Old Girls' Club

Dr Bao Nguyen is a researcher in human visual neuroscience, an optometrist and a lecturer in optometry and vision sciences at The University of Melbourne.

Dr Bao Nguyen commenced her secondary schooling at Mentone Girls’ Grammar on an academic scholarship in 1997. She graduated as Dux of the School—achieving the top 0.15 percent in the state, won Year 12 Prizes for English, Mathematics and Languages, the Monash Prize for Dux of Year 11 and the Year 10 and 11 Prizes in French and Japanese.

“What I experienced firsthand at Mentone Girls’ Grammar was the celebration of women and their achievements in every space. Empowered women grow to empower others.”

Her journey to success consisted of many detours. It took three attempts to finally settle into a clinical, entry-to-practice degree at The University of Melbourne.

“Mentone Girls’ Grammar encouraged young ‘renaissance’ women to be well-rounded and play to their strengths. I chose to focus on subjects that I loved and therefore excelled at, which in hindsight, was critical for my success and my sanity.”

While pursuing optometry as her degree, she also completed a Graduate Diploma of Modern Languages. In both fields, she graduated top of her class. Bao was inspired by the sole female academic at that time in the Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences to undertake a Doctorate of Philosophy.

Bao’s PhD research uncovered vision anomalies in people who suffer from episodic migraines and why the brain might be susceptible to migraine attacks. Her research has moved from understanding how healthy ageing and childhood development affect vision and the brain, to deciphering the commonalities between healthy ageing and pathological ageing in people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), to developing and running clinical trials for new vision testing devices.

Bao has published 16 scientific papers in top ranking peer-reviewed journals in the fields of Ophthalmology, Neuroscience, Psychopharmacology, Clinical Neurology and Multidisciplinary Sciences. In 2017, she was the first optometrist to win a BioMedVic Early Career Clinician Researcher Award in Allied Health. The award provided $130,000 in competitive grant funding, including a Melbourne Neuroscience Institute Fellowship to conduct world-first imaging of the optic nerve using the most advanced magnetic resonance imaging techniques available in only two locations in Australia.

She has returned to Mentone Girls’ Grammar to speak about career choices and provide mentorship to students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines to budding scientists.

“Educating girls is the key to tackling the world’s pressing problems. I came from a refugee background with a narrow focus on survival, to realising my potential to make a greater contribution to society thanks to my education at Mentone Girls’ Grammar. I am proud to be a ‘career’ woman, a mother, and an educator and I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to tell my story and inspire others.”

Kate did not grow up thinking she would become an engineer. While at Mentone Girls’ Grammar, female engineers were few and far between. So when Kate scored highly for mechanical aptitude on a careers survey, it left her with more questions than answers.

As a lover of the outdoors, Kate spent much of her time growing up skiing, bush walking and riding her motorbike. After graduating from Mentone Girls’ Grammar, Kate studied Outdoor Education at Bendigo College and lived out her twenties working the winters in the Australian and Austrian Alps, teaching alpine skiing.

It was during a ski instructing course in Scotland that Kate first met a female engineer. Kate had read feminist books which encouraged her to freeze her nomadic lifestyle and venture back to University to study Electrical Engineering at Swinburne.

“The books challenged me to think beyond the self-limitations that my upbringing had created. I needed to understand that other women had struggled in this frustrating place too.”

Initially Kate found it difficult to relearn mathematics that she had naturally picked up at school but in her third year of study, Kate won an SECV scholarship which led her to focus on power systems and control engineering.

Upon winning the scholarship award, Kate had the privilege of working at the SECV where she received further training prior to the electricity industry in Victoria being broken up and privatised. Kate has since spent time in system performance and control engineering, transmission planning, system operations and market development at both the Victorian Power Exchange and then National Electricity Market Management Company (NEMMCO).

Kate is a fellow at the Institute of Engineers and combines her knowledge of the National Electricity Rules with significant practical field work in the application of the Rules for performance and compliance. Most recently she completed significant control and protection upgrades for the remote East Kimberley Power System.

Kate contributed significantly to the national debate on the technical standards and integration of renewable energy both into the market and physically into the NEM grid. She led the development of detailed technical submissions to government inquiries and to the Finkel Review about frequency control issues in the NEM.

Kate combines a broad practical control knowledge of the power system and the integration of asynchronous wind and solar power plants with synchronous generation. Her recent work focused on elevating the role of power system control practises and highlighting where market rules had detracted from good control practice.

“To me, engineering must now find ways to work with the earth and not against it, and women must contribute significantly to bringing the civilising influence to humankind’s endeavours. The passion I have for helping to build a more sustainable power system energises me to overcome barriers that I might face as a woman. Working in the renewable energy industry enhances my own sense of wellbeing. I could not imagine our mountains without snow, or the globe without its polar ice caps.”

Reflecting on the 29 years since she graduated Mentone Girls’ Grammar, Dr Manjusha Thorpe’s ethos—learning to seek out and accept as many opportunities as possible no matter how terrifying—became ingrained from her years at school.

“As I relished in the academic offerings of Mentone Girls’ Grammar, I took up as many co-curricular opportunities as I could. A very exciting moment was being part of Grammar’s Year 12 winning relay team at the School Athletics. We broke the school record by four seconds.”

Manjusha developed a passion for Mathematics, Science and Japanese before pursuing a degree in Chemical Engineering and Japanese at Monash University. She was awarded a position in the graduate program of ICI Australia (now Orica) and Manjusha’s journey of taking leadership roles in the development and adoption of new engineering technologies was in full swing. She recruited and managed teams in the construction, commissioning new process technologies at chemical plants in Borneo, Indonesia and Australia.

Manjusha flourished in her leadership roles, managing the Singapore office of a global consulting company that benchmarks performance of international multi-million dollar capital projects across a range of industries. Manjusha later returned to university to complete her PhD at the University of Cambridge.

One key focus area of Manjusha’s PhD was identifying strategies for successfully scaling up industrial biotechnology processes. These processes focused on achieving greater levels of environmental sustainability. The processes utilised renewable raw materials, renewable energy sources and had lower levels of energy consumption.

“The agriculture industry needs to grow in an ethical manner in order to provide the food needed by an increasing population. I am focusing on being able to re-use waste materials from farms and at the same time, increase the use of renewable energy sources in the agriculture industry”.

She was employed by the University of Cambridge as a guest lecturer in the Engineering department and as a Research Associate, establishing a new strand of research on the enablers of scale up.

Mentone Girls’ Grammar instilled in Manjusha the value of education, community and friendship. She considers education as an enabler of life-changing opportunities and has spent a year teaching English in remote Japan. Manjusha volunteers at a primary school in Perth as part of CSIRO’s STEM Professionals in Schools program. This is a national program that facilitates partnerships between schools and industry to bring real STEM into the classroom. Manjusha has been the Newsletter Editor for the Cleft Palate and Lip Society of Western Australia and is now the Treasurer for the Cleft Palate and Lip Society of Western Australia.

“I made many strong, supportive and lasting friendships at MGGS and I would especially like to thank Dr Michelle Lee. Michelle and I became best friends in Year 7 and Michelle’s inspiration allowed me to become an inductee in the Hall of Fame. I am appreciative of the countless opportunities I had at MGGS and above all, I am grateful to my parents who selected this school for me and who worked hard so that I could pursue these opportunities.”

Mary Bawden (nee Bowes) loved school so much that she pursued teaching in early childhood education after graduating from Mentone Girls’ Grammar.

Mary represented her beloved house, St Margaret’s as House Captain in her final year where they claimed victory. She was also awarded the Ethel M Thompson Memorial Prize for Citizenship in Year 12.

“There was a personal quality to the school. The teachers knew us inside-out and encouraged and facilitated us to reach our goals. In fact, when I completed Year 12, I begged my father to allow me to return to do another year as I had had such a wonderful time but was unsuccessful.”

Mary was accepted into Melbourne Kindergarten Teachers’ College and was elected as Student Representative Council as well as Music Club President and choir member.

“I think one of the reasons I wanted to be a teacher is that I have a great love for education. I equally loved my years at teacher’s college and as a teacher.”

Mary embraced her leadership qualities that flourished at school into her professional development by representing the Peninsula and Chelsea Kindergarten Teachers’ Association (PACKTA) as a committee member and president.

Mary’s health dramatically declined in the early 2000s, eventually leading her to have a liver transplant. This was an emotional and challenging time for Mary, becoming bedridden for 12 months and spending more nights in hospital than in her own bed. Mary showed her true strength and resilience by attending her daughter’s wedding just 21 days after her transplant.

“Being at my daughter’s wedding was an achievement I am most proud of as I was unsure if I would be well enough to do it.”

She felt she had been given a second chance at life. Her focus changed to promoting organ and tissue donations through Donatelife and Transplant Australia.

Mary has competed at the Transplant Games in swimming, shotput, archery, kayaking, ten pin bowling and more, placing and winning on many occasions. During the 2014 Melbourne Games, she received the Clifford T Henderson award for ‘Best demonstrating the spirit of the Games’. Following the 2018 Gold Coast games, she was awarded ‘Most supportive female competitor’ in the Victorian team.

“The camaraderie and support from one another is a huge part of the Games as it showcases to the community the success of transplantation.”

Mary’s love for life is demonstrated through all the wonderful achievements and service she has done since her transplant.

“I am committed to honouring my donor and family by living my life to the fullest and making the most of every opportunity to promote organ donation. I have just celebrated 15 years of extra life. That is 15 more years with my family and friends, welcoming new babies and witnessing them growing up. I am an ordinary person living an extraordinarily wonderful life.”

Pratiti (Mimi) Bandopadhayay dedicates almost every waking hour to the pursuit of finding a cure for incurable pediatric brain tumours.

Pratiti was born and raised in Australia, graduating from Mentone Girls’ Grammar in 1994. From a family of doctors, Pratiti wanted to excel in the STEM fields. Pratiti undertook three science subjects in VCE, leading her to study Medicine at Monash University, followed by a PhD at The University of Melbourne. Pratiti did specialty training in pediatrics and hematology/oncology at the Royal Children’s Hospital and Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, and the Australasian College of Physicians, followed by further training in pediatric neuro-oncology under the mentorship of Dr David Ashley.

Pratiti joined the team at the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center in 2011 completing subspecialty training in pediatric neuro-oncology under the guidance of Dr Mark Kieran. She then took post-doctoral training at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute under the mentorship of Dr Rameen Beroukhim.

As a world leader in her field, her team has been behind ground breaking discoveries. Pratiti runs her own lab at Harvard University called Bandopadhayay Lab (named after her) which consists of a small research team that focuses on finding treatments for children suffering with brain tumours. In addition to her efforts in the Lab, Pratiti is a member of the clinical pediatric neuro-oncology team in the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, contributing to the care of children with brain tumours. These children are a constant motivation for Pratiti to undertake translational research that is dedicated to improving the outcomes of children diagnosed with pediatric brain tumours.

“Horrible circumstances can sometimes bring out the best in people. The families I work with go far beyond their own child’s life-threatening situation and continue to support other children and families who are in similar circumstances. The families are my inspiration to keep going even though my job is filled with traumatising instances.”

Pratiti continues to treat patients at the Dana-Farber in Boston, largely considered the world’s best facility for treating pediatric brain tumours. She also serves as an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School and is an associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

“Many brain tumours do not have cures. We now have the tools and resources to find treatments and cures. Most effective treatment is surgery and then radiation, yet radiation can hinder children from ever learning again – which is not a cure at all.”

“What I need in my job is hope. My patients give me that hope every day to make what seems impossible, possible.