Page 5 - Luce 2016

N ews a nd Events

In addition to covering university fees and some living costs,
I am also planning to undertake some travel, including to
Delft in Holland to explore sustainable urbanism and later to
Papua New Guinea to design and build a community project.
The other wonderful aspect of the scholarship is the network.
With 100 scholars every year and growing, there is so much
scope for collaboration and to me this is the most exciting
part.

Rebecca: The Rhodes Scholarship was a huge surprise – I
honestly didn’t expect to be awarded it – and a great honour.
I hope I can use the time at Oxford wisely to develop and
contribute in any small way that I can within my field. From
an academic perspective, the scholarship will cover two
consecutive one-year Masters Degrees (MSc or MSt), or a
two-year MPhil, potentially in political theory or in the social
science of the internet.

My interests lie at the intersection of gender studies,
psychology and philosophy. My Honours project examined
how the passive consumption of social media influences
negative effect, envy, cognitive focus and self-objectification
in young women. Self-objectification is the internalisation of a
third-person, appearance-based focus on the body. Research
indicates that self-objectification can contribute to a number
of mental health issues over time, but my research focused on One of the many reasons she is such a role model and mentor
the micro-longitudinal effects. to me is that she is not afraid to critique the discipline which
she has come from. She is very good at making science
Scrolling through Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat, we concepts accessible to different parts of the community and I
consume the image-objects of others. What occurs between love how she has brought feminist understandings and gender
the individual and the image-object, a thing suffused with studies into areas such as neuroscience and endocrinology –
another’s subjectivity? I am interested in exploring the that kind of interdisciplinary work is really inspiring to me and I
philosophical implications of what has become an innocuous have learned so much from her.
practice embedded in our everyday lives. I’m interested, too,
in exploring the educational implications of the use of social Looking further down the track, what are your career
media and how it affects educational environments today. ambitions?

Can you think of one person who has been a real source of Rebecca: I definitely want to do a PhD, but also I’m very
inspiration for you? interested in going into policy – maybe working somewhere
like the OECD which would give me a global perspective on
Rob: I think it’s hard to choose a single person; rather I would these issues to do with education and technology.
have to say the collective of tutors at JCH were important
influences on me, on various levels. Arriving at College, I But I’m very open to different pathways. That’s something else
was drawn to the different careers all the tutors represented I learned along the way – in first year I and a number of my
and the passion they instilled in their work. It was incredibly contemporaries were so set on a particular course (in my case,
inspiring being surrounded by such engaged people and most on clinical psychology) and it’s fascinating to see how those
certainly influenced my own career ambitions. options opened out for us over the years. Don’t remain too
attached to one pathway – you might miss great opportunities
Further, just the confidence and strength all the tutors that arise along the way!
demonstrated in themselves inspired and helped me to
understand who I was and what life I could aspire to. Truly Rob: My core motivation that shapes all my decisions is a
the entire team were – and continue to be – supportive in so simple thought – that within my lifetime I will witness the
many ways implications of not developing sustainable cities. As such, I
feel compelled to use my interdisciplinary skills to help solve
Rebecca: Dr Cordelia Fine. She wrote Delusions of Gender pressing urban problems. To do so, I aim to synthesise both my
and more recently, Testosterone Rex. She was at the creative architecture and technical engineering skills, focussing
Melbourne Business School as an academic psychologist and on sustainable building design.
has just moved as a Professor to the School of History and
Philosophy of Science. Whilst of course it’s hard to know exactly where this will lead,
upon graduation I would like to go to India and/or Chile to
Cordelia has been an amazing mentor. I approached her in practise community-inclusive, incremental, interdisciplinary
my second year as an undergraduate after reading Delusions design. Thinking longer term, I would like to establish a
of Gender. She generously suggested we co-author an practice, if I felt there was a gap in the development of
academic commentary on gender essentialism within the community-inclusive sustainable design in Australia. Honestly,
same-sex school debate in the US for the academic journal though, I am just very excited to see how it all plays out; I had
Sex Roles, which was an immensely challenging and no idea I would I end up here three years ago, so who knows
rewarding experience for me. where I could be in another three!

J anet Clarke Hall 5