NASA doesn’t seem like the most obvious place to find a maritime engineer but, for Australian Maritime College (AMC) student Lucy Barr, it made perfect sense.
The 20-year-old palawa woman said her Indigenous heritage strongly influenced her global, interdependent perspective on the natural world.
“It’s less about my interest in space, more about my interest in climate studies,” she said.
“I’m interested in climate change, what’s causing it, and monitoring and tracking it to learn how to slow it down or reverse it.”
Currently in the second year of her Bachelor of Maritime Engineering, Lucy has been awarded a prestigious National Indigenous Space Academy (NISA) scholarship, and will spend 10 weeks as an intern at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in the US in September and October.
The NISA program, led by Monash University, enables five Australian university STEM students, who identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, to undertake a summer internship program at JPL in California each year.
The program aims to support and encourage Indigenous students in STEM, and to help bring Indigenous knowledge and perspectives to these fields.
During Lucy’s internship, she will be working on a climate change research project.
“Some of the research projects there were more technical but I picked the one that was climate-related because that’s what I’m most passionate about.
“I’ll be working on a project looking at atmospheric dust sources, analysing the spectral data of those, and studying the heat-absorption properties of the dust, using data from the International Space Station. What absorbs heat, what reflects it back to space, all that.”
Lucy’s family are palawa, from Tasmania’s North West Nation. She and her parents currently live in Perth, WA, but they have always visited Tasmania regularly. So she was thrilled with the opportunity to return to Tasmania for university.
A high achiever in maths and science throughout high school, Lucy found herself drifting towards an engineering degree of some sort.
But the realisation that she could do that at a maritime-focused institution clinched the deal.
“My family is always on the water, I grew up sailing and kayaking, all that, so I needed something to be on the water occasionally.
“I came to the AMC specifically to study Maritime Engineering, just because it was maritime-themed. Then I discovered the Marine Offshore Engineering major and realised it was something I was really interested in.”
Lucy’s ultimate career goal is to work in the energy sector, and she is studying all forms of power-generation – from fossil fuel to renewable – to inform her perspective.
“We rely on electricity every day to get around, to communicate, it’s part of everything in our lives, there’s not much we can do without power now.
“Over summer I went out on the water with Woodside to work offshore for 10 days, which was really good. And now I’m working in climate science, so I’m really getting both ends of the spectrum.”
Lucy believes the Indigenous cultural perspective has much to contribute to her chosen field.
“I think I have a different approach to environmental science in that way,” she said.
“I view the environment and climate as being less linear than most people, and see it as more cyclic. We come and go through the world.
“I don’t think we’re on a single trajectory one way. I think it will always come back, it’s just a matter of how quickly we can make a change and help it come back.”
As well as her research internship at NASA/JPL, Lucy is also excited about the opportunity to spend some time out in nature in the US.
“I really want to look at some of the national parks over there and explore some of their hikes and the landscape, and compare it to my experience in Australia.”
Lucy’s story is proof that a Maritime Engineering degree can take you to some surprising and exciting places. Take a look at what else is on offer at the Australian Maritime College.