Getting to know... Cathy Yule
Associate Professor Cathy Yule
Name: Cathy Yule
Title: Deputy Head of School (Education), Associate Professor
Faculty: Science
Campus: Sunway
How long have you worked at Monash?
I have been lecturing at the Kuala Lumpur Campus since 1999, but I did my Honours and MSc degrees at Monash in Clayton and worked as a tutor there from 1979 - 1984.
Where did you work prior to starting at the University?
I taught at the Caufield campus before it was part of Monash, and also at RMIT in Melbourne. After that I moved to Bougainville Island in Papua New Guinea where I did the research for my PhD, while raising my children and I taught at the University Centre in Arawa. We had to leave due to a secessionist rebellion, and so we moved to Balikpapan in Borneo where I worked as an Environmental Consultant for 5 years. After a year back in Australia we came to Malaysia.
What do you like best about your role?
Malaysia has wonderful tropical environments for field trips – I take my students to coral reefs, rainforests, cloud forests, mangrove swamps, peat swamp forests, lakes and streams. For most students this is their first experience of a tropical forest, let alone an extreme environment, and for many of them the experiences are life-changing. I am gratified to see the results of my teaching as my students make a positive impact on the world in the fields of conservation, tropical biology and environmental management.
Why did you choose your current career path?
I enjoy the combination of teaching, research and administration – I love to be able to influence students through teaching, make new discoveries through research and develop new subjects and courses through administration. I chose aquatic biology because I used to delight in playing with the animals in rock pools and streams when I was a child.
First job?
Fruit picking during my school holidays.
Worst job?
Cleaning up vomit when I was working in a psycho-geriatric hospital during university holidays.
What research/projects are you currently working on and what does it involve?
My students are working on the ecology of peat swamp forests, on carbon cycling on Mount Kinabalu, on the impact of urbanisation on tropical stream ecology, on the ecology of Malaysian midges and mayflies, and on litter decomposition in Borneo streams in different forest types. The studies involve field experiments and laboratory studies. Some of the studies involve collaborations with other researchers around the world – in Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Australia, USA, Costa Rica, Panama, Hong Kong, Chile, India…
What is your favourite place in the world and why?
I live to travel – in the past couple of years I have slept in a hammock in the Amazon rainforest, walked with the Maasai and their donkeys in Tanzania, skied in the Dolomites in Italy, snorkeled with turtles in the Maldives and scuba dived in Indonesia - but my favourite place to live was Bougainville Island. The island is exquisitely beautiful – dominated by smoking volcanoes, rimmed by coral reefs and covered in rainforest. Many of the people live four hours walk or more from the nearest road and still live much as they have done for thousands of years – except they use metal axes to clear the land for agriculture rather than stone tools. We made many local friends on the island and they taught me a great deal about tropical ecology from their unique perspective.
What is your favourite place to eat and why?
Pasta Love in Rome – my favourite cuisine is Italian, and Pasta Love serves typical home style food. My kids and I spent hours there playing cards and eating.
What is the best piece of advice you have received?
My mother-in-law told me, "You just do the best you can." It was about being the mother of children but it applies to everything.
Tell us something about yourself that your colleagues wouldn’t know?
When I lived in Borneo I was friends with a young orang utan called Dolly that lived at the mine site where my husband worked. Dolly ate in the mess, brushed her teeth at night before going to sleep in a bed, and caused havoc around the camp, treating it like the jungle. Dolly was extremely gentle with my daughter Alison who was a toddler, but usually played very roughly with older people, biting their ankles and wrestling them – treating them as she would another orang utan. She died tragically when she was released into the forest but did not know how to look after herself.