How big ideas stemmed from living in a small South Australian coastal town
13 February 2025
Combining one’s passions with their career can be incredibly fulfilling, especially when that passion is rooted in helping others. This rings true for Renee Goreham who was the focus of our first Under the Microscope of the year, and whose expertise recently landed her on Science & Technology Australia‘s Superstars of STEM” list for 2025.
Combining one’s passions with their career can be incredibly fulfilling, especially when that passion is rooted in helping others. This rings true for Renee Goreham who was the focus of our first Under the Microscope of the year, and whose expertise recently landed her on Science & Technology Australia‘s Superstars of STEM” list for 2025.
Dr Goreham’s life-long philosophy is to push the boundaries of what is known, and her post-doctoral nanotechnology research at The University of Newcastle does just that. Her interests lie in nature’s own nanoparticles, called extracellular vesicles, and she has been exploring how these natural materials can be used for earlier diagnosis and more effective drug delivery.
Dr Goreham says that her research aims to “solve critical challenges, like early cancer detection, by creating innovative technologies”. She is currently developing a breathalyser to detect early lung cancer.
During our Q&A interview, she expressed her gratitude to Science and Technology Australia for their “transformative” Superstars of STEM program, which she believes platforms role models that “inspire young people, especially women and those from under-represented backgrounds, to see STEM as a viable and exciting career path”.
Hailing from Port Augusta, a small coastal town in South Australia, she credits her high school Physics teacher for instilling in her a passion for “discovering the undiscovered” in STEM, and for showing her that she can achieve “more than [she] ever imagined”. As a rural town native herself, Dr Goreham believes that one of the biggest challenges facing higher education in Australia is ensuring equitable access to education, particularly for students in rural and remote areas. She asserts that, “we need to provide resources and support to ensure that all students, regardless of their background, have the opportunity to pursue higher education”.
Her list of accolades extends beyond the success with Science and Technology Australia. In 2023, she was awarded the 2023 Community Outreach to Physics Award by The Australian Institute of Physics NSW, and she was also bestowed with a prestigious Women in Research fellowship in 2020.
Dr Goreham encourages incoming higher education students to step out of their comfort zone, be endlessly curious, and to be open to their journeys taking unexpected turns, as they can lead to the most rewarding discoveries.
