Driving force
Supported by an Audi Foundation Country Education Scholarship, Jessica Hall hopes to make an impact in biomedical engineering. By Victoria Baker.
JESSICA HALL HAS been at home in Forster, on the New South Wales mid-north coast, since March. While she’s happy to be spending time with her mum and brother, she’s desperately missing life on campus at the University of Melbourne. “I’m hanging out to be able to go back to uni,” she says. “I miss the independence that I had, and I’m hoping I can go back to university next semester.”
This is her second year of a Bachelor of Science degree, and she’s planning to major in bioengineering systems, which, when asked, she describes as “basically a lot of maths and a lot of sciences”. This will allow her to do a Masters in Biomedical Engineering. “That’s my end goal. It’s engineering for anything to do with medical purposes, like prosthetics, stem cell research, artificial organs, artificial blood and nanotechnology,” she says.
Her interest in biomedical engineering was piqued unconventionally, by her grandmother tagging her in a Facebook post about engineering studies. “I had been thinking about psychology, but knew it wasn’t quite right. As soon as I learned about biomedical engineering I thought ‘this is what I’ve been looking for the whole time,’” she says.
Her first year of study was supported by an Audi Foundation Country Education Scholarship, the result of a partnership between the Audi Foundation and the Country Education Foundation of Australia. “The Audi Foundation was designed specifically to provide long-term support to Australian communities. It supports progressive, not-for-profit organisations in the areas of education, medicine and mental health,” says Paul Sansom, managing director, Audi Australia and chairman of the Audi Foundation. “We are committed to supporting organisations and charities that work to improve educational outcomes of students facing disadvantage and other barriers to learning. Our partnership with CEF strongly aligns with this vision and we are delighted to be able to support students with the opportunity to create brighter futures.”
The CEF’s mission is “to help close the education participation gap that exists between country and city students”, according to CEF CEO Juliet Petersen. That gap was particularly noticeable in STEM fields. “Historically the labs and technologies required for STEM-related study made this prohibitive for many rural and regional areas,” says Petersen. “Without appropriate investment into the resources needed, promotion of STEM was minimal.” Happily, she has seen progress in the area in recent years. “More recently the school curriculum is much more encouraging and geared towards STEM and the opportunities available in the workforce. We are seeing the resultant programs and scholarships facilitated through effective partnerships with tertiary education providers, business, industry and agencies. It’s a really exciting time for students studying STEM.”
Through its support for Hall and others like her, the Audi Foundation and CEF are investing in increasing representation of women in STEM fields. “The Audi Foundation program aims to have more females represented in areas of STEM by nurturing scholars into becoming future scientists, teachers, engineers and artists,” says Sansom. “We look forward to seeing them drive progress in Australia and around the world.”
For Hall, it’s hard to stay motivated in the current state of remote study. “I’m living the same day over and over again. I get up, I eat, I sit at my desk. It feels like the same endless day since March. Even though study is online, it’s just as demanding as it’s always been,” she says. Perhaps that’s partly a result of her nature – she’s always been driven as a student. “I set the bar high for myself,” she says. I want to do everything well and I’ll always do the best I can.” While she’s still exploring different fields within her speciality, she sees huge promise for her future. “I do have a keen interest in the potential of stem cells and being able to use them for neuron replacements,” she says. “I also love the idea of genome editing to prevent or cure genetic diseases. There’s unlimited potential in biomedical engineering. It’s all so exciting.”
“The Audi Foundation was designed specifically to support progressive, not-for-profit organisations in the areas of education, medicine and mental health”