Always a creative type, I started writing music from a young age, winning my first composition competition in Year 9, and winning a Australia-wide ASME composition competition in year 12 that saw myself and the other state winners flown to South Australia. There, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra workshopped and performed our pieces! You can find the sheet music for that piece, and a selection of my other compositions on the next page.
The creativity has continued even as the medium has changed, and in the last decade I’ve learned to express myself through my writing, as well as the 3D modelling and printing of my own designs. I now run a shopfront at shapeways.com, selling those designs, including my colourful B3RDs (pictured). My training has always been in science however, and I’ve completed at BSc (Molecular Biology) in 2003 and completed a PhD (Immunology) in 2017, both at the University of WA. That PhD resulted in two first-author publications, links to which can be found on my writing page. I’ve also worked on medical research at labs in Princess Margaret Hospital and Royal Perth Hospital for most of my adult life, and this has helped me develop a love of the deep analytical methods required to plan and execute on the experiments required to solve difficult scientific problems.
Space has provided a path for me to combine my two skill-sets. I’ve been studying the multitude of problems in human spaceflight since long before I attended my first space conference (ISDC) in 2011, and am convinced that solving those problems will require both a sound knowledge of scientific methodology, as well as a creative approach. 2017 was the year I co-founded Exodus Space Systems with two friends, based on 3D models I have created in response to specific problems I’ve identified. I can’t wait to see what the future holds!
A special thanks to Daniche Creative for the excellent photography!