Highlights
- Dr Mahdokht Shaibani is a recipient of Fellowship Award as part of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award
- Dr Shaibani, who arrived in the country on a student visa eight years ago, says Australia 'lags behind Iran' in opportunities for women in STEM
- She is also urging the Australian government to produce batteries on home soil
Dr Shaibani, a researcher at Monash University, is working on a new generation of eco-friendly batteries she says could lead to electric vehicles capable of travelling from Melbourne to Sydney on a single charge.
“The battery accounts for about 50 per cent of the price of an electric vehicle,” she says, adding, "Cheaper and more efficient batteries can only increase the willingness of people to adopt such vehicles."
Not only is the Iranian-born scientist lobbying for Australia to establish an independent battery supply chain, but she hopes that by sharing her journey she might inspire younger women to consider science as their future.
“In Iran, when it came to choosing my field of study, which would determine my future job, there were many female engineers around me, so I had no problem just imagining myself as one of them," she tells SBS Persian.
But here in Australia, the number of women in such roles is so low that it is difficult for girls in secondary school to imagine themselves as an engineer in the future.
"They often think that engineering is mainly related to construction jobs, but there are so many different fields of engineering.”
'Not enough role models'
Dr Mahdokht Shaibani conducting research on batteries in Australia Source: Supplied by Dr. Mahdokht Shaibani
Dr Shaibani, who arrived in the country on a student visa eight years ago, says people in Australia might be surprised to learn that Iran offers strong pathways for female participation in STEM.
“When I took my Bachelor of Metallurgy at the University of Shiraz, our classes were always more than 50 per cent female, and I felt like this was a typical thing in Iran.”
“When I arrived in Australia, it was very strange to me that, at the PhD level, there were only a small number of female students.
"After eight years, this small number of female students is mostly international students.”
She says Australia "lags behind Iran" in encouraging women to join the STEM workforce.
“In Australia and many Western countries, unlike Iran, women have a low participation in STEM. Only about 12 per cent of Australian engineers are female. But in Iran the rate is about 50 per cent, around the same level as very advanced countries, like Finland and Denmark,” Dr Shaibani says.
“In Australia, the proportion of women working across STEM-qualified industries is currently around 28 per cent which is as good as the worst-performing European countries.
Where we are today is below Europe's average 20 years ago.
"In highly innovative countries such as Norway and Denmark, more than 50 percent of all scientists and engineers last year were women,” she adds.
'Need for change'
Dr Mahdokht Shaibani attending university in Iran Source: Supplied by Dr. Mahdokht Shaibani
Dr Shaibani is one of five Fellowship Award recipients as part of the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award for Australia and New Zealand.
The international awards celebrate women’s contributions to scientific research in a field still largely dominated by men.
Dr Shaibani praises the award for "giving female scientists and engineers a voice" and says she is using the extra exposure to increase awareness about the importance of battery production in Australia.
Australia is the only country in the world that has open and easy access to all ten minerals needed for production of lithium-ion batteries, but unfortunately we do not make any batteries in Australia.
"In fact, we dig out the minerals from the mines and export them to other countries, especially China, and then buy batteries from them,” she tells SBS Persian.
“So, it is really important for the Australian government and society to make batteries on Australian soil, and this is why our research has attracted attention.”
Dr Mahdokht Shaibani says in Iran she had many female engineers to act as role models Source: Supplied
“Australia is using only half its capacity. If you want to increase the number of your engineers, you should work on 100 per cent of the society,” she adds.
