Distinguished Prof Susan Scott has always been fascinated by gravity and the unknown. 

“When I was a small child, humans first landed on the moon,” she says.

“I remember watching that on the black-and-white television and seeing the astronauts leaping around, and I was fascinated by the differences in gravity between the moon and earth.

“As time went on, I got more and more interested.”

Her curiosity has held her in good stead; she was recently awarded the prestigious George Szekeres Medal of the Australian Mathematical Society.

Just the third woman to receive the award, and the first female recipient from ANU, the award recognises Prof Scott’s outstanding contribution to research in the mathematical sciences, including her work on the structure of space-time, singularities, black holes and cosmology. 

A world-leading mathematical physicist and pioneer in gravitational wave experiments, she was a part of the international team of 1000 scientists that detected ripples in space and time, known as gravitational waves, for the first time in 2015.

It all started in high school where she studied Newtonian gravity and relativity in university. 

Graduating with first-class honours from Melbourne’s Monash University, she completed her PhD at the University of Adelaide before being awarded a Rhodes Postdoctoral Fellowship, which took her to Oxford University for four years. 

She returned to Australia after being offered a position at ANU as a postdoctoral fellow. 

Now teaching the next generation of mathematicians and physicists, she continues to decode the great expanse of space and time.

“Throughout my career, most of the people doing research mathematics in the academic system have been men, and there have been very few female mathematicians during the time I’ve been around and fewer receive these top recognitions, so it feels very special to be recognised in this way,” says Prof Scott. 

Established in 2001, the medal is awarded to someone who has produced an “outstanding contribution to the mathematical sciences”.

For Prof Scott, the award also holds sentimental value.

“I have a very special connection with the family,” she says.

Peter Szekeres, George’s son, was Susan’s PhD supervisor.

“It’s a nice aspect about receiving this particular award,” she says.

“I’ve known George Szekeres and I’ve worked with his son.

“There’s a lot of connection with that well-known family and mathematics and mathematical physics.”

Prof Scott was also the first Australian to be elected as a fellow of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation. 

The elite society includes noted scientists such as Stephen Hawking and Nobel Laureates Roger Penrose and Kip Thorne. 

Noting throughout most of her career the lack of female examples and role models in mathematics and physics, Susan says she had to ask herself whether she could actually pursue a career in academia as a woman.

“It’s important for young women to see examples of successful women in these physical sciences,” she says.

“It’s a wonderful field of study and we are trying to encourage more girls to take part.

“I feel that receiving an award like this is another step in helping young women to have that sense of empowerment, that they can do these things.”

Her passion to encourage girls to take part in STEM has seen her participate in initiatives such as Einstein-First and Quantum Girls. 

Keen to continue to foster a love of space and time, Prof Scott says the continued exploration of the unknown is incredibly important. 

“I love the thrill of approaching a problem that you don’t really know the answer to,” she says.

“Some things you try might fail, like all things, but you also have successes and that’s very empowering to discover something new about science and about the universe that’s not been known or understood before.

“It’s a kind of excitement that’s hard to explain to people who don’t do it, but I love that thrill of the unknown.”