Looks can be deceiving, just ask Kate Gillespie-Jones.
“I think because I’m big and have a bit of a bogan voice, people think I’m stupid,” she told North Media.
But that perception of the North Melbourne Tasmanian Kangaroo, couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“I just finished my PhD after years of working on it,” Gillespie-Jones said.
“So all last year I would go to the lab all day and then head to AFLW training. It definitely took some balancing.
“My PhD boiled down to looking at a new drug treatment for traumatic brain injuries (TBIs),” she explained.
“So, we were testing a drug treatment to see if it could prevent sensory deficits, like light and noise sensitivity, that people experience after trauma.”
The accomplishment, a long time coming.
“My PhD was four years, but before that I worked in the same lab for a year as a research assistant and before that I did a year in an honour’s degree program. So, it feels like I’ve been working on this for the past six years.”
Gillespie-Jones says it was the practical side of science that sparked her interest in the project.
“I like looking at the clinical sides of issues, so not just the pure neuroscience of how we process information and stimuli, but how we can react when there’s a problem,” she explained.
“For example, in undergrad I met a TBI patient who lost around a third of his brain mass. But what amazed me is that over time he was able to regain function. From there I was hooked on studying this.”
While passionate, it wasn’t all smooth sailing for Gillespie-Jones.
“The first few studies we did went well, but the last one was really hard. We had so many things go wrong and it was really discouraging," she said.
“I worked on a project for probably 12 months and nothing went right; it was a nightmare. There was a point where I was like, "it’s not too late to quit, I can always leave ... three and a half years in, isn’t too late to walk"."
Ultimately, persistence paid off.
“I’m pretty proud,” Gillespie-Jones admitted.
“Right now there are only symptom management solutions, so this has pretty big implications for helping people with TBIs.
“Besides, now I can force all my friends to call me "doctor".”
