Vanessa is a wildlife reseacher, science communicator and woman in STEM. Her zoological background has taken her around the world for wildlife research. She is pioneering the use of emerging technologies for whale conservation. Her whale research has taken her to places like the Galapagos, Madagascar, Antarctica and Tonga. In her home country of Australia, she’s using drones in unique and creative ways to assess whale health as they move through the environment in a non invasive way. She’s flying drones through whale spray rising from a whale’s blowhole to collect samples of whale ‘snot’ to learn all kinds of biological information like DNA, hormones and bacteria. This gives us unprecedented insight into marine health in ways we never imagined!






































