Recognised for her work in wastewater technology, postdoctoral research scientist Dr Samantha McGaughey is the 2025 ACT Emerging Scientist of the Year with a prize of $30,000. 

Dr McGaughey, 31, has already achieved a PhD in plant science and is now imparting her knowledge to students at the Australian National University (ANU). 

From aspiring to become a veterinarian to falling in love with biology, she’s always had a deeply vested interest in the sciences. 

She finished her PhD in 2016, at the University of Adelaide, looking at the transport proteins plants use to control water movement through their tissues. Dr McGaughey made the discovery that water-transport proteins were also able to transport some salts, which implicates how plants are able to grow in saline environments (a natural habitat where levels of salt exceed normal standards).

“That inspired [me] to think about how I could use these types of processes or proteins that are in plant membranes for wastewater treatment,” she says. “That research was essential for the work that I’m doing now.” 

Right now, Dr McGaughey’s research is looking at harvesting clean water from wastewater.

Working at the ANU Research School of Biology, Dr McGaughey says she’s happy to be mentoring the next batch of researchers while conducting her own research.

“It’s probably one of the things that I enjoy doing the most,” she says. 

“Seeing [students’] excitement and their passion for the work that they’re doing is one of the most rewarding things.” 

Nominated by her group leader for the Emerging Scientist of the Year award, Dr McGaughey never expected to win.

“When I got the call, I was in the lab doing an experiment, and I had to stop and put down the tools for a moment to process it,” she says. 

“It was a bit of a surprise for sure, but a nice one!”

From here, Dr McGaughey hopes to use this recognition to get into surrounding schools and talk to students about the exciting places science can take them. 

“I’d love to use the opportunity to talk to students about the exciting things you can do with science and the big challenges that you can try to address,” she says. 

“And, of course, having more attention on the work that we’re trying to do is also really exciting.” 

Dr McGaughey isn’t the only young scientist making waves in the industry, and she says the diversity within the science workplace creates more out-of-the-box thinking. 

“It’s important to have a lot of different people looking at the challenges we face with their unique perspective and their unique way of thinking about things,” she says. 

Far from knowing everything there is to know, Dr McGaughey says she is constantly learning new things. 

“I think there is less of a focus on what we call ‘blue-sky research’, or fundamental research, which is trying to understand things for the sake of understanding them,” she says. 

“You don’t really know how it would be applied or how it would be useful in the future.”

Dr McGaughey says her undergraduate and postgraduate work all contained blue-sky research as, initially, she didn’t know how it could help the world.

“There wasn’t any idea how it could be a commercial product or make money, but without all the time spent doing that research, we wouldn’t be here with this idea in making the technology happen,” she says.

“I think there needs to be a balance between fundamental and applied research, because we don’t know everything there is to know, and curiosity-driven research is really important.” 

While Dr McGaughey is keen to see the membrane-separation technology become a reality, she says she’s also eager to explore just how far she can transport proteins, water, metals and nutrients to other living things.