The VicPhysics Teachers' Network are hosting a Girls in Physics Breakfast for students from Years 10 to 12 featuring the AIP's 2026 Marie Curie Lecturer. Students share a table with two or three women who are either in a career in physics or engineering, or are at university as an undergraduate or a postgraduate. The students have a chance to ask questions about their careers and what study at university is like. 

Talk title: Painting the Universe: A Visual and Musical Exploration of Space-Time

Brief outline: In this lecture, Dr Karelle Siellez weaves together sound, art, and astrophysics to explore the story of gravitational waves and the collisions that create the elements we are made of. Through “multi-messenger” signals like kilonovae and gamma-ray bursts, we’ll uncover how the cosmos communicates its most violent events. Blending scientific insights with creative expression, this journey reveals how listening to the Universe—and protecting its silence—can connect science, nature, and humanity.

Presenter: Dr Karelle Siellez is an astrophysicist and lecturer at the University of Tasmania. A specialist in multi-messenger astronomy, she contributed to the first detection of a gamma-ray burst and gravitational waves from the same cosmic event, recognised with the 2017 Breakthrough Prize. She is also an award-winning science communicator who integrates art, sound, and storytelling into her work, making complex astrophysics accessible and inspiring. Karelle has lived and worked in France, the USA, and now Tasmania—where she divides her time between telescopes, classrooms, and the wilderness of sea and forest.