My Australia Story: Associate Professor Paola Magni

Maggie Jiang: Good evening, colleagues, friends and guests. My name is Maggie Jiang. I'm from UWA School of Social Sciences.

I'm also the founder and chair of my Australia Story Public Talk series. We're very delighted you could join us this evening for this very special event.

Can I begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet today and pay my respect to the Elders past present and emerging. Storytelling plays a crucial role in highlighting the diverse career journeys and contributions of migrants and enriching our understanding of their impact on society. And through these narratives, we celebrate resilience and achievements of individuals who have forged their paths in a new land. My Australia Story Public Talk Series, the initiative aims to share the stories of individuals who have chosen Australia as their home and have built successful careers.

We hope this program can serve as a world spring of inspiration for individuals from all walks of life transcending cultural boundaries.

Now, following the resounding success of the previous five sessions, we are here tonight for the sixth chapter of this journey. In each episode, we host a speaker who generously share the story of the career and invaluable insights that gained on the path to success. After the talk, we have 10 minutes for questions. At the end, we leave some time for networking.

Now, this program will not be possible without the support from the UWA and the WA Museum. And we have senior leaders from both organizations tonight. We have Professor Amanda Davies, head of School of Social Science at the UWA, and we have Mr. Alec Coles, CEO of WA Museum.

Now, before I invite Mr. Alec Coles to the stage to introduce our speaker, let me quickly read a message from a VIP guest. Now, the Italian Council in Perth Federico Nicolaci, has sent a heartfelt message in honour of Dr. Paola Magni's achievements and her journey from Italy to Australia. Here's the message:

“It is a great honour to join you in spirit this evening to celebrate Dr. Paola Magni's remarkable achievements and the journey that brought her from Italy to Australia. Dr. Magni embodies the strength and innovation of Italians abroad. Carrying the spirit of Italy as she contributes profoundly to the world, her dedication to science, her impact in forensics research, and her role in the community are true source of pride for Italy and inspiration for us all. As an Italian, I'm deeply proud for her courage, resilience and excellence that has been fittingly recognized with the Italian knighthood. I would also like to thank UWA as well as W.A.Museum for their support in hosting such significant events. May Dr. Magni's story continues to inspire future generations both here and Italy.”

Thank you very much, Council General. That's a very lovely message.

Now, please, let's welcome Mr. Alec Coles to the stage to say a few words and to introduce our distinguished speaker, Dr. Paola Magni, formally.

Thank you.

[audience applause]

Mr. Alec Coles: Oh, look at that. In big print as well. That's good. Got my own.

Good evening. Look, as part of the WA Museum's reconciliation journey, I also would like to acknowledge traditional owners. So, Ngaala kaaditj Whadjuk Noongar moort keyen kaadak nidjar boodjar So, I acknowledge the Wadjak Noongar people, Elders, past, and present as custodians of this land. And (Noongar language)

My heart is happy particularly to see my good friend, Dr. Paola Magni here this evening, somebody that we have worked with in many iterations, I guess, over the last few years.

I first became, and I hope I'm not doing any spoilers here, but I first became aware of Paola through the competition that we run called Fame-Lab. It's run through our foundation, which is a sort of opportunity for, I guess, I don't know what we would call you in those days, but kind of emerging, erupting scientists to come and spend three minutes competing by trying to communicate what they're up to and why it's important. And so, it's a competition that we run Australia-wide, and the winner goes to Cheltenham in the UK, to the Cheltenham Science Festival, one of the biggest science festivals in the world, and competes for Australia.

And that year, Paola won it. And it was a heady, it was a heady combination of barnacles and shoes, which, you know, I'm sure you might hear more about during the evening, which was that some of you may have noticed something complimenting Paola on her shoes this evening because she makes a bit of a thing about the barnacle shoe connection.

Since that time, Paola has become renowned as, apparently, I hadn't come across this before, Australia's bug whisperer. This is an SBS epithet that was applied to her. And she is a leading global figure in forensic science, specialising in the use of insects and other invertebrates to solve complex criminal investigations.

And originally from Turin, Paola is now, I think, pretty much nailed on West Australian here. And there's certainly plenty of work for her here, both in terms of forensic work, but also, in terms of teaching others. As you will see, her unique blend of expertise and passion has made her an international authority. And I know she's often sought by people world over, actually, for her views, for commentary and for presentation. And she has, I guess, recently, well, this year at least, been named Australian Science Communicator of the Year. So, no pressure, Paola, but we're expecting.

She is an associate professor of forensic science at Murdoch University. As I mentioned before, deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of scientists, particularly women. She's been an inspiration for female scientists and certainly, and I guess that's the shoes again, trying to break down stereotypes in science.

She, as it says here, I know she balances her role as a wife, mother of two young daughters, scientist, podcaster, media commentator and ambassador for social change. And I think she is an exemplar for somebody who is able to balance all of that.

And again, quite recently, she was awarded the night of the Order of the Star of Italy, hence the message from the Consulate, and was inducted into the WA Women's Hall of Fame in quite recently.

This is going to be fantastic. It always is.

Paola also works with the museum in a number of ways. She works with us on our advisory committees down in Fremantle. And as I said, she has many stories to tell, but of course, relevant to tonight, is the story of her journey to WA and how that's panned out.

Paola, Thanks.

[audience applause]

(8.09mins)

Dr Paola Magni: Thank you. Thank you for the kind introduction, Maggie. And thank you as well, Alec, for being here tonight. I know that you're very busy. Many events are happening at the same time. And it's actually lovely to have a little bit of music as a background. I actually appreciate that. Maybe we can sneak out and get a drink at the end as well. We're in, so they cannot take us out. So, it's pretty good. And thank you to all of you for deciding to spend the Friday night with me in my company. I hope to make it worthwhile, but if it's not the case, don't tell anyone.

But don't give up on this series. Jump on YouTube. There are the previous episodes of this series. They are fantastic. My predecessors put the bar very, very high. And they are fantastic tips and live journey to listen to. So, I recommend you listen to that. Before I begin, I would like to make two important acknowledgements. The first one is to the Traditional Owners of the land where we gather tonight. I pay my respect to the Elders past and present. And they know the enduring connection to the land. The second acknowledgement is to you. And I want to acknowledge the diversity that is in this room, a beautiful diversity, because each single of you bring something different, a different background, a different story. And with your experiences, we are all diverse and it's a beautiful connection tonight.

The things that I will share with you tonight, will then resonate with you in a different way. For some of you will be just stories and maybe some fun stories and some insight about my journey. But for some of you, some of the things that I will say may resonate differently. It can be more personal. Now, if at any point something that I say makes you feel uncomfortable, or you don't feel safe, I don't mind if you decide to step out of the room. It's more important your personal journey than mine from this point of view.

A few months ago, when Maggie approached me to do this, to participate in this series, I was very interested because I like these kinds of experiences. And knowing myself, I said yes, before even thinking through. And then, as I usually do, oh, what I've done. And then she said, have a look to the presentation of the previous period, just to have an idea. Oh, my God, that's panicking then. Because as I look closer to tonight, to be honest, my anxiety went more and more because while I'm most of the time in front of people, pretty much on a daily basis, I talk, I teach, but I normally share what I do. I don't share who am I. I don't share my personal journey. And so it's a bit more personal, it becomes a little bit more difficult. And it's a new experience for me to share pieces of me. So, bear with me, I could become emotional. Even when I was writing this, I become pretty emotional. A few times I talk sometimes to put this chit chat together.

And I guess this is also due to a little cultural shock that I had when I moved to Australia. And this cultural shock is that I found that here Australians have the amazing talent of something that is called small talks.

Italians don't do small talks. Italians are very passionate and intense. And when we talk, we go deep into the things. And if someone asks you, how are you? You want to know actually, who are they? And then you go deep into that and you want to know a little bit more and you look for the information, the details, the drama. And if there is gossip, even better.

And I remember when I was spending time with my grandmother, with her friends, with the old ladies, they were sharing stories about their youth but also love to talk about how they were feeling. And ‘my leg is hurt, my heart is...’ It was pretty much a challenge of details of how many times they went to the doctors and what kind of things that they found. It was really like who wins more, who suffered the most. And if at some point someone was winning, there was a second round because they were bringing the story of the relatives that were maybe feeling even worse.

So, I came to Australia in 2010 for the first time during my PhD. And I was eager to know everything, to know everyone, to meet more people and to share this story. Where do they come from? I knew that there were people from everywhere with different journals. I want to know, but didn't go exactly as I planned. There was not this big sharing situation. I found everyone to be very nice and polite.

Everyone was asking, how are you? Thank you, please have a good day. But really the conversation was not there. They were not taking the effort for the next step. So, everyone was friendly, but they were not taking the leap of become friends. That is, I found that pretty difficult at the beginning. So, it was very different from what I expected. I guess I had in mind the stereotype of the Australian with a longer, friendly, with a surf normally. And everyone was very friendly and say hello in a way that we used to instead of using the phone.

And these days it's now different with the smartphone. But it's ok, because it's ok. I'm ok being by myself, so it was not that big of a deal. And I guess this is because I was an early child in my family. My parents had only me and no brothers and sisters. And I had some cousins, but they were living far away. And in I was living in the north of Italy in a city, in a small apartment, in a building in which there were no other kids. And I was doing ballet. That is not exactly a team sport. You are with other people, but especially when you're young, it's not exactly a team, a team sport. So, I was not exposed that much.

Yes, I was going to school, and I was exposed to other kids. But coming back home, there were my toys. I loved drawing a little bit of TV as usual. But this, I guess, is the moment in which I found myself. OK, finding myself, my time, my me time, love my me time. I would love to have more me time these days. Come find it. Anyway, toys, lots of toys.

I was a bit spoiled from that point of view because I was the only one. And my auntie, my mom's sister, she never had kids herself. So, I was kind of a kid for her. And she was a kindergarten teacher. She was getting me lots of toys. She loved, loved, loved dolls. I was full of dolls. I never played with dolls. I loved my auntie, but I hated the dolls because I really didn't know what to do with dolls.

My favourite toy was a kitchenette, a plastic, basic kitchenette with lots of pots and pans. And there was a little thing that you can light up. It was looking like a flamethrower. It was pretty much cooking. And my mom was giving me pieces of pasta in different shapes, and I could pretend cooking. But really, what I really like to do with the kitchenette was that when my mom was not looking, I was sneaking in the laundry and I was getting soap, like gel soap and powder and spray and foam, and I was mixing them together. And I had a little booklet, and I was writing ingredients, what colour became it. So, it was a sort of a little chemistry kit for me.

And I was writing down what kind of colour, what kind of texture, what kind of yeah, new smell was happening and things like that. So that was my first chemistry book was that.

Then now touring northwest of Italy, just outside touring, there is a beautiful little country, a village called Aviliana. Aviliana is a beautiful gem with a beautiful lake surrounded by the Alps Mountains. And a little bit hidden behind the city there is the remains of a factory of dynamites that was developed after a novel and was pretty famous, especially during the Second World War. And they took us to visit it as part of the one of the school trips that we did during school, because it's all about chemistry and industrial things and history.

I was so fascinated with the way they were talking about nitro-glycerine, bombs, explosion, the history. I was so excited because that was my first moment in which chemistry translated from formulas that we had on a piece of paper to the application to something that makes boom.

People like things that boom, come on. Now, I was so, so, excited. I was talking about that.

My mom didn't realize that much. But a week after my mom come back home with the shopping and there was soap with glycerine. Now, was not nitro-glycerine? But I thought a glycerine was close enough to start making something interesting in my kitchenette.

So, I guess my parents never knew that I was developing a clandestine dynamite lab in the in the under their nose. And they really didn't understand what I think. I was just walking around with things.

They didn't really understand that I was into science, probably until I asked for a lab coat for the Mardi-Gras for the carnival time in Italy. And also, to visit again, the Oceanography Museum of Monte Carlo for the seventh time. I said, no, that's enough. And they kind of offered me a deal. It was a pretty good deal. They said, no more the trip, but you can choose a pet. Oh, now, little build building. I cannot have a cat. I cannot have a dog, but I can have a hamster. So, then cookie arrived.

(19.11mins)

Cookie was a little brown hamster. And I was loving the hamster. Get a book about the hamster. I want to know in everything about the hamster. And I will let you know my friends that had a hamster. And one of my friends was going for a holiday and he had a hamster as well. A creamy hamster. His name was Milky Way. And so the proposal was, can you look after Milky Way? Because you know about hamsters, so you can look after Milky Way. And so Milky Way came to meet cookie and become friends. But the friendship becomes a relationship. And from two hamsters in about three months later, because Cookie stays with us, we had 10 hamsters, all brown. That was very interesting, because at that stage at school, we were studying Mendel and how things change in colours and shape and the peas and the sheep. Luckily, I didn't have the space for the sheep. But the first generation of the hamster were all brown. And then I needed to know what is going to happen with the second general, the third and the fourth generation. So F1, F2, F3. And my booklet was getting more and more because after the chemistry book, I started the biology and genetics book about hamsters. My mom was very happy about that. So, surprise, surprise.

By the way, in school, we were not talking about what's the name? Interbreeding, inbreeding. So yeah, I just did a few things that I was not supposed to do, but I was not prepared for that anyway. F2, we got a bunch of brown and two creamy ones. Oh, wow. Wow. First, double wow. Second. So yes, that works.

And so basically all of my friends that year had a hamster at some point. And my parents become the less popular parents of the school.

(21.10mins)

Now, my dad was the director of a hotel, and my mom was a teacher for children with special needs. Neither of them were particularly interested in science or knew anything about science, but my dad had a big love for geography, road trips.

Always my grandmother lived in the countryside of my region. And we used to visit and could take an hour to go there. But he loved to take all the little roads and not the highway was taking three hours to go was painful. But we saw amazing things.

And the other thing that he liked was Jules Verne books. So going to sleep when he was home, he used to read me things like 2000 League Under the Sea, travel to the moon and things like that.

I used to love that I can't remember the dreams. Probably were pretty wild. But I think that the love for nature, for discovery, for innovation and things came from that time spent with my dad reading these kinds of books.

(22.24mins)

Ok, my mom, she was supposed to be here tonight, but she is sick, unfortunately, had also a remarkable journey, very different. So, she moved from the south of Italy to the north when she was 16. And she was working as a teacher in an orphanage as an assistant teacher because she was too young. But at the same time, she was taking the exam for…

[Paola is crying and is handed a tissue]

Thank you. Sorry, guys. Told you.

OK, so she was studying for an exam to become a teacher. And she was working so far away from a city because she was supporting her family because my grandfather came back from the Second World War with an injury and could not support the family.

Then she met my dad and things happened. And so, when at the beginning of the 80s, the orphanage closed in Italy and all the teachers decided for different parts around the same type of institutions. And she choose again the special needs kids. And she was very, very passionate about that. She really had a grief for kids and special needs kids. And when she retired, she decided to open up our house for our for fostering a kid and for six years, we had a beautiful little boy with Down syndrome living with us. And was a fantastic time. You can really learn a lot of things by spending time with people with some sort of diversity.

Now, now to be honest, my mom hated every single animal that I had in the house, because from the hamsters with the excuse of what I was studying, I brought frogs and lizards and snakes and spiders. And then when you are in a community, that love these kinds of things there are exchanging happening or people that give you something because there is holiday or, you know, kind of thing.

She never understood my fascination but tolerated. And I think she provided me with the biggest lesson that I could have learned that is to love and give yourself unconditionally, even when you don't fully understand. Sometimes you don't get why someone else has a specific passion or why someone loves certain things.

But with passions, there is a moment in which things fall in place, and you really understand the path that this person is choosing and the passion that this person has.

So, it was not a big surprise when I decided to study in natural sciences at the university because I really love nature. And I was always a big observer of anything around me. And yes, I love to have a microscope, but I was not much into looking blindly on something for hours and hours. Also, I was not interested in animals opening up and doing things. I was not going to be a biologist or a vet. I was looking into something more realistically. And I think I was loving the nature in the way my mom told me to love in this unconditional way. I'm just trying to understand the dynamics of the things that connect to each other. And at some point you will find the answer.

So natural sciences were giving me this kind of overview. There was a little bit of everything that was allowing me to understand things that change, but they always have resilience and this dynamic balance that you find at the end. It's not always static. It's that dynamic balance that was very, very fascinating for me.

The years at the University of Turin were interesting because I was studying at the university around the time in which the city was getting upside down for the preparation of the Winter Olympics of 2006, the city changed shape completely, but also the surrounding of the city, because some of the mountains were pretty much put down. The forest were put down to have the ski part and study ecology and natural sciences. There was a lot of discussion about what we are doing to the nature just for the sake of 15 days of Olympic Games.

So, I started hating the snow. I had anything connected to it. I was skiing, and I stopped skiing. I refused to do that, but I came back with my love for the sea and for scuba diving. So I finished my courses, and I became the youngest instructor of scuba diving in Italy. That was great because I could spend the summers in paradise in a fantastic place in the South of Italy, the Red Sea, Mauritius. I took clients everywhere and, I had fun while I was getting some money for the rest of the year and things like that.

So, no forensic science yet. You guys are here for forensic science and not giving you forensic science yet because I had no idea about it. I mean forensic science is not something that we used to have on TV. CSI came much after I started my path. And with CSI not on TV and the only model that we had on TV was Jessica Fletcher in "Murder, She Wrote" was not that inspiring to be honest with the bicycle and the cop and the doctor and the police guy. It was not that great.

Also, forensic science was not something that was taught at the university in the natural science curriculum and honestly not even entomology. Entomology was an elective course in our course that I found absurd because insects are everywhere.

Anyway, entomology for me was a sliding door. To be honest more a slamming door in my face than a sliding door because I guess at some point everyone study arrived to a point where things fall apart and you need to find yourself again.

At that moment for me was coming back from a fantastic experience in the middle of nowhere Kazakhstan. I won a scholarship to participate in an expedition to study reptilians and amphibians together with a group of people from Germany, Kazakhstan, Russia, Italy to study the new animals pioneering the RLC region. It was fantastic but then I was questioning if I really wanted to spend a year of my life studying genetics of frogs just to know why the chromosomes of this number rather than that number. I didn't feel that applicable, didn't find it inspired, I didn't find it something was not resonating with me. Plus, I had an issue with a professor and a friend of mine took a job that I would like to do and so it was you know the moment in which you're so down so low that you just need to scratch more and you're so down. So, when you're in quicksand it's better stop moving and take some time and that is what I did.

I took some time off; I went diving for a week and I found myself probably better now in a underwater maybe it's a nitrogen I don't know the martini effect of the too much nitrogen I guess that can help sometimes and I decided to change my course of study. I removed the course of that professor luckily it was an elective not a core and I had to put entomology because I was in the middle of the semester there was not much that I could do there was either entomology or a one-off project on sea snails.

Come on I'm just coming back from a place with Manta rays and you want me to study sea snails. Come on. Let's give it a go to the bugs and in one of the first classes the professor had a simple statement that says insects are everywhere okay but not all the insects are studied insects are mostly studied if they're beautiful: like butterflies or beetles; if they're dangerous like mosquitoes they bring water the pathogens or because they are useful like pollinators bees and things like that, and then he noted something saying by the way in the last few years, there are some group of people that are studying insects that can be used for a criminal investigation, and that was interesting. I don't know if anyone has heard that sentence, but I still had the notebook that day and that was highlighted a million times with so many arrows. What is that? He never said the word forensic. He never said anything about forensic entomology, says nothing. But that afternoon, I ran to the national library. I am giving away my age because there was no Google to google it, and I found about forensic entomology I found that the closest place in which stuff has been done in Europe was the natural history museum. I also found that there was a conference coming at the National History Museum, and I also found that nobody was doing that in Italy and forensic is about investigation, and in Italy, you need to be a pathologist, I want to be a medical, you need to be part of the military group so like police. I'm not obedient enough to be in a military rank so probably not but I was curious and passionate and so and I like the challenge. I think challenges are a privilege, any kind of challenges so in the following two months, I managed to call everyone at the pathology department of the university or the health service, and I found a way to let me accept and let me be accepted at the pathology department for a period of training with them they were pretty happy because I basically was saying to them look I come with a spoon, and I want to scoop away maggots and they hate maggots and so I was absolutely well-counted so I got myself a few books there were only two books at the time, English books. I had to translate the books like nearly word by word using the vocabulary because in Italy at that stage, English was not part of the curriculum in a proper way. I really didn't speak much, and I didn't even read much so was very difficult.

(33.03min)

Anyway, there was a local Bunnings, I got a kit, I read everything I needed to be in the kit. The kit was ready in the car and finally the call arrives. I was expected at the scene and that is the moment of truth because I read everything. The kit was ready, and the body was there and there were police, the public prosecutor, the pathologist lots of people probably journalists and people around and things and the body was probably stinking full of maggots, and I never saw a body before so that was the moment that I'm going to embarrass myself. I'm going to embarrass everything and I'm going to make the precedent, these people, natural scientists at the scene, embarrassed, so I was really, really, anxious. I was thinking when I was in the car trying to scroll down all the information I had in my head from papers and books and things and that, and then I was there and switch.

I was there but I was not there. There was another person, there was no me questioning myself there was the person that had a mission, and the mission was not me being there, but I was there for something. I was there for the case. I was there for that person and the person was not a person anymore. Poor person was a case it's game on it's the moment in which you have to be objective and nothing else count not what you feel if the person you know. If it is good, bad, smelly thing whatever you're there for the case and that is your focus and you work on that, and you perform.

So that was the first case ever in which our natural scientist in Italy was at the crime scene from the crime scene to the court so I was putting a precedent in everything there, and I didn't know that I wasn't even thinking about it because as I said I do stuff and then I think about it, and sometimes it's a good thing because overthinking is a bad thing sometimes. I was not trained to be in court. I was not trained to be at the scene. I only write things. So, I guess I learned by trade and by mistake, and but also sharing my experience through publication later on for me was a way to give away what I learned, and what can be done to improve what I've done in that in that period.

Anyway, many cases came after that I worked pretty much I think more than 500 cases between humans, animals, story products, and everything and situation were of many, many, different type from the bush to the sea to the beach to the house to a person found inside of a fridge to a person found in a bag or a suitcase.

At some point we were called from the police close to Venice because some fishermen brought a skull in their net. In the bloody skull, there was a sea snail so I thought the project that I was supposed to do at the university could be very useful at that stage and I was like ‘damn!’ but there was entomology or the sea snails so yeah could not do that much, but I reached out to the professor to see if they had some insights on the sea snails. It was very interesting from that point of view.

(36.33mins)

And over the cases, over the years, I found that many of the cases that I had the victim were victims females so femicide and I had Serena in a wood, I had Federica on the lake shore, I had Inga that was wrapped in a blanket covered by a carpet, many, many, women and this kind of stuff resonated with me about why so many women and so this comes with my interest of awareness and being active in a campaign like the 16 days in WA bringing their stories but also bringing the capability of forensic science to change the end of these stories.

We can't change their stories, but we can change the story of justice at the end and two years ago, these stories were shared here in Boola Bardip. There are many stories. We placed 375 shoes in front of the entrance of Boola Bardip to bring back the memories of the 375 women that have been killed in Australia in the period that we decided to consider that was five years’ time. Following years we were hosted in Kalgoorlie, this year we are hosted in Albany, and the numbers are going down, it's great but they had to go to zero. We don't want to have any more shoes, and science has to go better because there are the numbers that we know about, but science can investigate things that are not there as numbers just yet

Anyway, many cases but I was working as a freelancer and so working as a freelancer you never know when a case happened, and you kind of wait for someone to die pretty much. In a situation like that it's not nice.

In Italy, we're talking about nearly 20 years ago. A different job, it's not seen as entrepreneurial as influencer etc. It is not that there is no space for you so I was getting a lot of work for justice for the court of law and the problem with that is that you were getting paid when the funds in court were available and sometimes was not immediately was years and years after and you had to chase to get the money I worked for that, and you put the money up front to travel to the place to ask for certain analysis that you had to do so it was very difficult. So luckily, natural sciences is also something that was allowing me to teach math and science, so I use my degree also to start to teach at the high school, and on the side on the afternoon I was working in the lab. I was working on cases when the case was happening, I was going and things. That was very difficult. Like the day was never finished and was hard to focus on everything and the other thing that was I needed to do was I need to keep updating myself and that was through reading as many publications possible and participate into conferences and luckily there is a good conference in Europe. That is the European Association for Forensic Entomology that was running every year, and in Europe somewhere in Europe and it's easy to travel Europe. It's not that expensive so that was a possibility and in one of these conferences, I met the person that was going to change my life.

(40.10mins)

Again.

Upside down.

Actually, down under.

I met Professor Ian Dadour in one of these conferences that for me was like meeting a Superstar. When you read everything about someone and you really you know this person, and you know how good it is and there is in front of you and he's talking to you and he's talking to you in Eng… Australian and you already barely understand English he was talking to me in Australian and I said I was really, really, hard. I think I don't know what he said to me. I said yes and then whatever, and 20 years later, Professor Ian Dadour is here, Thank you.

(Paola cries)

That was probably an embarrassing moment, so I am going to embarrass and say, I really love you. It's been quite of a ride. In the last 20 years, he has been a great support, teacher, friend, father sometimes. We fight like wife and husband so many times. He has a lovely wife, but it’s been quite of a ride.

Ian and I spent so much time on skype because he was adamant for me to learn English and the only way was for us to talk every day. We were talking about life, we were talking about cases, we came up with publications, we came up with a thesis that was in a very bad English, and so it was quite all right and it's still going and I'm so proud of that.

So, from the level of the cat is on the table, not even that probably. The cat was not even on the table at that stage to the Australian communicator.

I think it has been a pretty good ride.

It was not an easy move he proposed me to come to UWA where he was based in the Centre for forensic science as part of my PhD because I was pretty good in what I was doing but at the same time, I was the only one doing. I was singing my own music I need to learn more music so I said why you don't come to Australia, and we can learn from you, and you can learn from us, and we can go ahead from that, so I moved here for a period and was again the shock. Also, the hottest summer in many, many, years and I came with a pair of jeans, and they were being so hot it's crazy, and I helped him on some of the research that they were doing. We develop our research ourselves, and it's been a very interesting time.

Ian will come to me to the Centre for Forensic Science and he kind of embrace my ideas of working on research that were focused on the shortcoming of my cases because the things that bother you the most when you work on cases is that sometimes you can't solve the cases because the science is not there so then you have to take responsibility for that.

Are you going to be the scientists who tackle that missing bit? Are you going to close the gap of science for the sake of justice? And, he helped me in that, sometimes in crazy ways like giving me the credit card of the university to buy the famous 128 pair of shoes to do this incredible work underwater with elegant shoes and runners collaborating with the Americans participating to the FBI summer school of human remain recovery schools or he was called by the security of Shenton park because my five thousands maggots were escaping from the fridge and there was this river of maggots going all over the places, and yeah we had a few interesting situation but he wrote a good letter of reference and I moved from UWA to Murdoch.

(44.22mins)

I am with Murdoch for the last 10 years expanding still the research, still working together looking after some students that are very good, and one is here. Thank you, Steve, for coming.

And the first three years that I was here. My Nanna was sending me boxes of food and was asking me about dingoes and kangaroos because she was sitting on a chair, she could not move and she was watching discovery channel so she probably thought I was in a tent under the ice rock but she probably thought I was going to marry a surfer but I ended up marrying a pharmacist so the forensic science and drug dealer. It was a pretty nice story. Look it's not an easy way when you grow up for such a long time somewhere else when you really develop the language in the last five six years of your life, and when you also face so many changes, two little kids coming so the pregnancy that makes women going all over the places, a pandemic at the international relocation. We were stuck in Singapore; he was stuck here.

I came back home and there was a drum kit.

That was another issue that happened. I still have lots to learn. There are lots of words that I still cannot pronounce Cutlery you know forks and knife. How do you say that "Cutlery" I never get right. ‘Acknowledgement’, I never get right the spelling of ‘acknowledgement’ and there is always the Acknowledgement of the Country, its dramatic every single time. Being, being, been, being, been. It’s very difficult again, and I'm learning to do the small talk a little bit but also in the last few years, I also start to get in contact more with the Italian community. At the beginning, it was very hard because you think you're here by yourself maybe with the Italians you will go along, no because the Italian community was very different a few years ago. Everyone was very angry because Italy didn't understand them, and they had to leave. Well, they were sad, missing their mom, missing their friends, missing their food, and was everything.

There are lots of beautiful Italian restaurants these days in Perth, and finally Italians understand that Australia is an opportunity and doesn't mean that there is closed doors with Italy. It's an opportunity for exchange and an opportunity to get together. It's an opportunity to bring Italy even someone else together.

I participate into the event with the Amerigo Vespucci that is the historical tall ship of the Italian navy that had the stop in Darwin this year. There were Italian scientists, Italian scientists in Australia. Scientists they were traveling around the world on the Italian ship, that was fantastic, but this really brings people together, science together, no barriers, not even the ocean was a barrier. It was a fantastic opportunity so I'm glad to be an Italian in Australia, and in the last few years I think I've mastered the balance of having, I guess, deep talk about pasta and Nutella and small talks about Vegemite, and crickets, and footie, and if you want to check if this is true I hope to spend some more time with you and have a chat with you tonight.

That's it.

Maggie Jiang: Well thanks so much Paola for sharing your precious and fascinating personal journey with us and also, I want to thank you for your extraordinary achievements in forensic research.

Thank you so much. Can I also suggest we have another round of applause to thank?

[audience applause]

We'll now open the floor for questions. We have about 10 minutes for Q&A and so we have a mic and if you have any question please put your hands.

Audience Member: Are you still scuba diving?

Paola Magni [laughing]: I would like to have more time for scuba diving. At Murdoch, we have the scuba diving team that help us out. I'm normally on the boat, see what they are doing, and I'm trying to develop a new course in underwater forensics, and I just discussed that with the WA Museum Fremantle because that can be combined with a underwater archaeology. One of my students did a fantastic PhD on the shipwreck the bones found on the shipwreck, so we want to go ahead with that because there is so much. I mean if crime happening in a terrestrial environment when it comes to water is a disaster because sometimes, we don't even know where are the bodies. MH370 is an example it's a pretty big thing disappeared so we need to improve the capability, and we have not just the divers but also remote-controlled vehicles and things like that so we can use new technologies divers but yeah.

Audience Member: Can I ask a question?

Paola Magni: Sure.

Audience Member: T.V Channels are flooded with programs about forensics: Silent Witness; Unforgotten; CSI – you mentioned. How true to life are they?

Paola Magni: So, I have worked as a script writer for the Italian version of CSI. They develop a character on me and that was pretty embarrassing but also pretty cool. We're behind the scenes putting together the lab and other things now. There is a no written rule that says that everything that you see on tv has to have a degree of truth.

Now what is missing in these shows is the timeline, and it's not everything match found. Sometimes takes days months to get the answer, it doesn't come [clicks] like that. You’re not always the priority on the machine that has to be used, and there is not always the opportunity to know what is that. I had a case recently in which I had to send so many emails to find out what was a bug that I never saw before, and there are no experts about that and so for one single bug was taking months to find out and the collaboration is everything from that point of view so what you see on the movies, it's true to the degree of like just it's not going to happen that quick. Also, there is not always the availability of the funds that you see.

I had the chance of using the helicopter twice in my experience, you see the helicopter coming, fly you know from the Quantico to everywhere with this plane, and doesn't happen that way and so yeah and so depends also on the priority of the case, so yeah, it's kind of real but slow down the time. Audience Member: What level of cross collaboration is there between the various universities here in Perth, and across Australia, particularly what influences that? More particularly in your area?

Paola Magni: What is very important in Forensic entomology is that we are highly, highly, related to the environment so the bugs that are here are often different many of them are different from the other side of Australia so there is no point sometimes to collaborate with the other side of Australia. Having said that, some other location we have different bugs, and these are very important thing when you do an experiment that you want to do in the same way into different location to see what is the effect of the environment, the temperature, the soil, the vegetation or whatever so we have several collaborations happening.

Not all the university have forensic science, some of the university have things that are not forensic science but we can collaborate with and so it happens and the facility in Sydney the Taphonomic Reserves Facility the body farm of Australia is open to anyone who wants to do research so it's a great opportunity because in Western Australia, we can't use human bodies so we can use the human bodies over there.

Having said that, their environment is quite different from what we have so we had to compare the things, and everyone is very open during conference. Today, we were putting together a paper they were doing with the Australian Federal Police. They provided bullets to us, we provided the setup of the experiment so it's not just about the university but also work forces, military forces, and other institution or laboratories they want to do things that are in connection with what we do.

Maggie Jiang: Well, I guess we can continue the conversation upwards. Well, thank you so much for a wonderful talk now you can take a seat

Paola Magni: Thank you.

Maggie Jiang: Thank you so much.

Now please welcome, Head of School of Social Sciences at UWA, Professor Amanda Davies to come to the stage to give some concluding remarks. Professor Amanda Davies: So, I didn't pre-prepare anything because I wanted to hear what you had to say, and what I wanted to say was thank you for telling us about you. We can read about your science which is brilliant obviously. It's very hard to understand how you become successful. Your story really illuminated the importance of the various influences in our lives, our parents and fundamentally community, the physical environment in which you grow up in and you so brilliantly took us to those places and the times and I really appreciate you doing that because it helps us better understand how you use all of those different influences over time to build your interests, and your personal character and then move that forward. The other thing that really struck me was the intersections of people's stories at various times so of your mentor, and the opportunity that that then presented so you know many people when you get yourself into a position such as you are now you then can pay that forward and impact other people's stories.

It's a wonderful story about how you ended up in Australia and as part of our community, thank you for sharing it with us, but thank you for taking the time to really articulate all the various processes in that and with such humanity so I very much appreciate it, thank you.

[Maggie, Paola, Alec, and Amanda come to the stage]

Maggie Jiang: Yes, we have a small present for Paola for a wonderful talk. I understand you don't like cut flowers.

Paola Magni: I will do it for the memory.

Professor Amanda Davies: You can grow some bugs in.

Thank you, thank you so much.

Thank you so much.