WOMEN IN THE INDUSTRY
Professor Julie Cairney Source: Sally Wood
Professor Julie Cairney undertaking her leading research. Credit: Professor Julie Cairney, supplied.
Professor Julie Cairney is a global leader in materials science, with extensive international experience and industry knowledge. This means she is well positioned to lead the charge in materials characterisation at the University of Sydney’s School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering. Professor Cairney’s role is primarily focused on studying materials by using sophisticated microscopy techniques to study their matter down to the atomic scale. By analysing their microstructure, experts like Professor Cairney are able to relate it to their properties, and engineer other advanced materials with unique properties. Through this approach, Professor Cairney contributes her expertise to the development of stronger and lighter materials that are sustainable and cost 26 | SEPTEMBER 2020
effective. These materials have practical utilisation objectives in the aerospace, manufacturing and construction sectors. The professor’s humble beginnings in rural New South Wales paved the way for what she does today. Growing up in Broken Hill, in the heart of the Australian outback and a 15 hour drive from Sydney, Professor Cairney recalls meeting may engineers and geologists in her childhood. As a bright maths and science student, she knew early on that she wanted to study something in that area. She received a scholarship from Pasminco Limited – a former mining company in the area – to study a mining-related subject at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). “That was really when I first came across the materials engineering course.” “I remember seeing subjects like crystallography and x-ray diffraction on BACK TO CONTENTS
the curriculum, and thinking, ‘ooh that sounds cool’. I’m not sure I was particularly strategic or thoughtful about my choice of degree – I just went with what looked interesting,” Professor Cairney said. Professor Cairney’s experience at UNSW was where she first studied materials science and engineering, and in 2002, she was awarded a PhD in Physical Metallurgy. After completing her PhD, she was granted a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellowship, which saw her move abroad to work as a researcher at the University of Birmingham, in the United Kingdom. Later, she spent some time at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, Germany, and still collaborates today with researchers that she met during that period. In 2007, Professor Cairney started an academic role at the University of Sydney, where she now heads up a group that undertake research in the field of atomic WWW.MATERIALSAUSTRALIA.COM.AU
