New Zealand now has zero COVID-19 cases - so I'm getting ready to say goodbye to my "bubble" (for readers from outside NZ the word "bubble" was used to describe the group of people in each household during lockdown - we could only interact with those in our "bubble").  However in many ways, my home office was a bubble - a small confined space that I was enclosed in for the work day.  But it's time to say goodbye to that bubble ... and get back to campus.

But before I pack up the combination of computer bits and pieces that made the last 11 weeks of working from home possible I want to share a glimpse of my office "bubble".

The space I worked in was small - about as long a three seater couch (but a bit deeper).  I was in online meetings, or recording video lectures a lot - so quiet and access to ethernet was important!  The space was frequently shared with our two corgis (on whom snored through many meetings while curled up in a chair next to me), and a boisterous puppy (who prompted us to engineer various barricades to stop him Zoom-bombing my meetings).

I've been teaching 950 undergraduate students online - in a new course entitled "Energy and Society" where we discuss thermodynamics (among other things).  We touch on the second law of thermodynamics - which can be encapsulated by the phrase "Perfect is Impossible".  The space I worked in was imperfect and cobbled together - an old office chair, a pin cushion as a wrist rest to help make the ergonomics work (students ... remember my lecture on creativity, and unanticipated uses for objects, that part of my office set up was creativity in action!).

And why does my home office space have a tower of small black and white boxes stacked up in one corner?  No, it's not an interior design trend! That part was a quickly improvised solution as a platform to move my web cam to when I was film demos with objects from around the house or learning haka online (as part of the Haka Experience challenge).  All sorts of things were possible from my "bubble".

I am very conscious that many people in NZ (and the world) were working and studying through the lockdown in circumstances that were far more challenging than the imperfections in my space.  If you're a University of Auckland student facing hardship please ask for help.  The University has a hardship fund that still has scope to support students.

Students in both the classes I've been teaching have been asking some great questions and submitting high-quality work for their assessments.  So I am confident that learning has been happening - whether that was while sitting on a couch in a student apartment, at home at a kitchen table, in Auckland, or beyond.  I am truly impressed by the commitment my University colleagues have shown to teaching and learning to make sure everyone can stay connected with their learning despite the fact we haven't been in a lecture theatre for 11 weeks.  It is going to be fascinating how this crisis changes the future of higher education - but I'll save my thoughts on that for another time.

For now, I look forward to getting back to the office, and to the lecture theatre.  I look forward to being back in a "3D" world - instead of communicating with students as a "Talking Head" (and not this kind of Talking Head) in a black square in the corner of a screen.

See you in 3D soon!

(and some pent up blog posts will be coming out soon'ish too).

This post is the full text of a piece I wrote for a special edition of Uninews celebrating 125 years of women's suffrage in NZ.  The Uninews version was abridged due to space constraints.

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As NZ celebrates 125 years of women’s suffrage I find myself thinking of my grandmothers, and of my mother, and about the choices and opportunities they had.  Suffrage granted my grandmothers (born early in the 20^th century) the vote, and I hope they exercised that choice.  A University education however was not a realistic choice for them.  By the time my mother was leaving high school in the early 1960s a University education was available to more women – though her family steered her to training college as a dental nurse.

It was not until 1970 that the first female student graduated from the Faculty of Engineering (Gee Yeow from Malaysia earned a BE in Civil Engineering), with the first NZ woman graduating in 1973 (Gael Knight in Chemical & Materials Engineering).  Gee and Gael paved the way for around 2,500 women (so far) to graduate with BE degrees.  One of those women was Robyn Nash who enrolled in 1982 holds a BE in Engineering Science.  Reflecting on her path into the Faculty she says:

“When I was in 7^th form, (Year 13) my plan was to complete a Science degree and teach Maths and Science. But I had an excellent Maths teacher who was an Engineering Science graduate and, because of her, I decided to do Engineering Science. I hadn’t considered studying Engineering until then, so I’m fortunate my Maths teacher was in the right place at the right time. In fact, because of her, two other girls from my class also chose to do Engineering Science. I’ve never regretted my decision, even though I’m still not a teacher!”

A landmark for the Faculty was appointing Liz Godfrey in 1989 to recruit and retain female students. By the early 1990s women comprised 18 to 20% of the first year engineering intake each year.  I was one of those women, and co-founded the Faculty’s “Women in Engineering Network” (WEN) which is now a vibrant part of the fabric of student life at the Faculty.  That network just celebrated its 25^th anniversary and has a significant number of corporate sponsors who value its role in the Faculty.

While I did not set out to be a trailblazer (despite my prematurely red hair!) in 2013 I became the first woman (of many I hope) to serve as a Head of Department within the Faculty.  In 2016 I was thrilled to see Robyn Nash’s daughter, Gemma, enrol in a BE.  The fact that we are now seeing a number of young women enrolling whose mothers have engineering degrees is a fantastic milestone to be reaching.  Gemma notes:

“Until halfway through my final year of high school I was planning on studying science, and was adamantly against channeling my love for the sciences and maths into an engineering degree (because no girl wants to admit they're becoming their mother!). However, my desire to use science to create and explore new ideas made me change my mind, and I'm very glad I did! I'm now combining my interests with a conjoint degree in Engineering and Science.

Within the first few weeks of university, I knew that Engineering Science is my specialisation. The degree prepares us to become experts in fields still in their infancy, such as machine learning, analytics, and optimisation. There's great potential in what we do, and I know that this 'science of better’ changes lives.”

Suffrage set NZ on a path to empower women as full contributors in our society.  Our Faculty wants that progress to continue and our Dean, Prof. Nic Smith, has challenged the Faculty to achieve 33% female enrolment by the year 2020.  Female enrolment in the BE is currently around 27% each year – a level which some Universities in the region have set as an aspirational target.  However we know that young people across NZ – regardless of their gender, ethnicity or family background - have talent, and a desire (like Gemma’s) to work on problems which can genuinely improve the lives of people in communities in NZ and abroad.

To change our enrolment profile we’re reaching out to young women in schools in new ways.  We have a partnership with Girlboss, an organisation run by Alexia Hilbertidou.  At age 19 Alexia runs her own business which has a mission to close the gender gap in Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths, Entrepreneurship and Leadership.  We have new online content in production, and are launching a school holiday tutoring program to help build STEM skills and confidence in female high school students.

Reaching 33% female enrolment will be a new landmark in the Faculty’s evolution and will be a step toward ensuring our student cohort are reflective of wider NZ society.

I spoke recently at a dinner to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Faculty of Engineering's Women in Engineering Network.  This blog post captures notes from the address I gave (largely to an audience of female students) at the dinner - with photos of the props (which were a tour through my wardrobe / shoe collection!)

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I was thrilled to see the display of WEN t-shirts at the dinner … including some of my own “vintage” ones.  Why?  Because every time I see someone wearing a WEN shirt with pride it is a reminder that WEN are an established and accepted part of our Faculty.  I want to give you all some insight into how that came to be.

WEN was established 25 years ago with a friend and I as co-founders.  The idea was inspired by similar initiatives in the US – at both the student and professional level.  Liz Godfrey (the “original” Naomi Fleming) learned about those activities on a study tour to the US in the early 90’s.

To help everyone think about what life was like 25 years ago (before most of you were born) I should remind you that there were no cell phones, the internet was a mysterious network only used by some academics for limited amounts of email or data transfers … and social media definitely did not exist!   In today’s world it’s a little mind boggling to think about how anyone would go about building a new organisation without those tools.

WEN’s original mission was to be a network that provided personal and academic support to female students in the Faculty.  Our events in the early days were advertised on posters in the Faculty … and the most reliable place to put those posters up was the women’s bathrooms since posters in other areas were sometimes torn down.

25 years ago the Faculty only had two women on its academic staff (at least that I can recall).  One was Margaret Hyland in Chemical & Materials Engineering.  Margaret went on to become the first woman to be promoted to the rank of full Professor.  Heather Silyn-Roberts was on staff in the Mechanical Engineering Department.  So the lack of female staff meant regular contact with potential role models was limited.  WEN invited women working as professional engineers back to the Faculty for popular wine and cheese functions.  Everyone who attended found being at a “women only” function a definite change from their work or study environment.

Academic support ramped up in 1994 when I stayed on at the Faculty as a fulltime tutor ("professional teaching fellow" in modern job titles) – between my Bachelors and Masters degrees.  The failure rate on some of the big tests at Part 1 (especially in Mechanics) bugged me.  Female students found low marks in Part 1 tests particularly soul destroying.  WEN organised some after hours women-only tutorials.  Those of us tutoring donated our time to running them – and enjoyed seeing a boost in pass rates and confidence in those tests.

To take you back to the early 1990’s let me unveil some props that speak to the culture of the time.  Female students interviewing for engineering roles were given advice to dress conservatively – a skirt (preferably blue, and not too short), flat shoes or low heels, a white shirt and a jacket.

So while that looks professional, it also speaks to a culture of “fitting in” – of being a female version of a male engineer.  Similar fashion choices were evident in class.  Baggy jeans and shirts, and cross-trainers were the norm every day.  Exhibit A – a shirt typical of my time as an undergrad.  It was rare that I turned up at University looking particularly female.

Fast forward to today – WEN has become a valued and respected part of the Faculty community.  Employers (many of whom are are WEN sponsors) are eager to recruit our female graduates … regardless of what they wear to their interviews!  Those employers know talent resides in every segment of society.

So thinking of the future, what advice would I give to those of you getting ready to leave the Faculty to become part of the professional engineering community?  Hmmm … at this point I could dive for a book of quotes and draw on some pithy wisdom from others.  However I took us to 1993 by rummaging in my wardrobe – so let’s stay with that!  In particular to my shoe collection ...

The first pair of shoes that springs to mind is my steel caps … For me they are a reminder that to excel in any organisation it’s important to know how things work from the ground up.  Make sure you value people everyone’s skill and knowledge – regardless of whether they are on a machine shop floor, on a construction site, in a secretarial role.  Those people are all integral to making sure the wider organisation delivers, and they can have some very valuable insights.

The next pair of shoes I have handy is my bike shoes.  I only ride a bike indoors at the gym.  For me these shoes are a great reminder that one thing we all need a reserve of at times is “grit”.  For the past few years I’ve been riding in (and I confess winning) the Tour de Gym event at the Rec Centre where you ride 10% of the Tour de France.  There are always going to be times in life that feel like you're being asked to ride 20km or more uphill … testing that out on a bike is a good reminder that its possible to survive such challenges!

Staying with a movement theme … I also have my dance shoes handy.  I get to contemporary dance classes as often as I can.  (Despite the fact that gravity feels like it may scale with age!).  For me dance and choreography is important as a means to tap into my creativity.  Dance helps me to revive my ability to think differently.  There’s been many a time that research questions that I was stumped on before dance class, suddenly made sense after class!  Make sure you know what revives and sustains you and your creativity.

And the final pair of shoes I have bought in are these red boots.  They jumped out at me as a celebration of difference, of uniqueness.  I see it as important that all organisations allow people to bring their whole self into the community in which they work or study.   I believe you’ll be entering a world where you do not (and should not) have to feel compelled to be a female version of a male engineer – arguably unlike the world I saw when I co-founded WEN in 1993.  Our society is doing a much better job of embracing diversity – so I believe that you’ll be a valued part of engineering organisations regardless of where you were born, whether you’re part of the rainbow community, whether you choose to become a mother or a wife.  I hope we get to the point where going to Friday yoga class is just as an important of a form of informal networking as Friday drinks sometimes are.

I’d like to close to by congratulating the WEN leadership team for the work they do to make sure WEN is such a vibrant part of the Faculty community.

I've been away from the blog for too long - and I have been missing it - so I am back in the blogosphere, and hope to be blogging again regularly.  So here's some pent up thoughts ...

"As I put on my makeup" (those who know me well will know those are not words I put in a sentence often!) recently I started to think ... about perfection and imperfection.  It dawned on me how comfortable I am with my imperfections.  I was reaching for a stick of concealer to mask one of several small scars in my face, since I knew my evening might involve cameras and bright lights (that's another story!).  However staring at the scar in the mirror got me thinking about a TED talk I'd watched earlier that week by Reshma Saujani.  She'd been involved in an outstanding program which teaches young women to code.  She says:

We immediately see in our program our girls' fear of not getting it right,of not being perfect. Every Girls Who Code teacher tells me the same story. During the first week, when the girls are learning how to code,a student will call her over and she'll say,"I don't know what code to write." The teacher will look at her screen,and she'll see a blank text editor. If she didn't know any better, she'd think that her student spent the past 20 minutes just staring at the screen. But if she presses undo a few times, she'll see that her student wrote code and then deleted it. She tried, she came close, but she didn't get it exactly right.  Instead of showing the progress that she made, she'd rather show nothing at all. Perfection or bust.

I teach young people to code in my role as an educator.  These days I only make "guest" appearances in hands-on labs for first year computing classes  ... but I would be truly disappointed if the students I teach (any of them) preferred to show me a blank screen in a lab session to avoid sharing their imperfection, as opposed to showing me code they knew was not perfect.

Getting back to me and my scars - my body has been patched up over the years with over 100 stitches externally (and more internally), plus bio-compatible "super-glue" etc. in my face.  However I choose to see those scars as signs of strength and of life - I do not fear them being seen in my face and up arms (since I tend to "roll my sleeves up" both figuratively and literally).  Now whenever I glance at my scars I'll be thinking about how to get others to embrace imperfection, in the classroom and beyond.

While I was studying at Stanford the terms "fuzzy" and "techy" were common labels for students studying social science/humanities versus physical science/engineering.  Those labels persist today as described in this piece from a current Stanford student (Gwynn Lyons).

Stanford University

Gwynn says

By choosing to study the humanities, I have said “yes” to humanity, in all its grandeur and success, as well as its abject failure.

As an engineer that quote resonates with me too.  I believe engineering, as a profession has said "yes" to humanity as well.  Admittedly the contributions engineers make are typically expressed in a different form than someone who has studied linguistics.  Though boundaries are continually blurring.  One superb example is the MPAi tool being developed by a team including Assoc. Prof. Catherine Watson from the University of Auckland's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.  MPai enables users to hear the correct pronunciation of a Māori word, record and analyse their own pronunciation and get feedback on what is right and what is wrong.

I believe that kind of binary distinction (fuzzy versus techy) between people and their choice of study or work isn't useful.  For innovation to proceed in ways that benefit all of society then pathways to engage with creating systems and technologies must be open to all - regards of whether someone prefers to read Python code or Plato.  A recent development on campus that has a similar philosophy is the new Unleash space.

The Unleash Space is your space for creating, playing, making, inventing, experimenting and doing at the University of Auckland. It’s where you can find and build your community. Together or individually, you can build things, come up with ideas and develop them, prototype, test and have fun doing so, in a welcoming collaborative environment.

I am truly excited about the potential that the Unleash space has to continue to bridge the fuzzy techy.  I hope to see Arts students learning to program Arduinos, and students of the so-called "hard sciences" working with soft materials.