When our postgraduate students formally graduate, they and their family and friends are not the only ones celebrating. Sharing in the excitement are the students' "academic parents" - the supervisors who have ridden the highs and lows of this intensely personal journey with them.
"They are supervisors, but they become friends and mentors and colleagues," says geologist and palaeontologist Marissa Betts. "They are your role models and the people you emulate."
So a UNE graduation ceremony on December 9 was particularly thrilling for Marissa, as she watched the first of the students she has supervised - Stephanie Richter Stretton - receive her Bachelor of Science (Honours), with the University Medal. "I bought my own academic robes especially for the occasion," says Marissa.
Also proudly watching on was Steph's co-supervisor, Professor of Earth Sciences John Paterson - another branch in the young graduate's "academic tree".
"It's an organic process, the transfer of wisdom and knowledge from supervisor to student, and this happens down the line," says Honorary Professor of Paleobiology at Macquarie University, Glenn Brock, who has supervised almost 50 postgraduate students, including John and Marissa. "It's a little like scientific osmosis."
"That's how science works - you stand on the shoulders of giants," says John. "And with that comes a lot of wisdom."
Steph is the latest in a long line of UNE scholars now occupying a veritable academic forest. Here we trace her "lineage" back to Glenn and discover the scientific "DNA" they share.
That's how science works - you stand on the shoulders of giants.
