She did IYM from her bedroom in lockdown. Now she’s a bioinformatics researcher at Otago

Nadia Prasetyo attended IYM from her bedroom during COVID, after her residential programme was cancelled and replaced with IYM Online in 2020.

Six years later, she's an Associate Research Fellow at the University of Otago.

Her biology teacher pointed her towards the programme, when she was looking for something to do outside school.

She already knew she liked STEMM, she just didn’t know which part of it.

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, I was sort of exploring between biology, chemistry, physics and maths.”

The online programme opened doors she didn’t know existed.

“I did remember being inspired by how many things you can do in STEMM. The most common ones are like engineer, doctor kind of jobs, and I wasn’t aware there were so many different kinds of jobs. That’s what made me open my eyes.”

Being part of a group of girls with the same interests stuck with her too.

“We had similar interests and could get along quite easily, especially talking about the projects and challenges during the programme. We still keep in contact sometimes now.”

Nadia now works as an Associate Research Fellow in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Otago, in bioinformatics, the data side of research rather than the bench.

She’s been in the role just over a year and wants to stay in it long-term.

Her mum, who works in technology, was an early influence.

“She’s the one who told me there’s no limit to what a woman can do. I never had that ‘oh, I can’t do STEMM because I’m a woman’ feeling.”

At university, she found more people to look up to.

“There are a lot of amazing female professors that I want to know more about, their journey, how they got there, what challenges they had to go through.”

Her advice to a Year 11 or 12 student on the fence about applying: “Just do it, because there’s nothing to lose and it opens up your horizons.”

And to her own younger self: “Just do anything you want, because all the opportunities available are there for you. You’re failing more by not doing them.”

Asked for her elevator pitch on what IYM is, she doesn’t hesitate. “IYM is a programme that innovates and inspires young women to enter the field of STEMM and be brave and explore their interests in an open way.”