Profile
Samara Thorn
- Engagement Manager
- Australian National University
- samara.thorn@anu.edu.au
- @samara.thorn
As the Engagement Manager at TMOS, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems, my role is to help researchers communicate their science and help businesses understand how the new field of meta-optics will transform their industry and where future opportunities for growth lie.
With close to 15 years’ experience in public relations and marketing, my greatest strength is understanding audiences, what motivates them, what information they need to help them reach their goals. I specialize in taking complex scientific research and identifying who might benefit from it and how the information should be communicated, drawing on my time teaching primary and high school science including senior physics.
As a Clifton Strengths-certified coach, I work one-on-one with creatives, physicists, and engineers to help them develop and optimise their processes, which might seem like an odd grouping but draws on the common creativity and problem-solving aspects of their crafts. I also work with organizations to implement a strengths-based approach to their operations.
I have an undergraduate degree in creative writing and post-graduation degrees in education and science. In my spare time, I am an award-winning novelist and I leverage this ability to tell a cracking good story in my professional communications.