Dr. Melissa Kozul is a research fellow at the University of Melbourne. She currently works on turbulent flows in gas turbines used for aviation and electricity production. She shares her experience of how she came to study engineering, why role models are important and why engineers feature less in the media than other professions. 

What is your story? How did you become who you are now? 

Melissa: I was going through some old things recently and I found this photograph of myself. I want to be a ballerina here, practising hours every day. I can see and I remember that moment when that photo was taken and I did not want to be an engineer, I wanted to be a ballerina. And but then around that age, which is sad, at around eleven or twelve, I realised that I don't have the skeleton that you need to be a professional ballet dancer. The only part that makes it easier is that it is a hard “No” and it is not going to happen. So I needed a Plan B basically. I need to figure out what to do with my life because I cannot pursue this great passion that I still have for ballet.  

So now I am like twelve, thirteen, I am at high school and there is a teacher posting some kind of environmental clips in the noticeboard. And I am a voracious reader at this age, I read a huge amount. And I am reading these clippings, these newspaper clippings that this teacher is putting up about melting glaciers. We called it just global warming back then. Now we call it climate change. I was in a panic about this and I was reading it and more so in a panic because nobody was talking about it. This is twenty years ago. Then I realised greenhouse gas emissions are a problem here. This is why this is happening. I look at where they are coming from and pie charts of where greenhouse gas emissions come from. In Australia in particular, because of our dependence on fossil fuels for electricity production, a huge part of that pie is electricity, for our houses, for our businesses, for our economy to run. I realised that to address this problem of the melting glaciers, it has got something to do with our electricity that we cannot do without. So, the importance of this and the link to this environmentalism tells me that I want to go onto this path.  

And then I go to the Open Day at Melbourne Uni and I turn up to the environmental engineering, because I think this is about environmentalism. But they are talking about forestry, dam management, reservoir management. And I'm like, no, this is not the problem. I turn up to the mechanical engineering by accident and there is a wind turbine. And I'm sold. 

Engineering representation in the media: How important is it? 

I think media is so powerful for young people especially that don't have examples in their home of being an engineer or of different career types, all we then have is the examples in media. So I do think it is lacking. I do think that it could really shift the needle on public conception of what an engineer is. I don't think engineering has been actively discriminated against. I just think the stories are maybe less obvious. But I believe for the future of our economy, especially in Australia, it is an issue. We have a huge engineering skills shortage and I hope that screenings and festivals like the FEIT Film Festival could take the next step to lobbying because through governments I know the government support films in certain sectors for certain reasons and this is an issue that has not been addressed yet. We have been trying to look at going into schools or trying to talk to children. But if you do not get that spark, if you do not make it sexy through a film or through a TV series or through somebody that you just want to be like without the details, without the technical details of how you go to, to have that burning desire. I want to be like this person in this series. This is I think this is how you turn hearts and minds. 

Looking at the media, why do we have this absence of engineers, particularly female ones, from the screen? 

There are two issues. One is that it is hard to define what an engineer is. Despite me being the daughter of two engineers, I was not that clear on what engineers did. Someone without any contact with engineering would have even less of a clue. It is difficult to define because it is everywhere. It is across so many sectors and therefore it is difficult to package to anyone what an engineer is. The other problem with selling engineering in a nice film, for example, is how distant we are from the product. So, the engineer that has developed the gas turbine is not going to have any contact with the passenger, with the final passenger in the plane. And so, the engineer is invisible. So, that is an issue, I would say. The separation between that and also the idea that we are in so many different sectors, that it is hard to describe. But that is not an excuse. There are ways that this could be solved, but it is potentially why it is a less simple story to tell than, for example, the surgeon performing heart surgery on a patient that survives. This is a miraculous storyline. Or the lawyer who solves the criminal case for someone, that could be another storyline. And these people are directly in contact with each other. 

Did you find encouragement at home for your choice to go into engineering? 

My mother was always a big, big support. The biggest problem with young girls or women choosing engineering, is choosing it in the first place. But then there are issues, you know, like going through because you are in such a minority all the time. And so, my mother was always a massive support and inspiration, and she was always encouraging me to pursue this, to pursue this passion. 

Did you feel in a minority during your studies? 

We are talking five percent girls in mechanical engineering. It's very few. Once you relax into it, engineering has always been a very inclusive and welcoming environment because engineers are team players in the end. We all want the right answer. And you know, if somebody thinks that you can help them or they can help you, then it is in your interest to be in a team. In all of my workplaces where I have almost always been the only female, I nevertheless have felt part of that group and engineering is a welcoming environment. Once you decide to do it and once you are convinced that you should be there, which is part of the problem with girls, but once you've made that decision, then, I found it a wonderful environment to be in.