Run wild.

Article | Updated 5 years ago

Diana Jones - Executive Director, Collections and Research

As a child, what career path did you want to take?

My father was a zoologist turned teacher, who passionately believed in education, especially for the three women in his family. In fact my mother, my sister and I were all at university (three different universities) at the same time, which was very unusual in the 1960s!

My childhood was on the other side of the globe in the UK, in the lush, verdant combes and valleys of Devon and later on in the Cotswolds. I am of the generation of post-World War Two children who were allowed to ‘run wild’. So I became an explorer: I was a hunter/gatherer, I made fires and shelters, I was taught to grow and catch food to eat – and I watched nature.

I became engrossed in the moment, with an intense curiosity and total absorption that obviously led me to become a natural scientist and, ultimately, has led to the inner satisfaction of my own personal exploration. This was my experience of landscape, environment and atmosphere.

And for the young girl exploring the beaches of Devon with her father, little did she know that her future would involve exploring some of the most undiscovered yet important marine environments in the world.

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Is that where you ended up? If so why, or why not?

As well as my natural history exploring, I received a broad education, which included literature, French and Latin, as well as physics, chemistry, mathematics, botany and zoology. I had also studied the piano since the age of five, enjoying and exceling at it, and passing exams to enable me to have majored in music at university. However, I loved science and decided to keep the arts side of me in the hobby area.

I specialised in chemistry, botany and zoology, and went on to gain an Open Scholarship to a new Biological Sciences course at the University of Birmingham in 1964.

This was a lucky break, as the course included geology, as well as the then new disciplines of genetics and ecology, which were to serve me well in my, as then, unknown future endeavours.

My post-graduate work was in a cancer research group in the Microbiology Department, trying to push macromolecules through human cell membranes in an endeavour to treat intracellular diseases.

After a number of adventures in Bermuda and the USA, I ended up in Perth with two small children, and I needed to get a job. By chance I saw an advert for a part-time Graduate Research Assistant in the Crustacean Department, WA Museum. I had done a week on crustaceans in the dim past, and as I had a credible research background I decided to apply – and was successful.

The Museum was very accommodating regarding the hours I worked, to fit in with my parental responsibilities. Little did I realise that this opportunity had opened an Aladdin’s cave of opportunities for me. I was back with my science, albeit working with whole animals rather than cells, but I was really enjoying working with the fascinating diversity of crustaceans.

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Do you have a female role model?

I have two female role models. When I arrived at the Museum, there were only two female scientists, Shirley Slack-Smith and Loisette Marsh. These amazing, pioneering women most generously mentored me, passing on their ubiquitous knowledge, and gently steering me to find my way.

These women remain unsung heroes, yet they are genuine pioneers. They joined the Museum in the 1960s, at a time when it was expanding from a small museum to a large, multidisciplinary organisation.

Both participated in biological expeditions to far-flung coasts of WA, which they meticulously documented in field notebooks, and has led to them having a vast, detailed appreciation and knowledge of our vast coastline.

The numerous specimens collected by the expeditions were also meticulously curated and documented, mostly by them, by hand, in the vast museum registers. These specimens formed the foundations of the WA Museum’s Aquatic Zoology collections. And all of this was done while successfully rearing their children.

It is no wonder that they did not have much, if any, time to write papers – this was unconsciously the domain of their male colleagues, and this was the template replicated in a number of Australian museums during this time.

Yet these talented, wonderful, knowledgeable and gracious women have generously encouraged me, without rancour, to achieve heights that they would have considered out of their reach in their time.

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How has the workplace changed, if it all, in regards to the treatment and level of respect shown to women?

I was lucky enough to have come into the Museum at a time of change. I was among the first in the Museum to apply contemporary methods to registering the collection, to research techniques and to broader communications. This enabled me to rise up the management ranks.

I became Curator of Crustacea in 1988. I also volunteered to train as the Museum’s Grievance Officer.

In those days there was no HR department and I had been perturbed at the way some of the junior female staff were being treated.

Undertaking more training, I became the Museum’s Senior Grievance and Sexual Harassment Officer until the HR department was instigated in 1992.

These positions gave me tremendous insight into the management of staff and, consequently, I began to be asked to deputise for various senior staff, including as the Director – a rather odd situation as my substantive position was a humble science curator (and I’m a female!).

Today, there is much more awareness in regard to the treatment and level of respect shown to women, and to equality in general, which is to be lauded.

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What is one of your proudest work-related achievements?

I am very proud of a long-standing and innovative 20 year partnership between the Museum and Woodside Energy Ltd, a project that I initiated when I was a curator in 1998.

The partnership has had two phases: a highly successful project documenting the marine biodiversity of the Dampier Archipelago (1998 – 2006), followed by a similar project focused on the Kimberley (2006 – 2018). The Archipelago is a major hub for the mining and export of iron ore, salt and liquefied natural gas, with Dampier port one of Australia’s busiest. The Kimberley project, which had the aim of contributing to the sustainable development of that region, posed a very different set of challenges as the region is vast and remote, the coast sparsely populated and much of its 1,000km long coastline difficult to access. Both areas also have recreational assets whose attractions include boating, diving, snorkelling and fishing.

The research has been instrumental in building a picture of marine life in the North-Western waters of WA, aiding environmental management and conservation for generations to come.

Together the projects have generated vast inventories of collected marine species, have discovered more than 1,000 new species, have hosted international workshops, and involved many scientists and research institutions from all over the world.

The findings have been documented in scientific and other publications, and presented to the national and international public through a variety of media – exhibitions, websites, videos, documentaries, blogs and educational kits. The results have also fed into the management of marine parks (since the projects commenced areas of both the Dampier Archipelago and Kimberley coast have been designated as marine parks), as well as contributing to the development of best practice strategies in hydrocarbon exploration and production. All the faunal specimens collected are held in perpetuity in the Woodside Collection at the WA Museum and the flora in the WA Herbarium. To date, the two projects have won five “major environmental awards and seven web and documentary awards.

Although the Dampier project presented a huge opportunity with an unprecedented budget for the Museum, I initially met a lot of internal opposition with people suggesting that industry would dictate our program. However, Woodside and the Museum were in agreement that all the results and data remain in the public domain. Our partnership has been totally transparent and we have worked together for 20 years. Over that time there have been many benefits beyond the research, in terms of education and community engagement. It was the first time the Museum had developed such a partnership. Today, the mindset of Museum staff has changed and many other successful partnerships with industry have been created.

The New Museum for Western Australia will open to the public in 2020. This will present an international stage where we have a once in a lifetime opportunity to show a world-wide audience what our scientists and those from other scientific and conservation agencies are finding, translating why this work is important, explaining why we should be looking after our environment and, hopefully, engendering in young people a curiosity about their world and a desire to pursue careers in conservation science.

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