Imaginarium – Guest Speaker
Jessica Hart – Year 5
Jessica Smith – Year 5
Dr Rebecca Johnson visits Emanuel School
On 19 August 2019 Dr Rebecca Johnson, Chief Scientist of the Australian Museum, came to speak to the Imaginarium after hours program. Rebecca talked about her profession as a wildlife forensic scientist, her pathway into this career, and some of her most intriguing cases.
When Rebecca was young she had no idea that she wanted to be a scientist. Back then there were very few female role models in Science. In Primary School she wanted to be a scientist and also wanted to be a ballerina.
Rebecca is a wildlife forensic scientist and she created the job. Rebecca has a PhD in molecular genetics and knows a lot about animals. One day she received a phone call and was expecting to talk to her mom, instead she picked up her phone to talk to the NSW Police Department and that was the start of her career. The case involved a flock of cockatoos that had been intentionally run over, and she was tasked with the job of testing a blood sample on a car to see if it scientifically matched the cockatoo DNA. This was the start of her job as a wildlife forensic scientist and now she is one of many wildlife forensic scientists.
Since Rebecca was one of the first and most experienced wildlife forensics, despite her full time job at the Australian Museum, she has been looked to a lot by the police for help solving crimes to do with animals. This means she has dealt with lots of unbelievably interesting cases like deadly death adders in boxes arriving to the homes of senior police officers to a famous elephant in Africa having his tusks removed. We also learnt that Rebecca advises the government when they are making changes that impact the environment. Specifically, they seek her advice to make sure that the change would not harm any existing species.
Recently, Rebecca has led the team involved in sequencing the koala genome. A genome is basically a book of all the DNA cells that define a living thing. As each tiny cell is broken down even further, there is a complete set of all the genes in one cell. It takes 3.4 billion letters of DNA to make one cell. This mapping is so complex, it has taken about 2-3 years to complete. You can read all about Rebecca and her team’s collaborative research here: https://australianmuseum.net.au/get-involved/amri/the-koala-genome/
