Title：Pushing your boundaries: the storyof a life-long friendship and where an open mind to collaboration & engagement can take you.

Reporter：Marie-Lise Schläppy  Research Fellow,University of Western Australia

Time：14 January 2024 (Sunday) 10:00~11:00

Tencent Meeting ID：131-983-537

Abstract：

In this presentation Dr. Marie-Lise Schläppy (Swiss national) and Dr. Fang Yao (Chinese national) will join forces to relate how engaging with people with different backgrounds might be your key to meaningful work and a rewarding career.

Dr Schläppy and Yao met during an international Masters of marine science (taught in English) in Germany. This cross-cultural experience shaped their future.

For Dr Schläppy a PhD in marine science led her to collaborate with a subsea engineer. Together, they invented a new method to account for the animals that grow on subsea infrastructure. In generally accepted international standards, those animals are considered to be an impermeable layer, of even thickness, on top of the infrastructure. When trying to make subsea cables stable on the seafloor, this standard often fails. In this presentation, Dr Schläppy will take you on the journey of how she solved this problem with her colleague Dr Griffith.

For Dr. Yao, her experience abroad made her profile competitive upon returning home. Yao secured jobs at the ministry of agriculture and Syngenta, using her technical skills but also her cultural skills, to deliver value to her employer.

Although they started their journey together, Dr Schläppy and Fang's professional path diverged. However, their ability to embrace connections with people from other backgrounds led to meaningful and rewarding careers.

Resume:

Dr Schläppy is a marine ecologist with 23 years of experience. The focus of her research is on the biodiversity of marine sessile invertebrate assemblages in natural environments and on anthropogenic structures (offshore wind, wave and tide, oil and gas infrastructure). Dr Schläppy has extensive experience in assessing the abundance and distribution of marine invertebrates using visual techniques such as SUBA diving and ROV footage and the identifications of marine organisms in the laboratory. Currently, Marie-Lise is investigating the biodiversity of non-mobile invertebrates on oil and gas infrastructure in need of decommissioning.

In the past, Dr Schläppy has studied the life-history characteristics of small gobies, the value of detritus as a food item to territorial damselfish and sponges and their associated microbes. She has also worked in the pearl aquaculture industry in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, managed projects in quantum photonics and led a multi-million dollar programme in cooperation and development on biotechnology and social sciences between India and Switzerland.

Marie-Lise is also interested in marine citizen science. She and has worked for citizen science NGOs in the Philippines and Australia and has been on the science advisory board of Reef Check Australia for several years.