When graduates leave UNSW, they set about applying their knowledge and skills in a range of environments that both test and expand their capabilities. Following are the profiles of four of the Faculty’s younger graduates who have already made an impact in their careers and look set for very bright futures.

LEITH SHARP (BE (Environmental) ’96)

For Leith Sharp, the new Environmental Engineering program developed by the late Dave Wilkinson and his colleagues in the then School of Civil Engineering, was everything she was looking for. "It was incredibly diverse," said Leith. "It had all the basic sciences plus structural and computer engineering and through general studies, everything from law to indigenous studies and biology."

Leith and her pioneering group found the course and its heavy workload hard going, however. "I think we only got through because we stuck together and helped each other out a lot. Aside from our technical education, we were also being trained to build bridges between scientists, engineers and the general community. That included developing the confidence and necessary communication skills to grapple with the multidisciplinary complexities that tend to come along as part of the package of environmental sustainability.

"This field involves such a diversity of disciplines, with everything from community relations, regulatory compliance and engineering design. The program was working to allow engineers to interface more effectively with other disciplines and to integrate more successfully with the community and community values.

"Dave was also committed to bringing women into the profession. He felt it that the approaches women tend to bring to decision making would really aid engineering as a whole, expanding its social value. He understood that women were much more attracted to a profession with the potential to have their values expressed through it.

"Being the first environmental engineers, there wasn’t really anyone who could tell us what to expect. On one hand I found that really exciting, but it also created quite a bit of anxiety about our chances of getting jobs."

Leith needn’t have worried however, as she, like many of her cohort, was recruited before she graduated. "In Year 3, I was elected as the Student Guild Environmental Officer, which took an enormous amount of time and led to me deferring my thesis. The following year (1995), the University had created a position to implement their new environmental policy, and as I’d worked with the Grounds Department on the permaculture gardens and with Facilities on car pooling as part of my Student Guild position, I was encouraged to apply even though a requirement of the position was some 10 years experience."

Leith went on to manage UNSW’s campus environmental program for nearly five years before being awarded a Churchill Fellowship to examine best-practice in Europe and the USA and to present on the UNSW experience. "The trip was an eye-opener for me because I’d assumed that we’d be behind overseas practice and I was going to learn. I was amazed to realise that the UNSW program was world class and that most universities wanted to learn from us."

In 1999, following a presentation at Harvard University, Leith was offered a position to establish a program there. Since then, Leith has worked with the nine Harvard Schools to establish a range of initiatives covering sustainable building design and renovations, waste, energy and water reduction, greenhouse gas emission reduction and environmental procurement.

"A campus is the ideal living laboratory for teaching and researching around sustainability, because universities in themselves are very much like small towns. They have business facilities, food and grounds, wet and dry labs, a very varied range of stakeholders, accounting structures, and internal regulatory requirements.

"I’m grateful to UNSW for so many things — the Environmental Engineering program itself and vision of the pioneers who started it and the mentoring and support I received, including the nomination for the Churchill Fellowship. With all its internal complexities and challenges, UNSW does some really special, world–class work."

ATILLA BRUNGS (BSc (Industrial Chemistry) ’94, PhD Oxford ’98)

With Atilla Brungs’ father an industrial chemist and UNSW academic and his mother a microbiologist, science and engineering were always in the air. He decided to follow in his father’s footsteps however, because, "I wanted to do something which could have a material impact on the world and I believe that science and engineering play a large role in the transformation of society."

According to Atilla, his preferred program of Industrial Chemistry was unique in its focus on the application of science and he had been impressed by the fact that the School’s work was very future driven. Atilla was also a Co-op Scholar*, doing his industrial placements with Wattle, 3M, Johnson and Johnson, and National & Chemical.

While he had always intended to do a PhD, Atilla’s decision to apply for a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University was motivated by a desire for a broader perspective on science and its potential for change. "I was frustrated at the time by what I saw as some cultural cringe with respect to science and engineering in Australia, but I felt I needed a greater exposure to what was considered to be world-class. Also, I really wanted to be able to influence the way national policy decisions are made and thought the Rhodes Scholarship would help fulfill that ambition."

After finishing his PhD at Oxford, Atilla was recruited by McKinsey and Co. "McKinsey is very much at the cutting edge of business and economic thinking, and you have the advantage that as a consultant, you see a wide variety of industries very rapidly. It was also very exciting, because you were working to solve the biggest problems in the biggest companies."

In his four years with McKinsey, Atilla worked throughout Australia, New Zealand and Asia, as well as some time in British Colombia. "While I had a reasonable amount of experience serving companies in the financial and service industries, which was interesting, the ones I enjoyed most were the big mining companies and the time I spent in remote parts of Australia."

Atilla has also enjoyed his involvement with McKinsey’s pro bono work, especially with Social Ventures Australia (SVA) which runs a nationwide business planning competition for social entrepreneurs. "The basis for SVA was to bring a venture capitalist model to the social arena, translating donations into investments. With this mindset, you need to be able to measure the impact and ‘returns’ in terms of social good. This not only enables charities to bring in more government and corporate money, but also allows them to focus their activities in the areas in which they can have the most impact."

After taking some time off from his work with McKinsey to help run a scientific recruitment firm, Atilla has recently taken up the position of General Manager for Business Improvement in the Business Development and Commercialisation group at the CSIRO. "The CSIRO is an incredible organisation which I’ve always held in high esteem and this is such an exciting role.

"The CSIRO is a national asset which works to assist Australian industry by improving technology, and the human condition generally, by tackling some of our great national problems. The CSIRO needs to continue to commercialise its findings to both get the technology out into industry and to provide the organisation with income it can invest in the basic research which makes it all possible.

"CSIRO has a new growth strategy which aims to grow by approximately 50 per cent over the next five years. A target of that size isn’t going to be achieved by incremental change, and part of my role is to work with the various divisions to help provide the support, skills and systems they need as they consider how to grow. It’s a wonderful opportunity to work with an organisation which contributes so much to the society it serves."

* The Co-op Scholarship program is a partnership between industry and UNSW which provides scholarships in commerce, engineering and science and technology to high achieving undergraduate students who receive structured industrial training during the course of their degree with up to four industry sponsors.

DAX KUKULJ (BSc (Industrial Chemistry) ’93, PhD ’97)

Dax Kukulj has always been strongly interested in chemistry. "I really wanted to do something that was quite applied, which is what attracted me to Industrial Chemistry at UNSW." said Dax. "It had a great mixture of pure, fundamental science with a lot of applied focus."

As a Co-op Scholar, Dax made good use of his industrial training where he worked with Alcan, Dussek Campbell, CSR, and National Starch & Chemical. "The Co-op program gave me more exposure to industry and a broader set of skills than I would have otherwise received if I’d just gone straight through university," he said.

After graduating in 1993, Dax decided to continue at UNSW with a PhD in polymers. "Polymers have such an impact on so many fields that it seemed there would be many opportunities to do interesting R&D work."

After completing his PhD in 1997, Dax took a postdoctoral position researching novel synthetic polymers at the University of Warwick in the UK, before working for Unilever, one of the world’s largest multinational companies, developing new generation home and personal care products.

Dax returned to Australia in 2001 to lead the materials research program with Redfern Polymer Optics (RPO), a hightech start-up company based in Canberra. "We make optical components for communications equipment and are developing integrated optical circuits, a similar concept to electronic integrated circuits. Typically, integrated optics are produced using glass, however, we are developing products based on polymer materials, which will greatly simplify the production process and bring the cost down significantly. The ultimate aim is to bring optical fibre to homes and businesses — at a reasonable price.

"While I like working in an applied area where I can really see the end application of what I am doing, I also like the mix of business and science. It’s one thing to demonstrate something in the lab, but it’s another to create value by identifying a market need, developing a product and reliable manufacturing process and finally to make a profit.

"I began my career wanting to specialise, which would enable me to make a solid technical contribution, and now I’m developing generalist skills that are applicable to a range of industries. Currently I’m studying part-time for a Master of Business Administration in order to further develop my business skills. I enjoy the challenge of working at the forefront of technology, because you have to continually push yourself to learn other skills to be able to keep up."

In moving from Unilever to RPO, Dax has moved from the extreme of working for a large multinational to that of a small, start-up company funded by venture capital. "We work in a dynamic team environment where everybody is focused on developing our product and getting it into the market place. Sometimes in a large company you feel you are a small cog in a big wheel and it is hard to see your contribution to the overall picture. In a small company, the outcomes of every day count.

"We are currently developing a technology platform which will be applicable to a whole range of products and we hope soon to establish manufacturing facilities. I really want to be involved in all of this and see the company grow and mature.

"While the boom in telecommunications in recent years which saw the establishment of a lot of start-ups has cooled, our company is moving in a really fluid and fast changing area, with a lot of competition and it’s a very exciting time."

REBECCA SCOTT (BE (Mining)’92, BA Oxford ’95, MSc (Environmental Change and Management) Oxford ’96)

Rebecca Scott’s involvement in the mining industry started as a very young ‘field assistant’ to her geologist father, so it was no surprise when she chose to study Mining Engineering at UNSW in 1989. "UNSW was my first choice,’ said Rebecca. "The School had a really good reputation that was enhanced by the launch of the Co-op Scholarship program in the same year I started. This fostered strong ties with industry and brought the prospect of diverse industrial experience".

As part of her Co-op Scholarship, Rebecca spent her first industrial placement at Broken Hill as a surveyor’s assistant. This was her introduction to the culture of large mining companies and the experience helped her to understand some of the key challenges facing major industrial companies needing to change to remain competitive.

Rebecca’s second industrial placement was spent in the underground coal industry. The New South Wales Government had only just repealed legislation preventing women working in underground coal mining operations, making it possible for Rebecca and one of her female colleagues to be the first women to work legally as operators underground. "Given the age-old coal mining superstitions about women underground there were a few raised eyebrows, and there was the logistical issue of female shower facilities and bathrooms!

"My third placement, at the largest open-cut coal mine in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley, was the most challenging. The experience taught me about the typical roles that mining engineers perform and I learnt much more about the competing challenges of running a mine efficiently."

While her industrial placements and experience as a graduate engineer in Cobar, New South Wales, had strengthened her passion for the mining industry, the award of a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University in 1992, led Rebecca down a new path. "I was keen to broaden my academic experience and chose to study for an Arts degree in politics, economics and philosophy. Following this I completed a Masters degree in Environmental Change and Management."

Although she knew little about management consulting, Rebecca was recruited in her second year at Oxford by McKinsey & Company, a prestigious, global management consulting firm. She postponed taking up her job to finish her Masters and then worked in South Africa for two years on policy development for the mining industry. "In South Africa I worked closely with the government to develop policies around the promotion of a small-scale mining sector — an experience that drew on my mining, economics and environmental science interests".

In 1999, Rebecca returned to Australia to take up her position as an Associate with McKinsey & Company. She has worked in industries ranging from consumer goods manufacturing, to insurance, telecommunications and of course, mining. "I now specialise in operational performance improvement work focused on helping large industrial companies transform their business."

Currently, Rebecca is working in Canada with a large mining company. "I spend most of my time working with people in the field. The aspect I find most challenging about my work is that it’s not just about coming up with ways of doing things differently, but focussing on the most practical way to ensure these improvements are sustained — ensuring that people believe in them and are accountable, and rewarded, for delivering them."