This month we are profiling Wendy Lee, who is the Assistant Director, International Capacity Development, at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) Plant Protection and Environmental Biosecurity Division.
How did you find yourself on this career path?
From a young age I loved science, but I didn’t know what I wanted to specialise in. While studying at Australian National University (ANU), I found myself struggling to find third year units to complete my Bachelor of Science degree after the ANU’s Departments of Botany and Zoology merged to become the Botany and Zoology Division (BoZo) in 1991. I ended up selecting courses that had a strong entomology component (instead of botany) and I found that I really liked insects and was apparently good at being able to identify them (to order and family level). My ANU lecturers at the time, Professors Peter Cranston and Penny Gullan, saw my potential and helped me find a part-time job at CSIRO’s Australian National Insect Collection (ANIC) where I spent many hours handling specimens and entering species and locality data for beetles, dragonflies, stoneflies and termites into the ANIC Insect Database. Eventually, I became a technical officer in the Diptera section and spent my time sorting, identifying and curating the collection as well as participating in many diversity-based surveys.
In 1998, DAFF was looking for entomologists to build capacity in their risk analysis (policy) branch and I eventually moved and have been working in the department ever since. I’ve had short stints in operational areas (including airports, import clearance/cargo management), but have enjoyed working in the policy areas of plant biosecurity.
What does a typical workday look like for you?
I spend my time organising, planning and delivering capacity building activities. My workday varies, but generally consists of talking and emailing diagnosticians to see if they are available to deliver activities, reading and actioning emails that keep popping up, negotiating and writing contracts, and paying invoices.
How long have you worked in this area?
I have worked at DAFF for more than 25 years across policy and operational areas, over the last 15 years I have provided technical capacity building activities in the Asia-Pacific region.
What roles have you held previously?
My previous roles include conducting import risk analyses on a range of commodities, participating in Australian Plant Pest Database (APPD) technical meetings and discussions, managing renewal of compliance agreements and re-accreditation training of brokers and accredited persons in the import clearance/cargo management operational areas; and curating and maintaining the diptera, Siphonaptera and aquatic insect collections in the Australian National Insect Collection (ANIC).
What training/education have you received?
I completed a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree specialising in biology (entomology and botany) at ANU in 1993. In 2021, I commenced a Master of Philosophy degree at ANU to study the taxonomy of Australian Mycomya fungus gnats involved in the pollination of Pterostylis orchids in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) region. The species identification of the dipteran pollinators of pterostylis orchids will encompass the classical morphology approach in parallel with modern techniques of DNA barcoding.
What is your most memorable career achievement?
I don’t have a specific memorable career achievement but I am grateful that in my current job I can make a difference and help developing countries in building technical biosecurity skills (e.g. SPS awareness, pest risk analysis, diagnostics). In 2001, I was pleasantly surprised when the team I was working in was awarded an Australia Day Achievement Award for our efforts in working through the appeals process for the Import Risk Analyses for Californian table grapes and Thai durians. This was the first time the department had gone through an appeals process and it was very exciting to be part of group that was working out how to do doing something entirely new.
What advice would you give anyone starting or changing their career?
Go with the flow. I thought I would be a botanist working in a Herbarium, collecting and curating plant specimens, as I really enjoyed the botany subjects at uni. However, I ended up becoming an entomologist. Things just happened that led me down this path.
Everything happens for a reason. During my time at CSIRO in the mid-1990s, it was suggested that I consider doing a Masters degree looking at the taxonomy of fungus gnats from the Mycetophilidae family, but I turned down the offer. I was completely exhausted after finishing my Honours degree and learnt that for any further study, I needed to find a topic that I was really interested in and had a taxonomic component. At the time, I honestly couldn’t understand why anyone would want to study these boring, small, brown, mosquito-like flies.
In 2020 (during the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns), I discovered the beauty of Australian native orchids in my local region. During an organised spring walk to look at orchids on Black Mountain in the ACT, an off-hand comment from an ANU PhD student (who was a guide on the walk), lamented the lack of expertise to identify fungus gnats involved in the pollination of native orchids. This comment inspired me to commence a Masters degree at ANU looking at the taxonomy of mycetophilid fungus gnats! It’s only taken me 30 years, but the same topic appearing twice in my lifetime was a sign that I should do this study.
Wendy Lee on a visit to the Plant Protection Department (PPD) in Hanoi, Vietnam in late March 2023.
Wendy Lee with her DAFF colleagues, Dr Bosibori Bett (left) and Carol Quashie-Williams (right).