This month we are profiling Mariana Hopper who is Acting Group Leader and Senior Research Scientist, CSIRO Health & Biosecurity (Floreat, WA).
Links to professional profile(s)
What does a typical workday look like for you?
I currently lead a group of 50 people, and two to three research projects at any time. This means that a typical day for me includes a few meetings (most of them online as the majority of my group is located interstate) to discuss anything from project ideas, funding, progressing on publications, planning field work, to handling personnel issues, checking on finances and touching base with stakeholders to ensure that we are all communicating well. I no longer spend any time in the laboratory or glasshouse, but I do attempt to go to the field occasionally to stay in touch with the on-ground research.
How long have you worked in this area?
I have worked in biosecurity since 2018, but in the five years prior to that, I worked in consultancy companies conducting botanical surveys, which included a lot of weed mapping and weed identification. More broadly, I’ve been studying plants, since I started my Masters’ degree in 2006.
My mother is also a biologist and I’ve been looking through the microscope since primary school.
How did you find yourself in this career?
I’ve always loved being in nature (forests, in particular) and the apple did not fall too far from the tree with two scientists as parents. I chose a degree in biological sciences, which covered everything from botany, zoology, human physiology, genetics, to geology and physics. It was a wonderfully broad degree that set the tone for my multidisciplinary and mostly generalist career. But plants were, and still are, my true love. I think the choice of working with weeds and plant health comes from both a love of the environment and biodiversity (and a desire to protect it) and from my orderly nature – pulling weeds is very satisfying to me!
What roles have you held previously?
My first job was as a scientific advisor for Qiagen. I helped customers (researchers and analyses laboratories) find ways to optimise their molecular research and assays and also did a lot of troubleshooting when products didn’t work as intended.
I completed my Masters degree in Brazil and my PhD in Australia. Towards the end of my PhD I started working for environmental consultancies undertaking botanical surveys (primarily for mining companies in the Pilbara). It was quite repetitive work, but I learned so much, made so many friends and felt that to a good extent, I was being paid to go bushwalking. These surveys also sparked my interest in invasive species – how were they getting out into the middle of nowhere?
I then moved on to work at Murdoch University in the newly established Harry Butler Institute, doing the surveillance work on Barrow Island and using my previous experience from the consulting days – but extending also into new technologies for surveillance and detection; researching pathways of incursion; and doing data analyses on surveillance, control, and population numbers. Did I mention I love data?
In between and simultaneously I also worked as a tutor, demonstrator, acted as a Director of the Board for the Australian Plant Biosecurity Science Foundation, volunteered breeding native plants at Perth’s Kings Park Botanic Gardens, and taught units, courses, and masterclasses in Botany, Ecology, Surveillance, and Biosecurity.
What is your most memorable career achievement?
There have been many memorable moments, some of which wouldn’t seem like much of an achievement. I’ve won awards, but they make me somewhat self-conscious because I feel like I was just doing my job. I travelled to Antarctica for leadership training with Homeward Bound in 2023 and that was certainly extraordinary.
But if I have to choose one thing, I guess my biggest career achievement has been to balance a good family life (I am a wife, stepmother and mother) with a good work life (including conference travel, promotions, and leadership roles).
What advice would you give to others starting/changing their career?
Most people will spend a lot of time at work, and in my opinion, it must feel both like you have a purpose associated with your work, and you get enjoyment out of it. Sure, some days are not the best and some projects are a grind, but on the whole, having a good team that you get along with, and doing something that matters to you will really make life better. And that there is always a chance to change what you do – a little bit, or a lot.
