Chief, CSIRO Material Science and Engineering
BSc(Hons), DipEd, PhD (Macq), PSM, FTSE, FAIP, FInstP (UK)

Cathy Foley addressed graduates from the Faculty of Science l in the Great Hall, University of Technology, Sydney on Wednesday 8 May 2013, 10.30am.

Our speaker today is Dr Cathy Foley

Cathy is the chief of CSIRO’s division of Materials Science and Engineering.

Cathy was involved in CSIRO’s Superconducting Devices and Applications Project, developing superconducting systems for mineral exploration, detection of metal for quality assurance in manufacturing, terahertz imaging, and unexploded ordinance (UXO) detection. This multimillion-dollar project assisted with the discovery and delineation of the BHP Billiton Cannington Silver mine and her team is currently commercialising their systems. Her group was the first team to successfully fly superconducting systems.

Cathy was awarded a Public Service Medal on Australia Day in 2003, and has won the Eureka Prize for the promotion of Science. In 2009, she was the NSW and National Winner of the Telstra Women’s Business Award for Innovation and was also the recipient of the AusIMM (Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy) Mineral Industry Operating Technique Award for LANDTEM as a mineral exploration tool.

Cathy holds a world-class reputation in her field. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics in the UK and a Fellow of the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. She is also a Member of the Prime Minister’s Science Engineering and Innovation Council.

Cathy has completed a Bachelor of Science with Honours, Diploma of Education and a Doctor of Philosophy from Macquarie University.

It gives me great pleasure to invite Dr Cathy Foley to deliver the occasional address.

Speech

Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, Dean of Science, staff, distinguished guests, graduates, families and friends

I am honoured to be with you today at not only one of Australia’s top universities, but my second favourite university,I am sorry but my alma mater Macquarie University is my favourite, from where one of my sisters, Elizabeth, and one of my brothers, Peter, and close colleague, Simon Lam graduated; my sister and colleague with university medals. This week my niece is graduating from UTS, unfortunately on another day, and today my daughter’s best friend, Antonia Mello, has just graduated. It is truly an honour to be here.

Graduates, I know this is a wonderful day that tops off years of hard work and you are now taking the next steps in your life beyond formal education. In the USA, this is called your commencement.

This is also your moment to shine.

For the university teachers, it must be a satisfying time to see how your teaching and lessons have led to these students’, our world’s future, progress to graduates.

And friends and families, I know this is a wonderful and thrilling day where you have permission to enjoy their reflected glory and delight with me in this burgeoning future generation.

Vice Chancellor, thank you for the lovely introduction. When I hear what I have done over my life so far, I hate to say that I am now officially in the mature career years of my life, thank goodness for hair dye and make up, it all sounds so over the top and amazing. I think that I’ve had a brilliant career and life, but if I were to look at my life as a series of Polaroid photos of the day to day, it does not necessarily feel that way as I have lived it.

So I thought I would tell you three stories from my life that I hope will inspire you at this pivotal time, so you can realise that day-by-day life does not always feel brilliant, but cumulatively it can be amazing to look at what we can achieve.

I thought that was better than giving you a lecture on the joys of superconducting electronics, my own research area, tempting as this may be...

These three stories relate to the importance of words, the power of volunteering and finally leaving a legacy.

The importance of words.

When I was in school I wanted to save the world. I am not sure I knew what that really meant, but selling toffees in primary school to raise money for the starving Ethiopians had something to do with it. So in high school, not really knowing what the world had to offer, I thought I would be a high school teacher, a very eminent and very important profession. But secretly I wanted to be a scientist. Years of watching the summer school of science with Professor Harry Messel and Professor Julius Sumner Miller on telly started this. Then a teacher at high school, Sr Mary Keanie, whom I think took pity on me for being dyslexic, I was terrible at writing and spelling - the things a convert girl is meant to excel in- encouraged me to go in the annual science teachers’ association science experiment competition. I loved the idea of understanding the world around me, answering the question “why is it so?” but I thought you had to be Einstein’s cousin to be a real scientist as I didn’t know any real scientists. So after attending Macquarie Uni and toward the end of my BSc Dip Ed, yes I did do teacher training, I ran into my first year biology lecturer Heather Adamson and she asked me what I was going to do. She challenged me and said, “You should do an honours degree. You will get first class honours, win a scholarship do a PhD and be a marvellous scientist”. No one had ever told me this. I changed my plans did an honours degree, I got a first, won a scholarship, did a PhD and applied for a job in the newspaper at my dream place to work, CSIRO, and I have been there ever since. Nearly 30 years!

I had never thought this was possible. Her encouragement, her insight helped me believe I may be possible to achieve my dream. She was right.

A few words at the right time can make an incredible difference to someone. Never forgot your power to mentor someone. Every word, every interaction counts.

And a corollary: after you say it you can’t take it back. But that is another story, not for today.

My second story is about the power of networking and volunteering.

Towards the end of my university degree I started to seriously job hunt. I had been a uni student for nearly nine years and knew that getting a job can take time, especially when you are the world’s expert of InN polycrystalline thin films. I have already mentioned I applied for a job I saw in the newspaper about thirty years ago to work at CSIRO; however, the position was in an area I was not an expert in. But I got an interview. The people interviewing me were CSIRO scientists I had met at the Wagga Wagga Condensed Matter, and the Australian Institute of Physics meetings over the years of my PhD. Even though I was not a magnetic materials expert, the job was in amorphous magnetic materials, I got the job because they knew me and what I was capable of things beyond my specialist research field. This was just one of the many positive opportunities I have been given by being a member of my professional society and volunteering when I could. It gave me my dream job. Since then I have found that through volunteering, whether is it for Science and Technology Australia, AIP, P&C, Child Care Committees and scouting, I have gained the practical experience I could not dream of obtaining elsewhere, and met people who have been the champions, and sometimes referees, of my career.

The power of networking and volunteering reaps rewards far greater than what you put into it.

My final story is about leaving a legacy

In the news on the 21 March this year, you may have heard about a helicopter accident that led to the death of four recently retired scientists from CSIRO. These four were colleagues with whom I had worked for thirty years. It has been incredibly sad and a difficult time for their families and for the CSIRO in general. In going to their funerals and memorial services in the following week, it hit me how each of them had left an incredible legacy; through their families and their work. It has made me reflect on what it is that I have done over my life so far. As scientists, we have a tremendous opportunity to do work that changes the world. Every bit of research undertaken enables us to know more about the world, each of us standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before us. For me especially, working for an organisation like CSIRO, I know that I am not just laying bricks every day, I am not just working to feed my family, I am working on the metaphorical cathedrals that will be standing for centuries to come, making their mark. How special, how wonderful is that. The work that scientists do touches each of us every moment of every day.

We live in a very complex world that is completely dependent on science and technology. When I graduated with my PhD 29 years ago, the first mobile phone calls had just been made in the UK, the first Super Mario Brothers video games were released by Nintendo, Windows version 1.0 released, we listened to music on compacts discs for the first time, the first test for AIDs had just been developed, and the hole in the Ozone layer had just been discovered. We watched “Back to the Future” at the movies, and Madonna sang to us that she was “crazy for you” for the first time.

Since then, the world has changed beyond imagination. We all have at least one mobile phone, Ipad and notebook computers. We surf the net from anywhere with wireless communications and we can expect to have a longer healthier life, working at jobs that were not even thought of 29 years ago. All this is because of people like you who learnt and thought and made your ideas into things that impact our world.

Your university education is a gift.

Don’t take this gift for granted. Education is the one leveller that provides every one of us with an equal opportunity. It is important we recognise this gift and use it not only to achieve personal benefits of a good job, high income, or status. Education gives each of us a chance to make a difference in the world, whether it is on a small scale of how we touch and interact with the people we meet every day, or on the large-scale world platform that moves mountains, borders and nations.

I hope that on the commencement of your new life as a UTS graduate you will use the power of your words wisely, you will be generous with your time and you will leave a legacy from which we all benefit.

I look forward to seeing the cathedrals you will build.

Thank you.