, women’s and Indigenous histories, with a focus on questions of race and science. She is the editor of several collections including Creating White Australia (2009) Indigenous Networks (2014) and Colonial Formations (2021). Her most recent book is Taking to the Field: A History of Australian Women in Science.
Artist
LAURA DAWES is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster, who is devoted to the vibrant communication of science and medicine through both non-fiction and fiction. She holds a PhD from Harvard University in the History of Science, and is a Research Fellow in medico-legal history at the Centre for the Public Awareness of Science at the Australian National University. Her second book, Fighting Fit: The Wartime Battle for Britain’s Health was shortlisted for ACT Book of the Year.
Moderator
LISH FEJER grew up on large stations in the bush before studying Biochemistry at ANU. After graduating she ventured off on her bike to cook in Europe. After a few years of eating her wages in cheese, she squeezed back into Australia to work at Questacon. She has worked in the field of science communication as a presenter, speaker, writer and exhibition developer ever since. Lish was co-host of ABC TV’s eco-home- reno show Carbon Cops. She joined the ABC Radio Canberra team in 2010 and she loved working on the wireless so much, she didn’t want to leave. Lish rides a bike, does science experiments at parties (she met her husband when she fired a scone out of a potato cannon), has over 15,000 worms and loves Canberra.