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ASPIRE Holiday Program–Reaching Out to Regional NSW

By Kristina Fidanovski

ASPIRE Team (in red) with the boys and girls of Coolah (purple) and student helpers (blue).

“It works!” The girl’s disgruntled face suddenly clears and lights up the same way her circuit just has. I don’t get to admire her enthusiasm for long though–I’m drawn away to make sure the group aerial testing their light-up helicopter creations don’t wind up with concussions to take home as well. I’m in a small rural town in New South Wales running science workshops for APSIRE’s holiday program. ASPIRE aims to empower disadvantaged kids and make university education a real and attainable option for them. Part of that mission is exposing kids to what a university education means and the broad range of fields that they could pursue. Across the school there are workshops going on in drama, programming, sport, art, and engineering for girls and boys across Years 4 to 8. We’re building simple paper helicopters with finicky light up circuits for the science workshop. Neither Ngozi, my co-pilot, nor I know particularly much about circuits. It’s been a while since my undergraduate in Physics and these days I can be more reliably found pouring something toxic into something flammable and hoping a polymer comes out the other end. Ngozi’s optometry work in assessing habitual impacts on the ocular surface of children isn’t helping her much either. We’re doing admirably well, though; I think. Most people seem impressed with my improvised diagnostic tools as we try and get the little lights to turn on. A more challenging prospect than you might expect, but in my defence the wires are conductive tape that little fingers have mangled, not the standard insulated fair of science kits everywhere. Even the most irreverent and stubbornly cool preteens among the group–who will remain nameless–can’t help being pleased when their circuits work.

Ngozi showcases a new optometry program designed at UNSW to help researchers study eye-hand coordination in children.

“Why does the plus side of the battery have to be connected to the plus side of the light?” The girl asking is the loudest among a group of girls determined to convince anyone listening that they have no interest at all in anything that could be mistaken for school. I’m onto them though; all their circuits work. Also, they have good questions.

I freeze and cast my mind back to sitting in a lecture 5 years ago while a stereotypically old, white gentleman explained the principles of diodes to a hall full of young men. I was sitting two seats away from one of a handful of young women in our 60+ cohort. We hadn’t spoken before and I was planning ways to start a conversation that wasn’t just: “We should be friends because we’re the only two girls currently in this room.”

Ngozi troubleshoots a helicopter.

Fortunately, I remember enough of the lecture to explain it to the satisfaction of a 12 year old (which is actually harder than if I could have just regurgitated the technical details to a colleague familiar with the function of an electron). It does remind me though, why I’m out in regional Australia in the first place. Every lecturer I had at university, in both Chemistry and Physics, was old, white and male (except for the notable exception of our third-year lecturer on general relativity who was a breath of feminine-fresh air). In fact, even my high school teachers adhered to the stereotypes. Despite the reassurances of my family that I could, and indeed should, go into science, and the famous examples of female scientists they doggedly told me about, my face-to-face experiences with science had never been with someone who looked like me. Neither as a child, nor as an adult. I won’t pretend that I’m hoping a few hours spent in the company of two young PhD candidates waxing lyrical about research and science will be enough to turn that same stereotype around in the minds of the young girls and boys we encountered. I am hoping that it will spark something for them though. Our visit alone won’t be enough. But maybe when they log on to Facebook tonight they’ll see a lady scientist doing a demonstration video. Or they’ll catch the tail end of an interview with a lady scientist on the news. And maybe next year when ASPIRE comes past again with another bright-eyed PhD student with no idea how to explain diodes to a 12 year old, that’ll be enough to get them to think: “I can do it too.”

Learn more about ASPIRE at their website. We visited two schools–in Gilgandra and the even tinier town of Coolah–in the week we spent putting on workshops and science stalls, but ASPIRE visits schools across the region and they do incredible work.

I explain non-Newtonian fluids (a.k.a. make slime) while we wait for the sun to set and the moonlight cinema to begin. (Yes, my scarf is perfectly in character – it’s the exact one I wear underneath my lab coat when it gets chilly at work.)

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More than Meets the Eye

By Dr Lisa Nivison-Smith

Meet Dr Sharon Oberstein, the Deputy Clinic Director at the Optometry clinic on the UNSW campus. Breaking down the stereotype that optometrists merely make glasses, Sharon recently finished her PhD  doing the impossible–finding ways to help those with vision loss, learn to drive. With a passion for teaching, research and helping patients, she now runs clinics to help those with low vision, as well as teaching the next generation of optometrists.

 

1. Tell me a bit about your current role at UNSW.

Currently, I am the Deputy Clinic Director at the UNSW Optometry Clinic. My primary role is to co-ordinate and supervise the low vision clinics, co-ordinate the clinical experience for final year UNSW optometry students and convene the final year optometric clinical course in Paediatrics, Low Vision and Colour Vision.

2. You recently finished your PhD, what was your project about?

I explored strategies help individuals with central vision loss to be able to drive. Driving is a privilege many of us take for granted. Yet for those with visual impairment, not being able to drive can mean they miss out on job opportunities, social events and much more. I wanted to help these individuals gain this freedom.

Most of my project focused on a strategy known as the bioptic telescope, which is a mounted spectacle telescope (see photo below). I found that when drivers with vision impairment wore the telescope, they were able to read signs in the distance that they couldn’t see before. I have been working towards helping others with vision impairment be given to opportunity to learn to drive.

Bioptic telescope used by Sharon to help individuals with low vision during her PhD

3. You were already a highly qualified optometrist when you started your PhD, why did you decide to do further study?

My first motivation was my patients that have central vision impairment that wanted to drive. I knew there were strategies available for them to drive, but there was a lack of research to support it. So I started a PhD to build this evidence.

I also already spent time working in the academic environment and I had gained specialised skills in an area of optometry through mentoring and clinical experience. Yet I lacked the academic qualification and research skills to teach it and so I pursued a PhD so I could do these activities in the future.

4. Besides research skills, what else did you learn during your PhD which was surprising?

Unlike my previous achievements, the challenges of the PhD journey demanded much more than the basic academic aptitude and good work ethic and so I learnt about the need to be resilient. A highlight of my PhD journey was meeting and speaking with the academic giants and heroes in my discipline at conferences and through the academic network, their mentoring, encouragement and advise was inspirational.

5. The UNSW Women in Maths and Science Champions Program aims to inspire young women. Why did you join the program and what inspires you?

I was mentored and inspired to gain special skills in optometry both before and during my PhD. I joined the program to help pay forward some of that passion and inspiration. I have also been privileged to enjoy a rewarding career in science and academia, as well as grow and nurture my family and three children, and I want to inspire others to do the same.

6. And finally, what’s the biggest myth about optometrists?

That all we do is ask which is better, one or two!

The eye is an extension of the brain and it can provide an insight into so much more about the health of a person. This is why optometry is a complex allied health profession with many specialities and opportunities. It’s much more than just making spectacles!

Optometrists do a lot more than read letter charts and prescribe glasses

Read about Sharon’s research in the Sydney Morning Herald (https://www.smh.com.au/national/telescope-helps-visionimpaired-drivers-get-behind-the-wheel-20150819-gj2gu2.html)

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