Image: Olivia Widjaja
There was an episode in the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory where the main characters are gathered on the roof of an apartment building to perform a laser experiment on the moon.
Watching that episode at the time, Olivia Widjaja never imagined she would one day do something like it, except she did during her four months. Interns is the original orbital determination engineer at Electro Optic Systems (EOS).
“What [EOS] mainly when they detect space debris about to collide with another, they use high altitude lasers at Mount Stromlo [Observatory in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory] to push it out of its way to avoid collisions and more debris,” she told ZDNet.
“What I did was use different numerical methods to predict the many different possible ways the shards might move and improve the algorithm by reducing its error as much as possible, so We hope to be able to run it in real time and use it with other tools, such as vibrating lasers.”
To watch The Big Bang Theory as a child was where Widjaja’s interest in science and space began, now a fourth year aerospace engineering student at the University of New South Wales.
“They use a lot of science jokes and I want to understand them and that’s where I learned a lot on my own,” she said.
Despite her interest, the support during her schooling to get into the field couldn’t have been more helpful.
“When I was in elementary school, I was a little upset because my elementary school didn’t have any STEM classes. They had math but no science, so I was teaching myself. I remember stealing my science textbooks. my sister. just to read it,” she said.
She explains how it got worse in high school, where she attended an independent girls’ school and had to choose two electives to take in years 9 and 10 – and that the options Her electives were inadvertently dropped because priority was given to students at the brother school. .
“That year was the first time the brother’s school offered new electives – woodworking and engineering. Of course, I was excited and thought I wanted to do engineering; it was my first hobby. … [but] I remember being pushed aside by principle – as did some other girls who considered engineering an elective – and being told that all the boys took the top spot, so we have to choose different electives,” said Widjaja.
“I was a bit annoyed at the time, so I changed it to commercial but in the past I should have made a fuss.”
See more: Celebrating History Month of Women in Technology
Widjaja continued to face sexism when she started college.
“One specific example in my mind is that during my freshman year during O-week, I asked a male student a series of questions about life in general and when it came to the subject of my HSC results and how I did better in my humanities subjects like math and physics, he advised me to ‘really consider if engineering is something I want to do’, especially if I see I failed the first year,” she said.
Despite admitting to failing a series of “courses” during her first year of college, Widjaja acknowledged her determination to persevere.
“I was stubborn enough to go on with my degree, secure myself some jobs with EOS, and graduate,” she said.
As for where she hopes her career will go after graduation, Widjaja is confident it will be sustainability in space, an area she hopes will raise more awareness of it.
“It’s been a problem since the ’60s and it’s just getting worse,” she said.
“Unfortunately, real space debris wasn’t in the news until last year when one was going to hit the International Space Station. It’s only when something bad happens that people realize it’s what it is. thing.”
She believes part of the solution is better regulation and coordination.
“There’s a lot of satellites being launched. A lot of it is a good thing – we need an internet connection, and we need it to monitor the environment. At the same time, there are a lot of dead satellites floating up there. around”. Widjaja said.
“We almost forgot about it because the media was always like, ‘Oh, this company is launching this number of satellites,’ which sounds great, but the reality is how do we do this? can promote quality over quantity in the field of sustainability and how we can better collaborate and share each other’s data so that we don’t constantly launch independent satellites and increase congestion over there. “
Read: NASA wants to turn trash into space gold
In addition to her desire to help solve the space junk problem, Widjaja also hopes to become a role model for other women looking to enter the space. She has begun mentoring first-year UNSW engineering students and is herself a mentor in the Western Sydney Women’s network.
“I think we need to promote the idea that women don’t have to work to ‘fit in’ and be like ‘one of the boys’ just because we study and work in a male-dominated industry. ruling class,” she said.
“We shouldn’t feel ashamed for enjoying ‘traditionally feminine’ activities such as participating in fashion and makeup, while forcing ourselves to adopt ‘traditionally masculine’ preferences, such as playing video games and making PCs, of course, this can apply to men as well.
“I think having unique interests and personalities is what allows us to offer diverse opinions, especially in an industry that is always striving to innovate.”
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