When Emily Qiao first attended John Monash Science School, her Year 10 science project (Extended Experimental Investigation) investigating the efficiency of dye-sensitised solar cells kick-started her passion for technology and innovation. Now, not a day goes by where she doesn’t see engineering encapsulated in her life.
Since graduating, Emily has pursued a Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) and Bachelor of Commerce. Her passion for advocating and bringing about societal change is reflected through the past four years of university where she worked as a training manager and local president, and ultimately as the chief operating officer at Robogals. Robogals is a global non-profit organisation that inspires, engages and empowers women to enter into engineering through workshops, where Emily led the marketing, technology and people and governance portfolios. Emily hopes to inspire the next generation of young students and open their eyes to the wonders of engineering. As a result, Emily was recognised as the 2019 Glen Eira City Council Young Citizen of the Year.
Her interest in sustainability also extended beyond high school where Emily became the founding member and chief executive officer of Monash Carbon Capture and Conversion (MC3), a student team with the ethos of developing carbon removal technologies that communicate the importance of sustainability. Since its founding, MC3 has expanded to a multi-disciplinary student team, with 57 team members spanning across the Asia Pacific.
In October 2021, Emily and her team were recognised for their work in carbon removal biotechnology (focusing on microalgae and artificial forestry) and became one of the recipients of the Student Awards of the $100 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal Competition sponsored by Elon Musk. Equipped with a US$250,000 award, MC3 is now scaling its technology to facilitate carbon removal and working towards a more sustainable earth.
Emily completed her final semester of university in 2022. During the summer break, she undertook a role as a cloud customer engineer intern at Google Australia, working to empower customers and businesses through technology built in the cloud. This year, Emily will return to Google in a full-time capacity, where she will continue to integrate her passion in business with technology to inspire social impact.
Victoria’s first specialist senior secondary school for science, mathematics and associated technologies, JMSS was formed in 2010 as the result […]