JAN ELDRIDGE

Associate Professor and Head of the Physics Department at the University of Auckland.

There’s a catchphrase related to Jan Eldridge’s work that seems to have stuck, and it’s one she delivers with a smile: “I study exploding stellar binaries while exploding the myth of a gender binary.” The Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Auckland, recently named Head of the Physics Department, has spent her career researching the life and death of stars in the furthest reaches of space and co-developed a key tool, the Binary Population and Spectral Synthesis (BPASS) code that assists other researchers in making new discoveries.

Born in the UK, she followed a love of science fiction including Star Trek and Star Wars, into degrees from the University of Cambridge including a PhD in astrophysics.

As a non-binary trans woman, Dr Eldridge strives for more diverse representation and inclusive experiences for LGBTQ+ people in science and academia, contributing to the

Faculty of Science

Equity committee as well as the Rainbow

Science Network and

Trans On Campus.

Feeling confident and worthy in both of those areas of her life hasn’t come without significant challenges.

“I feel two kinds of imposter syndromes,” she says. “The regular, which is very common in academia and even more so in astronomy. You see all these people doing this really amazing work and you think, ‘Why am I here? When am I going to be discovered for faking it, for just being lucky with everything I do?’”

Eldridge says she’s finally reached a point where although she’s aware of those thoughts, it’s easier to successfully challenge them.

“Then there’s ‘Am I a woman?’” she says of her ongoing journey of self-recognition. “It’s a really difficult thing to try and work out.

“I’d normally try and stay safe by calling myself non-binary but what’s actually given me the confidence of saying ‘I’m a woman’ is people accepting me as myself, especially at work. It changes things completely because it’s not just me trying to understand who I am, it’s other people observing me and saying ‘Jan, you are you.’ Other people’s support is really important.”

“IT’S OTHER PEOPLE SAYING ‘JAN, YOU ARE YOU’.”

You don’t think of ‘soft skills’ as being high on the list of qualities critical to a tradesperson’s success, but as Colleen Upton will tell you, the physical ability to easily manoeuvre a hot water cylinder isn’t anywhere near as important on a call-out as clear communication – just one of a surprising number of areas in which her female staff outperform their male colleagues.

A compelling if cerebral argument for women to pursue this “very lucrative” career option, Upton is clear that the female plumbers and gasfitters she’s mentored over the past 30 years are just as handy on the tools, too. Unfortunately, getting a foot in the door to prove it remains a challenge for many, with one female apprentice being denied interviews at 35 different plumbing outfits before Upton took her on. “She had topped her pre-trade class, so we’re talking the cream of the crop here. And it was just ‘Nope, we don’t hire women’ over and over.”

Since starting out managing invoices and typing quotes for a small plumbing business in her

20s – a role which quickly expanded so significantly she insisted on buying a stake in the company –

Upton has seen sexist attitudes come a long way.

But while the topless calendars might be long gone from the smoko room, several years on the board of Master Plumbers NZ was enough to convince her that women’s contributions continue to be undervalued by the industry, and undersold by the women themselves.

“A lot of plumbing businesses are husbandand-wife operations, and it’s always the wives who are following legislative changes and understanding their implications and dealing with any fallout. So you feel like saying to them, ‘Maybe you should be coming to all these meetings and your husband can stay home and look after the kids.’”

Mother to a fiercely independent grown-up daughter and two married sons, whose wives’ careers have always been equal if not higher priorities than their own, Upton is proud to have instilled such strong, feminist values in her children. And now, she says, the master has become the apprentice. “Before this photo shoot, I told my 10-year-old granddaughter, ‘Nana is a bit scared!’ And she said ‘Nana, sometimes you just have to do things you’re scared of.’”

“OVER AND OVER THEY’D SAY, ‘WE DON’T HIRE WOMEN’.”