SMART THINKER
She caught the science bug from her dad, but Dr Justine Shaw is all about empowering female scientists and helping them achieve their goals.
Conservation biologist Dr Justine Shaw is all about empowering female scientists.
Dr Justine Shaw is a conservation biologist and one of the few female scientists who has travelled to Antarctica for environmental research.
Born in Melbourne in the mid-1970s, Dr Shaw recalls how she caught the science bug from her father, a science graduate who worked in education.
“In primary school, Dad would force me to watch David Attenborough on TV with him,” says Dr Shaw, who lives with her young family in Tasmania.
Coupled with the National Geographic magazines that were always lying around the house, her fondness for science and the wilderness inevitably grew.
She obtained a science honours degree from Queensland University, specialising in botany and zoology, taking field trips to tropical rainforests, the western Queensland desert and the Great Barrier Reef. She took her first overseas field trip in 1996 to Macquarie Island, a sub-Antarctic Island, spending six months as a field biologist with the Australian Antarctic research expedition.
After completing her doctorate with the University of Tasmania on plant ecology at sub-Antarctic islands and once again living on the islands for over 18 months, her career included a stint in state government and a three-year postdoctoral fellowship with the South African Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology.
In 2010 she began working for the ARC Centre for Excellence for Environmental Decisions Research.
“It was from here that we delivered the most robust evidence-based decisions regarding conservation of ecosystems and the protection of species like albatrosses and penguins to ensure they don’t go extinct due to climate change, human activities or the effects of non-native species,” she says.
Since 2016 she has been working as a research fellow with the Threatened Species Recovery Hub at the University of Queensland to further finite conservation efforts around threatened species on islands, particularly those threatened by cats and rats, and sub-Antartactic island conservation.
A recipient of multiple grants, her research over 20 years has directly impacted environmental and climate policy through her advice to Australian governments and to the international Antarctic Treaty System.
During this time her greatest career challenge was in 2014 when she became a mother to her daughter, who is now five. “I personally got to see some of the challenges women face in academia,” she says. “It’s very hard to stay current and competitive when you take time out to have a child.”
But thanks to supportive colleagues and mentors including her family and partner she was able to continue. This insight inspired her to take on a whole new project which she says she commits to in her spare time.
Together with Australian female scientist and Associate Professor Mary-Anne Lea and leadership expert Fabian Dattner, she co-founded the Homeward Bound project in 2015. It is a non-profit whose aim is to train women from all over the world with a background in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) in leadership to influence policy and decisionmaking on a global scale.
“We have amazing researchers but they’re not getting leadership positions,” she says. “Science leadership is predominantly male dominated for a range of reasons including legacy, the institution of science and how research cultures work.”
The programme lasts for 11 months, and culminates in a three-week voyage. “The women spend three weeks together on a ship in Antarctica and my role is to teach them about leadership, conservation and global sustainability,” adds Dr Shaw. “Antarctica is a lens to take the women through the issues around climate change and global sustainability.”
The fourth voyage was completed in December 2019 and saw 100 women scientists from 33 countries attend, excelling in fields including cancer research, developing solar panels or working at NASA. “Due to their newfound voice, graduates go on to create new more innovative research projects and scientific collaborations, receive grants and promotions and are sent into leadership roles,” says Dr Shaw.
At the most recent UN Climate Change Conference COP 25, some 20 graduates of the project came together and held a panel on women’s leadership in climate change policy, and five other alumni graduates contributed to the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report.
“The goal is to have 1000 women do the programme in 10 years and create a powerful network of women within STEMM,” says Dr Shaw.
Dr Shaw’s research has also focussed on another personal challenge women face frequently in science – harassment.
“When women scientists are sent to remote places for fieldwork, they are typically in the minority within a team. They can face harassment. We need more diversity in teams. Diversity brings more flexibility, and it creates a more accepting environment to live and work in. We also need ethnic and cultural diversity so the work we are doing is about getting many different voices at the leadership table.”
When it comes to the urgency surrounding climate change, Dr Shaw affirms that climate change is real, it’s happening and 99 per cent of the scientific community is in agreement with these facts.
“As a scientist it’s frustrating to see the psychological effects climate change is having on people when science has the evidence and the solutions in renewable energy, conservation planning, securing sites and not undertaking land clearing,” says Dr Shaw. “The challenge lies in getting our leaders to accept global warming and implement these solutions.”