Brighter congratulates Bright Spark Candice Lam on her new scholarship

Last time Brighter caught up with Queensland-based Candice Lam, she gave us a few valuable life lessons (courtesy of Yoda), expressed her lifelong love for robots, and expanded on her globe-trotting adventures as an offshore gas worker. With a career history that spans more than 15 years of work in the industry, including a stint at BHP, Candice has recently taken up an opportunity to drive process improvements and capability in her new position at cutting-edge aerospace company KBR. 

In 2019, she won a Women’s Agenda Leadership Award, and last year featured in an Engineers Australia initiative as one of 10 young emerging female leaders in Australian engineering. She’s even found time for some new pursuits in the past year by writing and illustrating children’s books, and creating a web comic called Diversity Bites. 

And as if all that wasn’t impressive enough, she has now added to her list of venerable achievements as a recipient of the prized Science meets Parliament Technology Scholarship for 2021. This Scholarship — sponsored by Brighter as part of the annual Science meets Parliament event organised by Science & Technology Australia (STA) — is awarded to a select few candidates each year. The scholarship recognises the brightest and best of Australian STEM talent, with STEM referring to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.  

Recipients of the scholarship receive one-on-one mentoring with a STEM ambassador, workshops, conferencing, and the chance to meet MPs, both virtually and in-person at a Gala Dinner. 

Candice said that the scholarship was a great opportunity to hold conversations about the importance of investing in STEM for women and minority groups in Australia, a subject on which she is particularly passionate. 

“Women and minority groups currently rely on chances through their immediate circle or networking, which is not a sustainable solution if we want to see greater diversity in the workforce and discover hidden talents of all Australians,” she said. 

“My hope is that together we will be able to achieve greater equality in the opportunities that are available for women to enter STEM careers whether they are young students, returning to work after having children, or simply interested in an area of STEM but wasn’t able to pursue a career for whatever reason.  

“I want to break the ‘barriers of entry’ for women and minorities through a program of work focusing on addressing these issues and be able to run a successful campaign to highlight these moments of ‘breaking the barriers’ to create a new benchmark for the industry.” 

Brighter recognises the importance of STEM subjects and we are very proud to sponsor this year’s Technology Scholarship. We offer our congratulations to Candice for her excellent achievement. 

To read Candice’s original Bright Sparks interview from 2019 interview with Candice, during which time she was an employee at gas company BHP, click here.