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CLEVER CAPITAL BEHIND EVERY GREAT BRAIN IS A GREAT STORY We probe the minds of four of Canberra's best and brightest. ––– Words by Emma Macdonald Front cover photography by Martin Ollman
FORMER LABOR LEADER KIM BEAZLEY once described Canberra as “a quiet city of the mind”. There’s no doubt the nation’s capital has a concentration of smarts. From having the highest NAPLAN results among primary schoolers and the most students completing Year 12, to pumping out the greatest number of university graduates and post-grads, Canberra houses the nation’s preeminent think-tanks and cultural institutions. Not to mention the upper echelons of the federal bureaucracy and policy-makers. But behind every great mind is a great story. Data scientist Dr Nicola Powell, cancer researcher Professor Sudha Rao, Nobel Laureate and Vice-Chancellor Brian Schmidt, and social demographer Hugh Mackay discuss their own cerebral journeys, ponder living in the clever capital, and consider how Canberra’s collective IQ sets it apart from the rest of the nation. NICOLA POWELL’S story is the sort that heartens those concerned about the lack of young women being drawn to careers in STEM. The British-born data scientist is the first in her family to be university-educated. Dad was a carpenter and mum stayed home while Nicola went to the local school. In fact, she might even have become an accountant like her older brother. But Nicola remembers how even as a young child, her sense of curiosity and burning need to understand how and why things worked, placed her on a trajectory to higher learning.
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