STEMcognito Interview

STEMcognito is a not-for-profit organisation hosting verified videos by STEM experts. We fight misinformation, educate about STEM, support researchers and promote their work.

Watch the interview here: https://stemcognito.org/science/interview-sally-hurst-stemterview/

In this interview, Sally Hurst (Bachelor’s of Arts (major in Ancient Egyptian Archaeology) and Science (Palaeobiology)) who graduated in 2020 from Macquarie University (MQ), Sydney, Australia, talks about her enthusiasm for dinosaurs, which began whenever her mother left toy dinosaurs to play with before leaving for cattle sales.

When Sally grew up, she volunteered at the Australian Museum in Sydney, where she got the opportunity to work with the National Indigenous Science Education Program (NISEP), an organisation focusing on bringing science to children from the Aboriginal community who study in schools with little science facilities. 

It is from here that Sally Hurst realised that she loved engaging with people, and wanted to pursue a career in it. And this experience also led her towards science communication.

This year, she started Master of Research (also at MQ), where she will be studying the perspectives of the Australian community on discoveries of fossil and archaeological material.

In this interview, Sally Hurst expresses her belief that the field of paleontology/archaeology is important to study as it helps in understanding our past. The events that occurred in our history serve as a clue to indicate what can happen next. Finding such clues in our current environments can give us a lot more information on what might come next, and how we deal with these problems in the future.