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The Brilliant
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Kylie Ahern

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How mentoring can change the course of a career

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Dr Alison Todd believes that, without mentoring, SpeeDx, the global diagnostics company she co-founded would not exist. “I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m a lucky person, that in the end had the right mentor at the right time,” says Todd.

In her last role, founding and heading the Australian operation of 350.org, and her current endeavour as climate editor at Climate & Capital Media, Palese and her colleagues have spearheaded one of the most effective strategies yet against climate change – convincing investors that putting their money behind fossil fuel companies is a bad idea.

This star-hunter is looking back at the dawn of our universe and ahead to the future of women in astronomy

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Have you ever wondered what was the very first star to light up the Universe? That moment in time, when all things began? Well, Professor Lisa Kewley, Director of the Australian Research Centre for Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D) is leading the hunt. And if you think finding your keys in the morning is difficult, imagine searching for a handful of select stars amidst our universe, which is made up of an estimated two trillion galaxies, each one home to 100 billion stars.

Kat Falkner: The Coding Whisperer

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When Professor Katrina Falkner was creating animations and artworks using computer coding as a teenager, little did she realise that a couple of decades later she would utterly transform how tens of thousands of Australian teachers perceive and teach coding.  “That creativity, that ability to create with coding has really stuck with me my whole life. But like most women in my field, I was also struck by the lack of diversity in computer classes,” Falkner told the Brilliant.

Susmita Mohanty: Deep Space Design

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Growing up in the 1970s, surrounded by the pioneers of the India’s space program, ’Dr Susmita Mohanty was always destined for a space-based career. For Mohanty, the influence of those pioneers was profound. “I could show up in anybody’s offices in the afternoon and they would make a cup of tea and say, ‘let’s talk about your new ideas’. I could talk to them about art, architecture, design, technology, politics. They were Renaissance men. And that’s really what shaped me,” says India’s first space entrepreneur.

Milind Tambe: matchmaking AI experts and non-profits can make the world a better place

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When artificial intelligence (AI) researcher Professor Milind Tambe learned at a World Bank summit in 2010 that poaching was going to wipe out rhinos, elephants and tigers, he realised his research could help rangers predict where poachers were going to set traps. “Too often the public sees AI as a great unknown and something to be feared, but actually it has extraordinary potential for societal and environmental wellbeing,” says Tambe.

Seeding change: how Bruce Pascoe helped Australians see ourselves differently

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Using first-hand accounts from the journals of European colonists and explorers, Bruce Pascoe wrote a book that will forever change how Australians view their history. In just 221 pages, Dark Emu exploded the myth that Aboriginal Australians were nomadic hunter gatherers and that farming and agricultural techniques were only introduced to the country with the arrival of white colonists. “I wrote the book because I found it hard to convince Australians that Aboriginal people were farming,” Pascoe says.

Susan R. Eaton: Epic Explorer

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Google the term ‘polar explorer’ and you’ll turn up a list of men – names such as Ernest Shackleton, James Clark Ross, Robert Falcon Scott, Fridtjof Nansen. Canadian geoscientist, journalist and polar explorer Susan R. Eaton, is challenging that paradigm.