John Daly: Appliance of science is no longer a male-led domain
Dr Michele Conroy: 'Perception in our society is changing with excellent outreach programs and female-led science kids' books.'
As the sole Irish recipient of a University Research Fellowship from the Royal Society in 2020, Dr Michele Conroy joins 37 other research fellowship candidates from across the UK. Established to identify outstanding early-career scientists who have the potential to become leaders in their chosen fields, the scheme provides them with the opportunity to build an independent research career.
Dr Conroy will receive a maximum of €649,915 over 60 months for her project, the proposal title for which is .
She explains the project is “based on producing future quantum devices where the electronic circuitry can be drawn and moved similar to the etch-a-sketch kids toy".
"Our current electronic devices are made up of fixed components of hardware. Each component has to be produced by separate processes within extremely expensive and large semiconductor fabs," she says.
Dr Conroy's plan is to draw the devices into ferroelectric crystals, forming regions of conduction and insulation by changing the strain of the material.
“In ferroelectric materials just shifting slightly the location of atoms results in the properties of that region completely changing" she explains. "If we can control that shift, the end-user can design exotic new nano-devices.”
Her Royal Society project is in collaboration with Berkeley National Laboratory and Imperial College London. The Royal Society grant will also fund the outreach programme ‘under the microscope’ run by the Microscopy Society of Ireland inspiring the next generation of scientists. Dr Conroy’s current research is focused on magnetic devices and utilising in-situ microscopy to investigate their dynamics. She also works on a US-Ireland SFI project investigating conducting domain walls for nano-electronic devices.
“I’m excited and thankful for the award as it allows me to take the first big step to start my own research group,” she says. “The project is in collaboration with Berkeley National Lab California and Imperial College London.”
Since the Royal Society’s foundation in 1660 only 13 Irish individuals have been granted fellowship — a fact that eloquently underlines Dr Conroy’s achievement, and underlines the burgeoning academic talent produced from our third-level institutions.
“For a very long time little girls did not have many STEM role models in their textbooks that looked like them — indeed when I was a kid STEM was seen as a male-dominated area.
"Effectively we were not exploiting half of our population’s scientific talents. However, I can see this perception in our society is changing with excellent outreach programmes and female-led science kids' books.”
The greater degree of gender balance and opportunity in 2020 will reap the rewards of a new generation inspired to make the world a better place. “Just last weekend my little niece made me watch her new favourite show , all about experiments you can do at home — and the scientist was a woman.”
Dr Conroy completed her PhD at Tyndall National Institute and University College Cork, with research focused on thin-film growth and strain engineering of materials for LED devices. Before joining UL, she was a staff scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington state.
Born in Toronto, she returned to Cork with her family at age 12, and recalls her love of microscopy having been initially inspired during a childhood trip to the local science centre. “It’s amazing how much our technology has changed since 1995 back when I was a kid at that science centre. In many way I’m doing exactly what I always wanted by using microscopes every day to explore the world around us.”
In a career that has so far taken her to placements in diverse locations — Washington State, Saudi Arabia, and California — travel is part and parcel of her career journey.
“For my research it was essential to travel to different research institutes because we didn’t have the equipment or experts in Ireland for certain parts of my work. Luckily that’s starting to change and we’re really building up a great group of electron microscopy centres in Ireland.
"I would encourage a junior scientist to travel if they can, research is a passport to the world and opens doors to places that you rarely would not get access to. You also build up a network of lifelong collaborators and friends that you can keep working with for the rest of your career.”
Ireland’s rank in the advancement of the sciences compares favourably to other nations, with further horizons yet to be conquered, she believes: “Ireland is really punching above its weight in many fields especially when you consider our population size and science funding per capita. However, we need to keep that junior talent here and address the issues of pay freezes for PhD students and low salaries for postdoctoral staff who are often in their 30s with worries like applying for mortgages and childcare.
"Saying that, I’m really hopeful with the new independent Department of Higher Education, Innovation and Science a refocus on this vital sector of our workforce will be addressed.”
Given her field of endeavour, the promotion of STEM subjects is close to Dr Conroy’s heart: “There are some great outreach programmes promoting STEM to primary and secondary school students within the Irish education system.
"However, it’s much easier to keep the interest level up for students in STEM subjects when the school has a lab space to do experiments. I was very lucky with my own school, Mount Mercy College on Model Farm Road, and their newly installed labs, but I know many schools in the area either didn’t have lab space or were very minimal.
"I hope in the future the Government will put funding aside to ensure older schools get that same investment in labs and workshops for STEM subjects.”
At a time when the ravages of Covid-19 and the ill-effects of climate change are becoming ever more pronounced around the globe, science remains humanity’s greatest weapon capable of turning the tide.
“Science is our only way of battling these global issues. Right now we’re all waiting for our teams of scientists around the world trying to develop a vaccine for Covid-19. We agree as a society that our only way of getting back to ‘normal’ is investing in the science needed for the vaccine.”
