The Circus Team
We're seventeen enthusiastic science graduates staff the Science Circus as it travels, bringing lively presentations of science to towns and schools across regional Australia while we study for a Graduate Diploma in Science Communication.
There are now over 200 Science Circus graduates, employed all around the world. Find out more about these amazing people!
The 2010 Science Circus Team
Back row (left to right): Namita Bhojani, Scott Ogilvie
2nd row (left to right): Laura Beaton, Amelia Swan, Rachel Martin, Fenella Edwards, Tom Woolrych
3rd Row (left to right): Natalie Sullivan, Nicole Sabatino, Jessica Fuller-Smith, Meagan Vella
Front row (left to right): Emily Standen, Lucy Simmonds, Sarah Kellett
Absent: Kate Barnard, Murray Walker
Every year we recruit a new team of presenters for the Shell Questacon Science Circus. To join the Shell Questacon Science Circus next year, start by finding out more about the Graduate Diploma in Science Communication. Applications close August 31 each year. Contact the ANU by e-mail or telephone on + 61 2 6125 2809.
Namita Bhojani
I am jumping off the walls mega excited to be a Science Circus clown! I finished my biomed degree at home in Melbourne last year and rushed straight here as soon as a I could to join the circus. I have always been that girl who asks a billion questions that have no answers - I confuse teachers, doctors, professors and whoever else comes my way with questions way over my head, it’s quite a skill really. Anyway, I love looking for answers and I want to share my particular brand of (chocalatey) science passion with the world. This is going to be one amazing year of touring around the country spreading the science love. Can’t wait to get into it!
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Scott Ogilvie
G’day. My name is Scott and I am from Wollongong. For as long as I can remember, I have been interested in science and engineering and generally how and why things work. For just as long, I have been interested in sport, but realised quite young in life that I was not going to be the next Michael Jordan or Don Bradman. So I shelved my plans to be a sporting hero, choosing instead to focus most* of my energy on science.
While studying for my Bachelor of Science and Graduate Diploma of Education, I worked at the Wollongong Science Centre and realised that science communication was for me! I taught in primary schools for 3 years in Wollongong and Parkes before applying to join the Science Circus in the middle of last year.
I am excited to be a part of the Science Circus and cannot wait to travel the country to provide opportunities for countless school children to discover that science is not only amazing, but cool and fun as well!
* some energy is still used on the sporting field, as well as bushwalking and Playstation.
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Laura Beaton
I’m an Aussie-American F1 hybrid and love talking about science more than I love Tofurducken. And that’s a lot. After completing a Bachelor of Medical Science and honours in immunology at the ANU, the Science Circus seemed like the best job in the world and I wouldn’t have to give up the joys of being a student. And it is! I grew up around enthusiastic scientists and credit them with my desire to explore the world and how it works. I cant wait to share this with the students we visit and to get to play with bubbles whenever I want.
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Amelia Swan
Amelia Swan has wondered and mused about the natural world and the creatures in it since she was a small child. This wonder was channelled into an Animal and Veterinary Bioscience degree which she completed in 2009. Amelia is now completing a Graduate Diploma in Science Communication at the Australian National University and loving every minute. Her love of science comes from a desire to want to understand things. Amelia often makes mistakes but takes comfort in the fact that without that attribute in DNA we would still be anaerobic bacteria. After this realisation Amelia stopped needlessly buying liquid paper and now is proud of and reflective upon any mistakes she makes.
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Rachel Martin
I decided to jump The Ditch and move to Australia after studying a BSc in New Zealand. The Graduate Diploma in Science Communication perfectly combines my enthusiasm for science with my passion for all things creative, plus I get to spend the year travelling around sunny Australia telling kids why science is so cool.
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Fenella Edwards
I grew up in the fabulous island state of Tasmania, where I developed a keen interest in the world around me. I love nature, especially Tassie’s forest and all kinds of animals. I think science communication has a key role to play in the survival of the natural world, which is increasingly important where industrial developments can come at the expense of our habitat.
I have an enquiring mind and passion for thinking and I am particularly interested in using science as a way to understand the world and beyond. I quite like the idea of finding some combination of mathematics and physics (and indeed other science streams like biology, geology, astronomy, psychology) in conjunction with philosophy to one day better understand and explain existence.
I am also very excited to be spending two weeks in Arnhem Land this year as part of the course. I love Indigenous culture and am really looking forward to the opportunity to experience life in the top end, where I hope to find traditional knowledge alive and well among the people there.
I enjoy inspiring young minds and love performing. I have been a casual rapper for about 8 years now (both freestyles and written rhymes) and look forward to bring a lil’ something from my hip hop to my science shows too.
I actually studied a Commerce degree at Uni (marketing & international business, psychology) and as such am the only Science Circus member without a science degree. Luckily my lovely scientist classmates and CPAS teaching staff are an accommodating and friendly bunch. There is nowhere I’d rather be in 2010 than here in the Science Circus!
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Tom Woolrych
I learnt how to read by reading maps. This naturally led to a passion for adventure in the outdoors - which led to being curious about my natural surrounds - which led to a career in geoscience. Since graduating from the ANU in 2004 I have travelled the world, looked at many rocks, and made many maps. Now I’m back to study science communication with the Shell Questacon Science Circus and hope to be able to pick up the skills to communicate my interest in my surrounds to the world (or a single other person... or a good amount of people somewhere in-between one and the whole world).
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Natalie Sullivan
Nat graduated from the University of Wollongong with a BSc (Hons) in Ecology. Since graduation she worked at the university as a research assistant investigating the effects of bitou bush invasion along the NSW coast. Luckily, Nat truly does enjoy long walks on the beach.
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Nicole Sabatino
Here are the ingredients for a science communicator... a dash of knowledge about science, a pinch of passion for talking and a handful of spirited energy. Mix them all together and you get me, Nicole.
I studied Biology at ECU University in Perth WA. When I finished I realised I was too loud to work in a lab and my favourite part of science was talking about it, to anyone that would listen really. So I decided to apply for the Science Circus. Now I get to travel all around Australia performing and talking about science to excited school students and I ask what could be cooler than that? Well except for dinosaurs and space stuff of course.
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Jessica Fuller-Smith
I’m an environmental scientist from Tasmania. I love that through science I can go outside and understand a bit more about the world around me, like why there is snow on the mountains, why there are waves at the beach, how rainbows form and how birds fly. What I love even more is the conversations that I get to have with people about these things and the mutual learning experience that can occur. I especially enjoy engaging in this way with young people, so I joined the Science Circus to learn more about sharing my passion with children and through this facilitate an appreciation of the natural world.
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Meagan Vella
Hi, my name is Meagan and I’m very excited to be part of the Science Circus. I’m originally from Sydney and have been interested in science ever since I was a child. Biology has always been particularly fascinating to me, especially learning how things live, breath and move.
I ended up studying a Bachelor of Animal Science (Wildlife Management) at the University of Western Sydney and then completed an honours project with the education unit at Taronga Zoo. I kept finding the people side of science most interesting, and after I graduated I remembered seeing an advertisement for a Graduate Diploma in Science Communication at ANU. I looked into it some more and, as they say, the rest is history.
I’m hoping that the Shell Questacon Science Circus will allow me to combine my love of science with my creative side and provide the start to a life-long adventure.
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Emily Standen
Heya, I’m Emily, and I ran away to join the circus, and be a clown!!
Well, maybe not a clown... But I did run away to join a circus - the Shell Questacon Science Circus! Originally, I am from Townsville, North QLD, and I studied Biomedical Science at James Cook Uni. About half way through the course I thought I would like to get into research, but in my final year, I got to try research. While it is an important side of science, it wasn’t for me...
So now I was left wondering what to do!! I looked around and realised that my favourite times of the year were when I was helping out at science camps at uni. But I hadn’t heard of the circus yet, so I studied a Diploma of Education for a year. Luckily for me, I was told about the circus in that year, and here I am!! This year is shaping up to be alot of fun - travelling, performing, and being introduced to many aspects of Science Communication. I can’t wait to see where we end up!
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Lucy Simmonds
Lucy has always loved science and language. After studying genetics & Japanese and then honours in Health Sciences at the University of Adelaide, Lucy decided it was time to move further afield than Adelaide. Teaching English to 5-15 year olds in rural Japan with the JET Program was an amazing experience, but there was something missing. Science. Now it’s time to combine science and language in the form of communicating science to regional and rural Australian students with the Shell Questacon Science Circus.
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Sarah Kellett
When I was six I wrote a story with my dad called “Molly the Water Molecule.” Molly evaporated from the ocean and went on an adventure. From a cloud condensing to rain, she eventually tumbled down a river and returned to the sea. At university I majored in Chemistry and Biochemistry, but the written word still called to me. Now I’m completing the journey I began at the age of six by studying science communication and writing freelance science articles for magazines, newspapers and the internet. I still love water molecules.
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Kate Barnard
Kate Barnard defines science as "something that’s SO interesting that you think about it even when you don’t have to". Her previous career as a circus trainer gave her a particular love of Newton’s laws as she flipped, rolled and dived her way around a circus tent and taught others to do the same. Kate has a physics degree with honours in History and Philosophy of Science.
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Murray Walker
Hi I’m Murray and I love being part of the Shell Questacon Science Circus. Like, really love it! I get to travel around Australia and thrill, excite and engage people about how cool science really is. What more could you want in a course??
I’ve loved science for what seems like an eternity and finished my Bachelor of Science at the University of Melbourne in 2006, majoring in genetics and cell biology. But I couldn’t stop there. In 2009 I completed my Master of Science in genetics focusing on the plant science.
Although I enjoyed the research aspect of science, the opportunity in this course to communicate science to the public was too great to resist. I’m from Melbourne and making the transition to Canberra has been one of greatest decisions I’ve made; thank you circus!
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