Underwater ceramic technician to first year academic

This anecdote will explain my career trajectory from beginning until now.  

In the summer holidays of year 11 (November 2012), my first job was in a small hospitality establishment called Soul Bowl, turning potatoes and beans into a warm starchy mix beneath a bed of raw vegetables, sometimes including cooked chicken breast. This was my first experience in foodservice and nutrition, of course not knowing at the time, this would be the main topic of my bachelor’s degree and setting of my PhD topic in the following years. I lasted 4 months at Soul Bowl, before retiring to focus on my year 12 studies and then jumping on dishes at the Pantry Café for a few shifts in spring, where I eventually quit to watch the AFL Grand Final (September 2013).  

As a young centre-half-back/wing for the Burleigh Bombers I wanted to improve my AFL game to one day play for the senior side. There were no aspirations to be a Gold Coast Sun, just to be good enough to represent my club at the highest level. Training twice a week with the group (standard) was enough to maintain my average skill set and joining the gym at 16  was a sure way to support my development by the time I was ready to possibly be selected. After hearing Gary Ablett discuss the importance of his sweet potato the night before a game I was intrigued by the importance of nutrition for performance on the field. Completing some online research mainly through the old blogs and forums posted on bodybuilding.com I was exposed to the world of sports nutrition. Skip to the end of year 12 when it came time to undergo selection of a University degree pathway via the QTAC handbook it was no surprise that ‘nutrition & dietetics’ caught my eye. Unfortunately, I did not have the marks to gain direct entry so I applied for, and successfully enrolled in, a public health nutrition degree starting in March 2014. Studying hard and passing well allowed me to transfer into the Bachelor of Nutrition and Dietetics and begin this program in March 2015. 

The week after schoolies I was lucky enough to score a job through one of my dads connections, Scott Imlach who owned Barchino (now ForReal Kitchen) and Nobby’s Arc (December 2013). He was opening the first and still standing craft beer bar on the Gold Coast ‘Bine’. I had three weeks as a glassy before being thrown into the kitchen on dishes. I held this position for three years throughout my undergraduate degree once again being involved in a foodservice establishment and being exposed to large amounts of food waste. I later moved next door for some extra money on a Sunday at Nobby’s Arc and remained across both establishments until my last year in June 2017. This takes us all the way to December 2017 when I received a call from Professor Ben Desbrow saying there was one last project available in the up-coming Honours semester and if I was interested. Noting Figure 1 below, you can see my ‘career plan’ I wrote in the first semester of my undergraduate degree in 2015 where honours was always on the cards. So, I jumped at the chance to enrol in the honours program. During this time, I was working at a very well-known establishment as ‘King Dish’ (my nickname) with one of my great mates James Stagg; the famous Betty’s Burgers. I remained here until it was time to focus on wrapping up my Honours thesis and leave for 20 weeks dietetics placement back-to-back all across Queensland (June 2018).  

Figure 1. 2015 career trajectory 

During placement I was exposed to public health nutrition programs such as advertising and delivering a healthy lunchbox for children activity to food insecure families, rewriting a rural hospital foodservice menu and supporting patients across acute, palliative and rehab care in the hospital. It was time to come home and turn these learnings into a possible career path in nutrition and dietetics. As most students still say, and what I said at the time, ‘I’ll get a clinical job and try that for a while to build up my skills, before I then do what I really want’. Judging by Figure 1, I had forgot to then revisit the plan for what the next five years would look like. During our post placement week was the first time I had thought about a CV and applying for jobs (December 2018). What a mistake! This meant I was scrambling for jobs which were soon advertised and for which my applications and interview skills were unprepared. So, I went and did what I am good at, and know, can help pay my way…dishes. In January 2019 I got a job again with Scott Imlach at Nightjar where I collected glasses from the many intoxicated individuals in the small, confined back-alley bar of Burleigh Heads. Fortunately, I then landed a Dietetics Assistant position in Queensland Health at Logan Hospital (March 2019). 

This job involved collecting menu orders from patients and communicating these to the kitchen, flagging allergies of patients that did not resemble their diet-code, discussing dietary issues with hospital staff, delivering midmeals to patients and monitoring the tray line to ensure patients orders were fulfilled as requested, according to their nutrition requirements. During this position I witnessed extreme levels of food waste every day. This made me very uncomfortable and was something I was passionate to be involved in actively reducing. I met with the research dietitian on the team and continued to advocate for this issue to other colleagues who would listen. Unfortunately, none of these activities came to fruition and this position came to an abrupt stop. Slightly defeated and frustrated my passion for food waste reduction was suppressed for a little while. I then found a position in July 2019 at Griffith University, my old stomping ground, working in the Allied Health Sciences Technical Support Services Team. Here I looked after student laboratory classes and supported course delivery by ensuring equipment was available for teaching and assessment activities. Being back in a University setting put a smile on my face, made me happy, created a strong connection to the workplace and for the first time gave evidence to the idea that working at a University could be a possible career path for me.  

Zooming through to January 2020 I had accepted a position as a PhD candidate at Monash University in Melbourne. Meeting Jorja Collins (see My framework for networking) and hearing the preliminary work she was completing on food waste in hospital food services, reignited my previous thinking on food waste. It was a strange time for the world when I took this role which allowed me to remain at home and off campus for the duration of my PhD. During this time (2021 & 2022) I had many opportunities to conduct internal paid activities such as tutoring, marking and guest lecturing which exposed me to academic life. Further, I went back to washing dishes and cooking fried chicken at RaRa Ramen for a year (June 2021 to June 2022) to earn just that little bit of extra money in the meantime. Post PhD submission in September 2023 I made the same mistake I did in my post placement week – no plan and no where to go. However, this time this was actually part of the plan; to rejuvenate and reset from the long journey of the PhD. 

My first job post PhD was with industry. I worked at a small start-up called Gander which is focussed on reducing supermarket food waste by communicating to consumers when food items that are currently in stock and on the shelf are nearly past their use-by-date. Gander promotes these items to consumers at a cheaper price (25%, 50% or 75% increasing in markdowns the closer they get to ‘waste’) and reduces the waste created by supermarkets (if the items are sold). I wish them all the best as a solution to supermarket food waste, they could do great things. I worked here from November 2023 to March 2024, leaving to throw my hat in the academic ring. Scrambling again I was lucky to have those in my network including Professor Judi Porter, Sara Forbes, Professor Ben Desbrow and Professor Karen Walton keep me afloat with research assistant work, online tutoring and honours supervision/marking until June 2024. This perhaps demonstrates how my short academic history was trying to pull me back to where I may find a career path. My relationship with being on University grounds, which I realised as an undergraduate student, working at Griffith in technical services and attending Monash in person had grown, and this desire to work at a University was shining brightly.  

After many applications and interviews around the country I was extremely lucky to have received an interview invitation at The University of Queensland (May 2024). I then went on to have a very celebratory week including a phone call from Professor Sarah McNaughton to be offered a position, my PhD graduation ceremony and my birthday. 

It has been full steam ahead teaching an entire course in my first semester of July 2024. Further, I am learning how to navigate and convert my eagerness to complete future research focussed on food waste and other activities that support building a better world into action. I am really enjoying my position, the University, my colleagues, interacting with students and have a strong feeling that I belong (September 2024).