Dr Jessica Hamilton
Beamline Scientist - Australian Synchrotron (ANSTO)
Bachelor of Science (Honours, Geoscience) & Doctor of Philosophy (Environmental Mineralogy)
November 2021
Dr Jessica Hamilton is a Beamline Scientist at the Australian Synchrotron (ANSTO). The Australian Synchrotron is a particle accelerator that produces powerful beams of light, including high energy X-rays that Jessica uses for a range of analyses.
The Synchrotron funnels the light down machinery called a beamline, and has a range of experimental set-ups to analyse pretty much any sample you can think of with that light.
Jessica and her team operate one of these beamlines, and train scientists from around the country (and the world!) who come to the Synchrotron to use these world class instruments.
Jessica is also an active researcher in the field of environmental geoscience, and she uses synchrotron techniques a lot in her research.
What are the best parts about your job? What are the hardest parts?
The best part is the variety of science that I get to see and contribute to. The beamline I work on (X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy, or XAS) is used to determine the chemical form of an element of interest. That means it can be applied to virtually any field of science!
We get a lot of Earth scientists, because the chemical form of metals determines how mobile, toxic, or recoverable they are, but we also get a lot of people researching batteries, catalysis, and health.
What are the major challenges in your field?
I’m particularly focused on how we can use waste materials from the mining industry to sequester carbon dioxide, and also how we can recover additional valuable metals from them. The major challenge is in technology development. There are many stumbling blocks in the quest to scale up from small experiments in the lab, to field trials, to real life implementation. However there is a lot of interest in sustainable mining and CO2 negative technologies in recent years so I hope that as industry jumps on board - they will really help drive development in this area, and we will see advances much more quickly than we have been able to manage so far on small research budgets.
Inside the tunnels at the Australian Synchrotron
Why did you choose this career pathway?
I fell into this by accident, as I had no idea what I wanted to do. I took on a research project and PhD in university because I didn’t know what else to do, and was really enjoying that, so just kept going!
I got to use the Synchrotron a little during my PhD and just thought it was the coolest place in the world. I never imagined I would ever work there but when a job came up I went for it and got lucky!
I have always wanted to be as broad as possible in my skills and I’d rather be good at a lot of things over being great at one thing. So at uni I never thought I would like being an instrument scientist. But actually I’ve found this role has broadened my horizons more than ever, because of the range of science that is done on one instrument.
With the constant stream of scientists coming to visit and use the facility, it also opens up a lot of opportunities to meet people and build new collaborations in things that interest me.
The negative is probably something in common with anyone who has done a PhD and become specialised in anything: there are less job opportunities compared to, say, if I had gone to work in industry. However, this is what I love to do and so I wouldn’t change anything, and keeping broad research interests is a priority of mine.
How did you get to your current role?
Open pit mine. Jessica works on using waste from mines like this to trap carbon dioxide.
I dabbled in synchrotron techniques in my research as a PhD student and postdoc, and really loved every opportunity I had to learn more.
I guess I was just very lucky because as I was putting feelers out to see if there might be any opportunities, a job opened up to help build a new beamline. The job that was advertised was pretty technical and beyond me, but I applied just so they would know that I was keen to work there and in the hope that if they see my name coming up, they might think of me for future roles. But as it turned out, an internal staff member moved to the new beamline project, and they decided to hire me to back-fill the existing beamline where prior technical knowledge wasn’t a requirement!
My experience in Earth science was a plus because we have a lot of visiting researchers in that field, and my enthusiasm for synchrotron science might have helped in my favour too, who knows! A great thing was that I didn’t need to be an expert in synchrotrons already since these instruments are so unique that pretty much everything in the role is learned on the job.
How well did your degree prepare you for your career path?
I use skills from my degree a lot, since I’m still actively researching in the field. It helps me to understand other Earth scientists’ goals in their experiments, and how to ensure they get the best results possible.
Having said that, I’m pretty rusty on a lot of the detail from the degree, I just use what I need to know on a day to day basis, and google all the things I’ve forgotten.
I think the main thing I got out of my degree, and research projects afterwards, was the confidence that I can learn new things, and I’m not afraid to try and figure tricky things out. Any career is going to mostly consist of new knowledge learned on the job, and being able to tackle each learning curve with a can-do attitude is probably the best skill I got out of my university training.
What does your career progression look like from here?
I’m loving what I’m doing right now, so I can see myself here for a little while. But who knows! I have a long career ahead of me and am always looking to learn new things and make sure I’m having fun in a job.
I really have no idea what I might do next but my approach so far has just been to follow what I enjoy, and If I’m not enjoying it, take a leap into something else. It’s working so far!
What were your career worries and expectations when you were at uni?
I worried about the fact that I didn’t know what I wanted to do, worried I’d picked the wrong thing to study, or was going to miss out on opportunities compared to someone who did know what they were going to do and was very driven. I think it was because I hadn’t really had a chance to try anything yet.
Once I got to the end of my degree I did an Honours project to see if I liked research (I did), and tried a few internships in different industries. That really helped me get a clearer idea of the things I liked doing.
I’ve definitely let go of those worries now because I am doing something I enjoy, and I’ve realised I don’t have to know what I’m doing next as long as I’m in a good place for now.
What advice would you give to students in your study area trying to decide on a career path?
It sounds corny but follow your heart. I know there are a lot of practical considerations but forget superficial measures of prestige, etc. when you are looking at your next move. Follow what gives you satisfaction and enjoyment, and above all, follow good people.
No matter what you’re doing, workplaces are all people-based cultures, and if you can follow good mentors and people who will genuinely support you and build you up with encouragement and opportunities, that’s where I would go.
Anything else you’d like people to know about your job?
Although I’m an instrument scientist, this is a really people-focused job. I spend a lot of time training groups of scientists who visit for their experiments. It’s been quite social because instead of catching up with collaborators once a year at a conference, I get to spend time with a lot of different groups on a regular basis. That has been a nice surprise for me about this job and has become one of the reasons I love it - I feel very connected.