Lot's Wife Edition 5 2015

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30 SCIENCE & ENGINEERING Puzzles Puzzle 1 Puzzle 2 Puzzle 4 Puzzle 3 Honour Roll Issue 3 Issue 4 Max Zadnik Christopher E Orrell William Molloy Sarah Spencer Christopher E Orrell Max Zadnik Lucas Azzola Success, fame and glamour can all be yours! Simply submit the answers to msa-lotswife@monash.edu and you’ll get your name published on this page in the next issue!
SCIENCE & ENGINEERING 31 What’s Up Doc? Anita finished her Bachelor and Masters degrees in organic and physical chemistry at Northeast Normal University in China before coming to Monash for her PhD in organic science in 2011. Her supervisor Dr. Steven Langford suggested that her work with gas separation and the design of porous materials was interesting. Anita has so far had her research findings published in journals such as Crystal Engineering Communications and Organic Chemistry Communications. INTERVIEWED BY SUNNY LIU SHUANG (ANITA) WANG What’s the current area of your research? My current focus is on organic synthesis. My project involves the synthesis of porous materials. My supervisor initially brought up this idea, and I further developed it into the full shape and added the application of solvent gases absorption. It was a challenge for me to do organic chemistry. My major project is the synthesis of powerine, which is very hard to synthesize. I found out that this kind of material can be applied into gas absorption. It can selectively absorb CO2 by mixing nitrogen or water molecules, so it can be applied to the area of vehicle emission, because it absorbs CO2 rather than other gases. Have you done any related research before? Yes. I did my masters degree on metal organics, which is related to what I’m involved in at the moment. My current area is different from what I did before because it’s still in the early stages and is not very well developed; this is a supermolecular porous material. Coming from a Chinese background, have you found any differences in the way research is conducted at Monash? Very different. Working at the lab here is a very independent process. There’s teamwork as well, but most of the time you have to be self-independent. Is there enough support and resources for you at Monash? There are a lot of resources and support at Monash. For certain research, you need a lot of techniques to characterise your compound. It’s not necessarily like, in one group, you have all the instruments you need. You need to communicate with other groups and find what you want. A general stereotype of PhD students is that they can’t "switch off" their brain. What do you say in response to that? I think it is true that some of us are like that. But still we can have a lot of activities in our leisure time. I play the piano sometimes to just release myself. It’s very important to communicate with the outside world instead of only focusing on your work. You can get some research ideas from others. Does conducting research make you feel disconnected from the outside world? Yes, sometimes we don’t even have time to read news or attend activities that are outside the chemistry world. But when you do something that nobody has done before, the sense of accomplishment brought by experiments outweighs the solitude. Have you faced any gender-related stereotypes or discriminations as a woman in science? I’m just really focused on what I’m doing. We all have a good attitude at work so it separates our personal emotions. There is about an equal divide between the number of men and women in the School of Chemistry. So there is a gender diversity and we are all equal. What’s the most rewarding part of your research experience? Doing research in chemistry has helped me develop my selfindependence, working abilities and creativity. I face a lot of difficulties during my research, because no one has done this before and no one knows what will happen next. Finding the right solution for the problem really helps me with my logical thinking and communication skills. Do you plan to research in the same area when you finish with your current project? I plan to change to a new field, because to be a scientist, the research you are involved in is very important. I already have the experience in organic chemistry and a variety of research background can be useful. My dream is to do research that can really make a difference in its application.
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