Sky's the limit

Issue 20 | Spring/Summer 2007

Report: John Watts
Photography: Melissa Di Ciero

Associate Professor Jean Armstrong is a pioneer in her field. Thirty years ago she was the first woman to lecture in an Australian university engineering department and today continues to pioneer research.

She has been mentor to many Monash engineering students, including Xia (Summer) Li. The two women not only share a passion for electrical engineering, they are both recipients of Zonta International Amelia Earhart Fellowships, 16 years apart.

Jean Armstrong

I was born in Scotland and after graduating from the University of Edinburgh worked for Hewlett Packard designing telecommunications test equipment.

In 1977 I emigrated to Australia and was appointed as a lecturer in electrical engineering here at Monash University.

Back then it was very unusual for women to study engineering and when appointed I was the only woman holding a position of lecturer in any engineering department at an Australian university.

Associate Professor Jean Armstrong and Xia Li.

Zonta's Amelia Earhart Fellowships are named in honour of the pioneering woman aviator's accomplishments and are given to women who have made or are making substantial contributions in the area of aeronautical science or engineering.

I received the Fellowship back in 1991 while doing a PhD on digital communications. The really great thing about the fellowship was that at the time there were no part-time scholarships for engineering, and my PhD was being completed while my children were still very young.

The Zonta organisation's flexibility about my status as a part-time student at the time provided an important source of support. It basically enabled me to keep going because at that stage, while my technical studies were going very well, it was so unusual back then to be studying part-time in engineering.

It got me over one hurdle. It enabled me to complete my PhD and to go on and have a successful academic career.

I was very proud when one of my students, Summer, received the same award this year for her work in telecommunications, 16 years after me.

Summer really deserves this. She's a very clever student. I think it's an excellent example of where Zonta is prepared to support another generation of talented women to go ahead.

I am delighted that Summer and other talented young women are excelling in electrical engineering. I have found it an exciting and rewarding career, although being a pioneer has often been challenging.

Xia Li

My first contact with Jean was when I was in China last year and we communicated via email.

She was part of the reason I came to Monash University to undertake postgraduate study last March. Prior to that I had lived in China all my life and studied at the prestigious Harbin Institute of Technology.

I am very pleased and honoured to be following the ground-breaking work of Jean and greatly appreciate her assistance to me as both a mentor and teacher.

I am the only one of my family in Australia and Jean provides great support to me on a personal level. She is also an enormous help to me academically. Jean always shares with me the latest advances in technology in our area.

I think I can really learn from her how women can go forward, work well and be successful.

I feel very grateful to have won the Zonta because it is so competitive. I was the only Australian student to get the award this year. The fellowship helps with tuition fees and areas such as purchasing books.

My work is a continuation of Jean's work in the area of Optical Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing, which is based on optical rather than radio frequencies and therefore will not interfere with other electronic equipment.

This technology has the potential to have many applications in airplanes and spacecraft; for example, people during a ‘plane flight might be able to use a mobile phone or laptop computer at anytime -- all those things we can't do today.

I mainly want to tell women in the engineering area, don't give up on your studies and ambitions. Through awards like Zonta, young women engineers can have the chance to fulfil their dreams. Jean is proof we can be successful.