Walk down almost any street in Victoria and you’ll be surrounded by history, just not all of it.

Our roads, parks and public places narrate who we value. And for too long, that story has been narrow, overwhelmingly male, often tied to war, politics or land ownership. The result is an incomplete record of who built, shaped and imagined our places.

That absence matters in science, a field where visibility still shapes participation. In Australia, women make up 37% of STEM university enrolments and 39% of STEM completions yet only 15 per cent of the STEM qualified workforce with a stubbornly high gender pay gap of 16%.

These numbers are often framed as a “leaky pipeline” problem. But, what if women’s contributions to science were more visible in public life, would girls grow up imagining they belong there?

Two women are trying to change that with a relatively simple idea: make women in science visible in the places we move through every day.

Dr Shaz Sivanesan and Melanie Carew, co-founders of Next Hypothesis, have made a career out of testing bold ways to engage the public with science. Their goal is practical and immediate: to ensure women and girls learn about science but also they encounter it, almost by accident, in their daily lives.

“We want women and girls to practically trip over science,” Sivanesan says. “To see it on street signs, in parks, in the places we visit every day.”

When the pair learned about Victoria’s commemorative naming push, the Remember a Local Name a Place initiative, they saw an opportunity to test an idea with real-world consequences. What if the stories of overlooked women scientists were told, and embedded into the physical fabric of our communities? Built into the map itself?

They began with two women. Two scientists. Two Isabels.

 

The Isabels we forgot

Dr Isabel “Joy” Bear

Dr Isabel “Joy” Bear, born in Colac, helped give a name to something most of us recognise instantly but rarely think about: petrichor, the earthy scent that rises when rain hits dry soil.

Over a 70-year career with CSIRO, she pushed the boundaries of chemistry while championing women in science.

Dr Isabel Clifton Cookson

Then there is Dr Isabel Clifton Cookson, one of Australia’s first women scientists, she described more than 550 species of fossil plants and laid the groundwork for using pollen to define geological periods, research that still underpins how we understand Earth’s deep past. A genus, Cooksonia, bears her name.

And yet, despite these achievements, Cookson did not receive pay parity with her male colleagues until she was 59, just six years before retirement.

 

Bear and Cookson are not marginal figures yet outside specialist circles, they remain largely invisible.

“Stories like these exist everywhere,” Carew says. “But if they’re not visible, if they’re not part of our shared landscape, they don’t shape how people think about who belongs in science or who has always been there.”

Representation matters.

Public memory matters.

And names matter.

This is about recognition, representation and, ultimately, power.

As Geographic Names Victoria explains: “Place names reflect our values, our history and who we choose to honour.” The organisation has also argued that improving gender equality in place naming helps create “a more inclusive and accurate reflection of Victoria’s story”.

Or, put more bluntly: if you can’t see it, you’re less likely to believe it’s possible.

The Put Her Name on It campaign, developed in 2020 by Women in Gippsland and now supported through Gender Equity Victoria, was born out of this imbalance. What began as a gender equity initiative has evolved into something broader.

As program Director Kerry Wilson explains: “What started as a gender initiative has become about identity, contribution, prominence and history. There’s a long-standing norm in place naming, where powerful white men dominate decision making and who gets honoured. What’s missing is the diversity of people and the diversity of contributions that shaped communities. The gap is importantly about recognition, but it’s also about the historical record itself.”

Victoria is not standing still on this issue. In fact, it’s becoming a case study in how to correct the imbalance.

Working collaboratively is Gender Equity Victoria, Geographic Names Victoria, Her Place Museum, local governments and naming authorities and a multi-layered approach is underway:

• The rules have changed at a state level, opening the door for more equitable naming.
• Visibility tools like the Finding Her Commemorative Map now document where women are already recognised
• Training and resources are being rolled out to support councils and decision-makers.
• Progress is being tracked: in 2025, 70 per cent of all new commemorative place names in Victoria honoured women.

That figure would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

The progress on paper is only part of the story. The cultural shift happens when communities engage, when individuals step forward to nominate names, tell stories and advocate for recognition.

Which is exactly what Sivanesan and Carew are doing.

Their nominations for the two Isabels have been submitted. But they are not stopping there.

The next step is more complex and more political. Turning a nomination into a place name requires local support, council processes and, often, sustained advocacy. So the pair are now working directly with local councils, pushing to move “from nom to name” in 2026.

It’s a simple act with a profound effect – Put Her Name on It.

Because when a street, park or building carries a name it invites curiosity, it sparks questions, it creates everyday encounters with stories that might otherwise remain hidden.

And those encounters accumulate.

A child asks who Isabel Bear was. A passerby Googles Cooksonia. A student sees, perhaps for the first time, that women have always been part of scientific discovery.

Public spaces are not neutral. They are curated, shaped by decisions about who and what is worth remembering.

For decades, those decisions have leaned in one direction. Correcting that is about completing history

As Sivanesan puts it: “Herstory isn’t separate from history. It’s always been there. It is just a matter of choosing whether to make it visible or not.”

In that sense, the work underway in Victoria is about aligning the physical world with a more truthful account of the past and, in doing so, expanding the possibilities for the future.

Because the names we walk past every day tell us so much more than where we are – they tell us who we are, who we might become and how welcome we are in public spaces.

We congratulate Dr Shaz Sivanesan and Melanie Carew for seeing the potential in commemorative place naming as a way to spark curiosity and interest in science through making visible the stories of the Isabels.