Be inspired by Professor Charlene Lobo | International Women's Day series

Charlene Lobo’s journey has taken her from a PhD exploring semiconductor quantum dots—now integral to lasers, LEDs, and bioimaging—to leading physics at the University of Technology Sydney, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences. 

In celebration of UN International Women’s Day (IWD) 2025, with its theme ‘For all women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment,’ we recognise the importance of empowering young women to be change-makers in the world of science and technology. 

To encourage more young minds to pursue careers in quantum, we’re spotlighting the women from the Sydney Quantum Academy network of partner universities in a four-part series. Each woman will share her journey, the challenges faced, and the lessons learned, offering valuable advice to inspire the next generation of quantum scientists. 

Can you share your academic and career path? What initially drew you to this field?  

I was fortunate to do my PhD at a time when there were plenty of fellowships for international researchers to come to Australia. Research into semiconductor quantum dots and other semiconductor nanostructures was taking off at the time. My PhD project was investigating the structural and optical properties of epitaxial InGaAs/GaAs quantum dots, which are now used in lasers, LEDs and bioimaging of cellular processes. 

After my PhD, I accepted a postdoctoral position at the University of Cambridge. However, due to the ‘two body problem’ – my husband is also a scientist- I didn’t stay at Cambridge for long. I subsequently moved to the United States, where I worked in Boston and Portland at FEI company (now part of Thermo Fisher), focusing primarily on using electron beams and plasmas to drive nanoscale chemical reactions in a variety of materials. After five years in industry, I moved back to Australia to take up my current position at UTS. I maintained my interest in quantum research and have recently begun a couple of SQA-funded projects in the quantum area. 

Were there any pivotal moments or role models that shaped your journey in science/academia? 

Like most scientists who stay in academia, I’ve been fortunate to have had some wonderful mentors and colleagues. These include my PhD supervisors Rosa Leon and Chennupatti Jagadish, colleagues at FEI company/Thermo Fisher and many Australian scientists who were fellow PhD students and who I still enjoy working and discussing science with. As my career has progressed, and funding for basic research has continued to shrink, I have come to value these collaborators even more, and I try to do my part in mentoring the current generation of PhD students and junior researchers, particularly women. 

Have you faced any challenges or barriers in your career? How did you navigate them and what, if anything, did you learn from the experience? 

I’ve spent the bulk of my career working in physics and engineering where 90% of my colleagues and managers have been men. Growing up in Perth, WA, as one of just a handful of kids with an Indian background at my school, I learnt to handle being in the minority. What has been more challenging than my gender or ethnicity is having had 2 children in the last 10 years, whilst simultaneously trying to build my academic career at UTS. This was particularly hard when on both occasions, I had to go back to work full-time after just a couple of months maternity leave, without any accommodations for my parental responsibilities. In addition, one of my children has severe cerebral palsy, which is quite a difficult disability to manage as a parent because it affects all the ‘activities of daily living’, such as her ability to walk, talk and feed herself. Nonetheless, I have been able to lead the physics discipline at UTS for the past five years, managing a restructure, and introducing a new curriculum while improving our collective research output. I’ve also mentored and supervised other women in physics at UTS, and currently 1/3 of continuing academic staff are female. 

What advice would you give to young women considering a career in your field? 

Explore your career options by taking internships in various industries or research labs before deciding on which pathway to go down. These days, careers don’t last that long- it may only be a few years before you’ll change employers or industries. Trying a few different roles at different places will enable you to find out what you enjoy doing, and what your core strengths are.  Also keep in mind that employers or academic supervisors are looking at what new skills you bring to their company or research, so cultivating a few different skills will always be beneficial. Women bring a different perspective and skillset to highly technical and analytical fields like physics, maths and engineering. My suggestion is to embrace that and demonstrate your unique strengths to colleagues and employers. 

Can you tell us about your current research and the impact it’s making?

Currently I have a couple of projects in the area of modelling quantum well-nanowire lasers, fabricating quantum devices based on two-dimensional materials using electron beam chemistry and exploring the properties of these devices using a variety of characterization tools such as Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy. I hope to grow my collaborations in the quantum area which is why having some support from SQA has been very much appreciated. 

What’s a common misconception about your field or your research area that you’d like to correct? 

I think one misconception about physics is that one has to be a genius to be successful. Although it has been difficult at times, I like physics and materials research because at every stage of your career, you get to learn and explore new topics and build collaborations with other scientists who often become friends. The latter aspect is especially important for women given that we’re still a minority in physics and engineering and it helps to have like-minded people to share successes and problems with. 

If you could go back and give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be? 

My main advice to my younger self would be to be more adventurous and take more risks. I think I was too cautious, and it’s still a tendency I have to overcome, particularly when deciding whether to raise certain issues in the workplace. Changing the composition of STEM researchers- particularly improving female and low socioeconomic status student participation- can only happen through collective efforts. Now that I’m a senior academic, I try to do my part to drive change in this area. 

What skills, mindsets or experiences do you think are most valuable for students interested in your field? 

Curiosity, openness to collaboration, and good communication are the key skills that I think students need, as well as a willingness to work hard. There aren’t many local jobs in STEM research, and the international arena is equally competitive. 

What’s one thing you wish more people knew about the experiences of women in STEM/ academia? 

I would like people to understand that it’s just as hard being a female academic in STEM as being a female in medicine, sports or any other highly competitive area. In fact, in some ways it’s harder because in sports, women and men don’t have to compete directly against each other. Having said that, there are benefits for women in building a career in STEM – chiefly, the freedom to decide what areas of research you work in and who you collaborate with. Women currently entering the field are also able to take advantage of various programs to increase gender diversity in scientific research. You still need to be hard working and committed, but these schemes have made the barriers to entry a little bit lower.

If a high school or undergraduate student wants to follow in your footsteps, what concrete steps should they take now? 

I think there’s no need to ever feel trapped in a certain career or profession. Explore your interests, gain skills and collaborators, travel and work overseas if you can, and see where that takes you.