STEM Profile: Veena Nair

Veena Nair

STEAM educator

Veteran STEM educator (20+ yrs, 3 countries); a distinguished female Systems Engineering teacher in Victoria. Promoted 3D Printing, Robotics & Systems Engineering; co-founded STEAM Club; launched STEAM Futures Conference; advanced VCE Systems Engineering statewide. 2022 PM Prize winner.

City/town: Melbourne

State: VIC

STEMM sectors: Education

Open to being contacted about the following volunteer roles: Board positions, Mentoring others, New job opportunities, Speaking at professional events/panels, Speaking at schools

Guiding principle: Do all that you can, in the place that you are, in the time that you have, with all that you have ----- Nkosi Johnson

Areas of expertise: STEAM, STEM, Girls in engineering, VCE systems engineering, AI ,3D printing, Robotics

Contact Veena Nair

Q&A

Who is a woman in a STEMM field that you admire, or who has influenced your work?

Dr Marguerite Galea is a woman I deeply admire in STEMM. A passionate advocate for women in STEMM, she combines strong research with building industry partnerships that bridge academia and practice. Her unwavering focus on inclusion and diversity empowers others.

What’s a problem in your field that keeps you up at night, and why does it matter to you personally?

What keeps me awake at night is the underrepresentation of girls in engineering across Australia. Having missed my own chance at engineering due to personal hardship, I’m passionate about giving girls that opportunity and the confidence to truly see themselves thriving in these roles.

Can you describe a moment in your work that completely changed how you think about your discipline?

Teaching is the most impactful work one can do, with the power to touch lives at their deepest moments. That truth became real when a former student, critically ill in hospital, asked to see only one person from school: me. She simply wanted to say thank you.

What’s something about your field that most people misunderstand or overlook?

One thing misunderstood about teaching: that it’s easy and teachers are privileged with endless holidays. What’s overlooked is the long hours spent at home preparing and marking, often bleeding into evenings, weekends, and yes, even the school holidays we’re assumed to enjoy freely.

If you could collaborate with anyone (past or present, in or outside STEMM), who would it be and what would you want to explore together?

I’d love to collaborate with Katherine Bennell-Pegg to develop a CubeSat engineering challenge for Australian students, alongside AIMERS Foundation’s Mission Shakti SAT, inspiring the next generation of young Australians to engage hands-on with real space engineering.

What change, big or small, would you most like to see in the culture of STEMM fields over the next decade?

For lasting cultural change, I’d like to see girls grow up thinking of engineering as the most natural career path for them, not a bold exception, but a genuine, expected choice, one as familiar and encouraged as any other, opening doors to creativity, problem-solving, and impact.