“I’ve needed to get snug with feeling like a sq. peg in a spherical gap”, says Sue Keay, director of the College of New South Wales (UNSW) AI Institute and chair of the Board of Administrators at Robotics Australia Group.
She is referring to her expertise as a lady in science, know-how, engineering and arithmetic (STEM), carving out a profession within the cutting-edge business of robotics, which has additionally intersected along with her private and ancestral connection to mining. Whereas she began her working life mowing lawns, her diploma in geology introduced her into the sphere of earth sciences, first in analysis science and later in analysis administration and commercialisation throughout a variety of focus areas.
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Now thrice-acclaimed by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers for her contributions to robotics – and final week introduced with the Malcolm Chaikin Oration medal – Sue has confronted challenges from the earliest stage of her journey.
“I used to be wanting forward, and there have been so few girls. I actually don’t really feel that I had any function fashions, which was off-putting, as a result of should you can’t see somebody forward of you that has been profitable, it makes you doubt whether or not you might be in the precise place.”
Shaping Australia’s robotics sector: Keay’s profession
Keay bought her geology diploma on the College of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia, earlier than transferring onto her PhD in isotope geochemistry on the Australian Nationwide College, which she accomplished in 1998. Her PhD provided her expertise working in a uranium mine, however she discovered her calling in analysis commercialisation, working alongside materials and social scientists, in addition to engineers within the water recycling house.
She later introduced her expertise in earth sciences and experience in robotics and pc imaginative and prescient to the earliest plans for Australia’s robotics sector, engaged on Australia’s first robotics highway map because the chief working officer (COO) for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Imaginative and prescient. The plan was accomplished in 2018, and Keay factors to this as a key milestone in each her profession and the business: “It was transformative in that it was the primary try to essentially catalogue Australia’s functionality in robotics.”
She explains that Australia’s challenges have been in actual fact a novel benefit: as a rustic with a low inhabitants density, areas of adverse terrain and a variable local weather, “Australia has needed to get fairly good at creating applied sciences that overcome these obstacles and supply distant companies”, she says.
These situations have given Australia’s robotics sector a aggressive edge. Creating applied sciences that may be operated lots of of kilometres away from the mine website, or handle temperature extremes, water shortages and a scarcity of GPS satellites, is a problem that has pushed innovation and creativity. “We now have to be self-sufficient, which is why Australia additionally has a concentrate on making use of a few of these applied sciences in house. A number of the problems are analogous to those who you’ll expertise when working on the moon or on one other planet.”
Her work doesn’t all the time require her to assume so far-off from dwelling, nonetheless. Among the many many boards Keay has sat on is the board of the Cooperative Analysis Centre for optimising useful resource extraction, the primary level at which her robotics analysis converged with the mining sector.
Following this, she grew to become the robotics know-how lead for Oz Minerals, a copper mining firm primarily based in Australia.
“Throughout my time with Oz minerals, my most important process was to develop a robotics and automation highway map for the corporate, which I discovered fascinating. Oz Minerals was actually dedicated to accelerating the adoption of robotics and automation throughout the enterprise. It was a really modern firm the place the CEO actually walked the discuss.”
Oz Minerals was acquired by BHP and, in Could 2023, Keay moved over, earlier than finally taking up a consulting function as a accomplice and director of the Future Work Group to analysis the future of labor and the way AI and robotics might be utilized throughout a variety of companies.
Now, Keay serves because the director of the UNSW AI Institute. “It truly is my ultimate job”, she says. “I get to be nosy and ask a number of questions on how AI and robotics are being utilized throughout all totally different sectors.
“However in fact, I’ve a comfortable spot for our mineral assets.”
Why we’d like girls in robotics and STEM
Keay has been a board member of Ladies in Robotics since July 2019, encouraging girls in STEM and constructing a group to assist girls feeling remoted in male-dominated fields. It issues, she says, as a result of the business wants girls.
She estimates that “in robotics, lower than 10% of the people who find themselves creating new applied sciences are girls”. Certainly, Engineers Australia reported in 2023 that ladies made up solely 14% of the engineering workforce, noting that, whereas that determine is rising, it could take 70.8 years for girls to be equally distributed within the engineering occupation in comparison with their male counterparts.
“We now have seen from historical past that technological developments undergo when there may be not a range in views, when one gender just isn’t thought-about within the improvement of the know-how,” Keay explains.
She factors to the instance of NASA’s first all-female spacewalk in March 2019, which was cancelled as a result of the Worldwide Area Station didn’t have sufficient spacesuits in sizes applicable for girls. Crash take a look at dummies in vehicles, too, have been initially primarily based solely on males and prompted disproportionate hurt to girls earlier than modifications have been made, she says.
“The issue with girls not being within the room when these applied sciences are being developed is that they don’t seem to be thought-about because the customers of the know-how”, explains Keay. “Given the growing significance of robotics and AI in our day by day lives, it’s crucial that ladies are knocking on the door, insisting that they’ve a seat on the desk, as a result of these applied sciences will affect our lives in sudden methods. If they’re solely developed by one gender, they’ll have vital blind spots.”
In 2024, the Australian Authorities launched figures that confirmed girls represented 15% of all STEM employees and 37% of college STEM enrolments. It additionally discovered that, in 2023, girls in STEM sectors earned a mean of 16% lower than males.
Equally, knowledge from the Office Gender Equality Company exhibits that ladies comprise round 22% of mining workers in Australia, with a gender pay hole at 92% of mining employers.
Keay believes the gender imbalance in robotics – and STEM extra broadly – is rooted within the age-old stereotypes that outline ‘applicable’ roles for women and men. Cultural obstacles and hard-to-challenge social norms have created an exclusionary tradition inside these historically male-dominated industries.
“I discover it very irritating that there’s usually a concentrate on encouraging girls to hitch these industries when it ought to be extra about making the atmosphere welcoming. It’s like encouraging somebody to leap into a fireplace; they most likely wish to let the embers burn out first”, she says.
Encouraging girls in STEM and mining
Keay displays that she has usually been the one girl within the room, however stresses that ladies can’t look ahead to change: “Issues gained’t change if girls don’t hold knocking on the door,” she says.
Research have tracked the decline in confidence of ladies in STEM topics in Australia as they progress by means of faculty, with ladies constituting solely 1 / 4 of STEM enrolments by yr 12 (sometimes between the ages of 16 and 17).
Keay presents the next recommendation to younger girls getting into robotics or STEM extra broadly: “Don’t let the setbacks push you out of the sphere. Some days will probably be more durable than others. Persons are going to say dumb stuff or, in some instances, do dumb issues, however you possibly can’t combat each battle.
“You most likely gained’t obtain the popularity that you simply deserve, and that’s incorrect. Nonetheless, it is necessary for womankind to persist and demand on having a seat on the desk, in order that we are able to have some affect on the best way plenty of these applied sciences are being developed.”
She provides, nonetheless, that; “In case you discover the atmosphere too powerful and resolve to show elsewhere, then don’t beat your self up about it.
“You don’t need to be a warrior for the remainder of girls – however I might encourage you to try to stick at making contributions, as a result of we’ll by no means get to the purpose the place now we have parity until we’re actively protesting our proper to be a part of the dialog.”
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