The HUM,
Humans of Macquarie

David Baker – Associate Lecturer, Big History

Photo of David Baker by Michael Garganera

“I’m Canadian, this is Australia – the weather is incomparably better. Even in winter if your coldest day is 15 degrees Celsius or above, you’re doing pretty good, it beats minus 30.”

“In MHIS115 we’re doing the flipped version which is a lot of script writing and a lot of filming and I’m having to balance that with the high school course that we do, the Big History school, a free curriculum we give to high schools all over Australia and all over the world, and I’ve got to do videos and a whole bunch of articles for that…so a lot of my time, including weekends is spent writing.”

Nora Trompeter – Research Assistant – Psychology

Nora Trompeter by Michael Garganera

“I work as a Research Assistant at the Centre for Emotional Health. What inspires me? Drive, curiosity, always wanting to find out more, and a better way of explaining things.”

“My primary area of research is youth mental health… I find it so fascinating, especially in those early teenage years…you don’t know where it’s going to go. Some people might have issues but they get over it and are completely fine, or maybe you start with some emotional difficulties and then that spirals into anxiety and that also spirals into depression, and then maybe later on substance abuse. So they all have something but you never know who is going to go down which path. So finding a way to help really early on, but also maybe identifying who is going to be the troubled one.”

Josh Lazarus – AV Technician, AVTS and Student, Educational Studies

Josh Lazarus by Michael Garganera

“I’m also a student here, studying primary education, so I guess the big challenge is trying to find that work life balance, especially, I haven’t come straight from school to Uni, so finding that balance between the two.”

“…time management and also workload management, to be not only physically at work but mentally at work as well, but also still have enough time to sort all my Uni work and get in that headspace as well. I have come from a previous career, obviously in AV, and now I’m shifting to education – it’s two separate mindsets.”

“If I could give a regular piece of advice – Read instructions, that’s a big one”

Dr Mauricio Marrone – Senior Lecturer – Dept of Accounting & Corporate Governance

Mauricio Marrone by Michael Garganera

“What do you most enjoy about campus life? To tell you the truth it’s the Library, and MUSE, because you’ve got all of these students studying and they’re so engaged, and you see, this is what I teach for, that’s the reason why I teach, it’s because of them, those students that are learning and are interested and passionate about it.”