Chemists of the Month - March 2022
Catherine Oh
Catherine Oh is Chemist of the Month for March 2022. She has spent her entire career to date in the regulatory space and is currently at Accord Australasia. Her entry into the industry is rather interesting and unusual, with her educational studies in arts and science that somehow proved crucial in picking up her first role during university days. She thereby demonstrates that all studies could be of use in a scientific career, regardless of how remotely relevant it is to science. Her normally busy life has slowed down during covid times, with less travel to other cities for business meetings. She mainly spends her spare time with her two young children.
Interview conducted by William Li.
WL: Good to meet you Catherine. Firstly, how long have you been a RACI Member?
CO: I actually can’t remember if I became a RACI Member in my first job 19 years ago or in my current job that I started 13 years ago! So somewhere there.
WL: Starting from the beginning, what motivated you to take up science as a career?
CO: “I fell into it” is the best description. I never really had a plan for my life, so I studied whatever I felt like doing. I studied odd subjects at school such as French and 3 unit English, in addition to chemistry and physics. Even at university, I still had no idea on what I wanted to do. I ended up studying an Arts/Science double degree. It happens that science is slightly more structured, so I followed an ‘easier’ path to pursue an Honours year in chemistry rather than arts. student employment assistance centre (after I had completed my 3 years of chemistry but before Honours year), I came across a part-time job at an industrial chemical company. I was working part-time in retail at the time and an opportunity in an industry role was quite appealing. And it happened to be that company’s first and only time advertising such a role through university services! They were looking for someone basically meeting my description - someone who can speak an Asian language, being a role covering Asia-Pacific, and it was a French company at the time, so my French major was a bonus, and they wanted someone with a chemistry background with an understanding of toxicology; my other major in pharmacology was relevant as well. So I just fell into this job! The job description was about looking for someone to help with their regulatory work, and I stayed in regulatory ever since.
WL: That’s so interesting, where those subjects which have no relation to each other got you a role that got you to use all of those studies! You picked out that role like a bullseye! And also setting your entire career to date.
CO: It was one of those odd things - I read the job description and it almost felt like it was written for me. I had a wonderful manager who was flexible and accommodating and put in a lot of effort in developing people - she was happy for me to work part-time for 3 years before offering a full-time position after graduation. And stayed there for another 3 years in a full-time capacity.
WL: You’ve given people a lesson here - the subjects you learn may be of use sometime later, even if not obvious right now.
CO: Absolutely! I’ve had so many people ask questions about what I’m going to do with my Arts degree. I found I used my Arts degree a lot more than what I would’ve expected to, especially now working in an industry association, I do a lot of writing, engagement with stakeholders - basically a lot of communication - my Arts degree comes in very handy with that. One of the Arts subjects I studied was sociology which involved thinking about social policies, which helps me immensely in my current role. I did those subjects because I enjoyed them and had fun.
WL: Yes, really need to own those subjects you studied, putting much attention to it and make it useful in your career, as well as getting your degree. Also, your career appears to be linear with all of it so far in regulatory.
CO: That’s right. I didn’t think I wanted to do that when I went to that first job interview. I had no knowledge of the industry or what regulatory people did, but was hired anyway! I thought I would eventually want to work in a lab afterwards in a research-oriented role. But while working part-time in the regulatory area and then full-time, and also liaising with people who work in production or laboratory, I realised that’s not what I wanted. I realised that the heavily research-focused lab work that you see around academia was not available for most chemists out there. So, I stuck with what I enjoyed.
WL: Have you done any postgraduate studies?
CO: No, I didn’t do postgrad in science because I had a job lined up. I was quite insistent on doing Honours year while working part-time, but I also knew I didn’t want to do 3 more years of research because I was already doing a double degree, and by the time I graduated, I was at university for 7 years. So I was quite ready to start earning real money, and went straight into full-time work. It was a good decision to make as I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have contributed much to science with a PhD. I felt it was better to spend time learning about other things. I did end up doing a Graduate Certificate in Legal Studies because that’s an area I found my skills were lacking and I needed to bolster my regulatory knowledge.
WL: That’s fair. So what do you do in your current role?
CO: My current role is representing companies in an industry association for hygiene, personal care and specialty chemicals. They are downstream, end use products such as cosmetics, disinfectants and hygiene products. So most formulated products, except medicines, agricultural chemicals, food and paints. It’s a broad membership and my role is to represent their interests. Being in the regulatory space, a large amount of my work involves looking at regulatory policy. For example, there might be a discussion on an aspect of regulating consumer products - my role is to give the industry perspective in a cohesive way so different companies don’t have to speak out individually. I liaise with member companies, government’s regulatory agencies, and other external stakeholders such as other industry associations. I have a regulatory team that works with me within Accord, and the whole Accord team is very supportive of each other. I am also very lucky to have access to our member companies’ regulatory expertise – the depth and breadth of their combined knowledge is quite amazing.
WL: What do you like most about your role?
CO: I like the fact that I have opportunities to improve chemical regulations. I get to have some input in doing things better. So when I look at a proposal that has been put forward I like to sit down and think it through - what does that proposal mean? How would it work in practice? How could it be better implemented? Are there any unintended consequences? So that when it is time to implement the regulation it actually works as intended.
WL: Having spent your entire career in regulatory, where you’ve talked to a broad range of people from different companies, the government and other industrial organisations, if there’s one piece of advice to give to people who want to follow your footsteps, what would it be?
CO: There is no clear pathway to regulatory work. Besides, I think people need to do what they enjoy and find rewarding, and hone their skills there rather than look to emulate someone else.
WL: How has covid affected your work recently?
CO: My travel has been reduced. We do travel a bit interstate, and sometimes overseas, so all of that has stopped. All meetings were moved online and while I appreciate some of the meetings moving online - I’m not spending a day of travel to fit a 2-3 hour meeting - I miss some of the physical meetings, which allows side discussions. In big, complicated meetings, being able to talk through your thoughts with someone or clarify details before making a more public statement is helpful.
WL: Also miss those sort of meetings with RACI and other professional organisations, where you can meet like-minded people, build connections and have a tour of where the event is located. Much easier to network face-to-face than to do so online.
CO: Yes, it’s almost impossible in a Zoom meeting. I did make new connections during those meetings, but it’s still difficult finding a time before the end to grab details.
WL: Last question, and the most important one. If you have any spare time, what do you do?
CO: That is a hard one! I do have two young kids, so spare time is hard to come by. I like to do yoga when I can, and I also like to read. So not very exciting hobbies I have to say!