Newly appointed Professor of Science Education, Grady Venville, is facing a tough challenge in her new role at UWA.

"I want to train science graduates to become inspiring school teachers, so their students will love science and choose to study it at UWA. It's a bit like the chicken and the egg, isn't it? Which comes first, the good teachers or the good students?"

Her plan is to work on improving the links between the Graduate School of Education and the science faculties, with the aim of encouraging more science students to become teachers. Of her new role she says: "Often students say the reason they studied science was that they were inspired by a great high-school science teacher. My goal is to promote the benefi ts and joys of a teaching career to our science graduates. Hopefully this will increase the numbers of graduates who decide to become science teachers, and, in the longer term increase the numbers of high-school students inspired to study science at UWA."

Before coming to UWA, Professor Venville was Associate Professor of Science and Technology in the School of Education at Edith Cowan University (Joondalup). She has a Bachelor of Science (majoring in botany), and Diploma of Education from UWA, and a PhD from Curtin University of Technology.