naomi-smith-bhp

[Music plays and images of award participants flash by on screen. Text appears: BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards 2017]

[Image changes to show Naomi Smith standing and leaning on a fence and then walking through a front door]

[Image changes to show Naomi seated and smiling at the camera]

Naomi Smith:  Hi, I’m Naomi Smith, I’m from the Queensland Academy of Health Sciences, and my project was: Investigating the efficacy of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa in degrading hydrocarbons.

[Image changes to show Naomi seated on a black couch and patting a cat]

I think I first started learning about the devastating effects of oil spills probably in 2010 when there was the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,

[Image changes back to show Naomi seated and talking to the camera]

along with an oil spill in the Great Barrier Reef and so that sort of sparked interest when I was like really young.

[Image changes to show Naomi seated at a table and working on a laptop]

So the aim of my project was to look at effective methods of cleaning up oil spills, essentially. I found that this particular strain of bacteria (Pseudomonas Aeruginosa) was really effective at degrading xylene.

[Image changes back to show Naomi seated and talking to the camera]

Xylene is cyclic hydrocarbon and a lot of bacteria aren’t very good at degrading cyclic hydrocarbons, and so often they’re the last type of hydrocarbons to be degraded in an oil spill.

[Image changes to show Naomi scrolling through her report on a computer screen]

I also found there was a correlation between the adhesion rates, in certain hydrocarbons, and the degradation rates.

[Image changes back to show Naomi seated and talking to the camera]

So I think the main beneficiary of the research would be individuals who are looking at what sort of bacteria they should use when they’re cleaning up an oil spill, so they don’t just use one bacteria,

[Image changes back to show Naomi seated and working on a laptop]

they use a combination of bacteria, because each bacteria have different strengths.

[Image changes back to show Naomi seated and talking to the camera and then changes back to show Naomi working on a laptop]

I think, no matter what I do, I’m always going to value science. I’ll always value the skills that doing science taught me and always value the information that science and research gives us.

[Image changes to show Naomi seated on a couch and reading and her cat approaches for a pat]

In my spare time I love playing the piano, reading, singing, playing basketball and I love animals, too, I have a pet cat at home called Clover, but piano’s been always really relaxing for me whenever I had a stressful day at school,

[Image changes to show Naomi seated and playing a piano]

I’d always go to our practice music rooms and just sort of play on the piano just to chill out.

I like how exact science and engineering is, it’s kind of like almost solving a puzzle when you’re doing a research project and that’s what I really liked about my own research project.

[Image changes back to show Naomi seated and talking to the camera]

There were parts that were really hard, but it was once you actually got to the point and you found the answer to a question you had, it was really rewarding.

[Music plays and text appears: BHP Billiton Science and Engineering Awards 2017]

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