
STEMM is a passport with Renae Sayers
When is the last time you experienced wonder? Wonder is an incredible thing to experience as a child, and no less incredible as a grown-up. It's an open door that can lead to new opportunities and help you make sense of the world around you. You just have to let yourself step through it with an open mind and a willingness to find out more.Renae Sayers is Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Curtin University School of Earth and Planetary Sciences. Join us as we speak about debriefing with the stars, embracing wonder and the process of enquiry, and how STEMM is a passport that you can use to navigate your future.This episode is proudly part of Australian National Science Week, and is registered as an online event!National Science Week was established in 1997, and it's grown into one of Australia's largest festivals as a community-led, grassroots celebration supported by the Australian Government. It runs from the 15th to the 23rd of August, with heaps of events happening both in person and online right across the country.If today's conversation sparks something in you, head to scienceweek.net.au to find an event near you, or online, and get involved.About Renae SayersRenae Sayers is Director of Strategic Initiatives at Curtin University's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Chair of Inspiring Australia WA, the reference group supporting National Science Week across the state.Renae would love to tell her teenage self that the email she wrote to NASA would have career implications decades later. (And yes, that running away to join the Science Circus after her astrophysics degree will absolutely help as well.) That path ran through fire-breathing with cornflour on stages around the world, helping establish the Space Science and Technology Centre, the Binar Space Program and the AROSE consortium, launching Western Australia's first spacecraft, and setting the scene to get student-designed payloads into orbit through BinarX. More recently it ran through the Curtin Frontiers Institute for Geoscience Solutions and into the work of turning deep technical capability into positioning, funding cases and relationships.At her core, Renae loves building things and bringing people together in novel ways, often so they can see their world in a different light. She loves the creative pursuit of problem solving, and she's still figuring out what she wants to do when she grows up.Show Notes (link)[00:01:45] Debriefing with the stars: Childhood reflections[00:06:57] A letter to the stars: Writing to NASA[00:10:17] Discovering science communication[00:15:58] Studying astrophysics to join the circus[00:24:12] Navigating the future of learning and careers[00:32:28] Discovery and translation in science and life[00:34:17] The relationship between science communication and science strategy[00:38:34] What you build, and what comes after[00:43:24] Knowing the endgame changes the roads taken[00:44:20] Solving for the challenges of tomorrow and the shift in the bottleneck from access to judgement[00:47:04] Building curious communities with public engagement[00:51:39] Curiosity is a pathway to empowerment[00:57:29] What advice would you give someone who would like to do what you do, and what should they ignore?[00:57:52] Your career isn't a job title[00:59:56] Embrace uncertainty and growthConnect with STEAM PoweredWebsite | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | PatreonHosted and produced by Michele Ong.Music is "Gypsy Jazz in Paris 1935" by Brett Van Donsel.This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacySpotify Ad Analytics - https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/ad-analytics-privacy-policy/










