Vienna call for science tutor's molecular yarn

NorthTec science tutor Toni Daly will be presenting at the 2015 meeting for the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution in Vienna. Photo / John Stone

When Whangarei tutor Toni Daly was 15 she was kicked out of school for blowing up the girls toilets, though she says it wasn't her.

Decades on she spends more time in a classroom than ever- teaching science at NorthTec, working on her doctorate and now prepping for a prestigious science conference in Europe.

Ms Daly left for Vienna on Friday where she was chosen to present at the 2015 meeting for the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.

"I was pleased and I was surprised," she said. While she was not sure how many others would be presenting, about 700 applications were declined.

Growing up in London, Ms Daly was the first to admit she was no perfect student but remains adamant she had nothing to do with the bathroom explosion.

"I walked into the girls toilets and they blew up," she said. "I never found out who did it."

While she loved learning, especially science, she learned differently to everyone else and was not good at being in a classroom. "I was in the library but no one ever looked for me there. My goal was to read everything over an inch thick."

After being kicked out of school she got a job in an office but eventually went on to train as a psychiatric nurse. She moved to Whangarei in 1987 with her husband where she went on to work at the hospital before retraining as a teacher.

Despite being a working mum of three, she completed a bachelor of science majoring in biochemistry, molecular biology and genetics from Massey University. She then went on to complete a masters from Auckland University in molecular ecotoxicology in 1999.

A couple of years later she started teaching science at NorthTec and five years ago started working towards her doctorate with Massey University. Her Vienna presentation will be around her thesis, essentially about testing a scientific theory in a computer before putting it into practice in a laboratory.

"I'm trying to find a poor man's way of doing science by not having to have a laboratory to do science," Ms Daly said.

"It's all been done in my shed in Tutukaka. It's all about how proteins are related by shape even where the primary sequence bears no resemblance to anything else." For her the best part of her job was teaching something she loved, and motivating young people.