Meet pilot, strategist, founder and Australia’s first Indigenous female aerospace engineer, Renee Wootton Tomlin, whose relentless curiosity has taken her from the cockpit to the forefront of aviation’s energy transition.
When Renee was just 10 years old, she was riding shotgun with her Pop along a Queensland highway when a plane flew overhead.
Her Pop glanced up at the aircraft, then at Renee.
“Do you think you’d ever become a pilot?”
For any other duo, this question might have been simple small talk. A way to pass the time on a long drive.
But for Renee, a young Aboriginal girl growing up in regional Queensland, where no one in her family had been to university and aviation felt a world away, the question carried weight.
Do you think you’ll do something none of us have ever done?
Renee didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
For Renee, there was no blueprint for becoming a pilot. Her family wasn’t sitting on a wad of cash to send her to flying school, like so many of the aspiring pilots she would eventually meet. She attended a regional school with limited resources and, while she had loving and supportive people around her, life wasn’t always stable.
Still, she was determined to find a way.
“I was determined to succeed no matter what,” says Renee.
As a teenager, she joined Air Force Cadets and spent her school holidays chasing every opportunity she could find. She completed mechanical training courses, learned to work with power tools, visited military bases and met pilots and engineers for the first time.
“I just loved it,” says Renee. “I was like a fish to water.”
The more she learned, the more her curiosity grew. What began as a dream of flying soon morphed into something bigger.
Renee realised she didn’t just want to fly planes – she wanted to understand what made an aircraft leave the ground in the first place. How could something so large stay in the air? What forces were at work behind the scenes? How did all the pieces fit together?
“The thing that links everything in my career is my curiosity,” says Renee. “It’s being able to answer why and how things work.”
That curiosity pointed her towards aerospace engineering at UNSW. There was just one catch. At the time, entry into the Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) (Aerospace Engineering) required an ATAR of around 93 – a daunting target for a student from a regional school.
Determined not to let that stand in her way, Renee met with the Dean of Engineering to explore her options. The Dean offered an alternative pathway. If she could achieve an ATAR of 80, she could enter the Diploma of Engineering before transferring into the bachelor’s degree.
Renee gave it everything she had and finished school with an ATAR of 80.1. She’s now a vocal advocate for university pathways, acknowledging her options would have been limited without them.
“A lot of regional kids don’t have access to good education, housing stability or family support,” she says. “Alternative pathways give people the support to be able to get into their dream career. They’re super important.”
The transition from regional Queensland to one of Australia’s most renowned universities was confronting. The workload was intense, the expectations were high, and for the first time, Renee found herself surrounded by students whose backgrounds looked very different from her own.
Nura Gili, UNSW’s Indigenous Centre, became a lifeline, providing tutoring and academic support throughout her degree. She also received a fully funded scholarship through Shalom College, which provided housing stability and meant she didn’t need to worry about balancing multiple jobs while studying.
Just as importantly, Renee found people who believed in her. One of them was fellow student and tutor James Behzadi. Every Saturday morning, the pair would meet to study together. They worked through assignments, prepared for exams and tackled the challenges of engineering side by side.
“No matter what assignment, no matter what time of day, he always showed up for me,” says Renee.
Their friendship is still going strong today.
“He taught me engineering and I taught him English,” she smiles. “We became like brother and sister.”
As Renee’s confidence grew, so did her opportunities. She interned with Qantas for several summers, completed an honours thesis in aerothermodynamics, became an Engineering Ambassador for UNSW and immersed herself in the hands-on projects and industry experiences that would shape her career.
“UNSW’s reputation in industry is immense,” says Renee. “Without saying what my marks were, or what sort of a student I was, all I had to say was I was from UNSW and people were just like ‘come on through’.”
By the time she graduated in 2016, Renee had achieved something remarkable: becoming Australia’s first Indigenous female aerospace engineer. And she was only just getting started.
After graduation, Renee joined the prestigious Qantas Graduate Program. Working in aerospace engineering is demanding and stimulating, but still, Renee was hungry to learn more and push herself further.
Now that she knew how planes worked, she wanted to learn how to fly.
So she returned to UNSW and enrolled in the Graduate Diploma in Flying.
“I picked UNSW to come and fly at because across industry, UNSW was known as having the safest aircraft and the best procedures,” says Renee.
Although choosing UNSW was a no-brainer, going to flying school wasn’t an easy decision. Flying training was expensive, requiring an upfront investment of around $40,000 at the time. Once again, Renee found herself among people from completely different backgrounds – turning up to flight school in fancy cars, with fully funded degrees, while Renee was juggling full-time study with full-time work.
Thankfully, UNSW helped cover her accommodation at Shalom College while she completed the program, giving her the stability she needed to focus on her studies and flight training.
After a few years of gruelling hard work, Renee Wootton Tomlin became a pilot. She’d made her 10-year-old self proud.
For many people, becoming an aerospace engineer and a pilot – all before you turn 30 – is an impressive achievement. For Renee, it was simply the next question answered. And once she could fly a plane, her curiosity naturally shifted to: what’s next?
“I got a bit bored flying!” she laughs.
“I became interested in broader questions, like how do airlines make decisions? How do airports operate? How do complex aviation systems come together? And who gets to make those decisions in the first place?”
So, she stepped out of the cockpit and into a role as Commercial Strategy and Planning Manager at Western Sydney Airport.
As a qualified aerospace engineer and pilot, Renee was surprised to realise her true passion was actually a ‘desk job’. At Western Sydney Airport, she discovered she loved working across commercial strategy and having a seat at decision-making tables.
“We were building an airport literally without a rule book. It was the first time in 50 years that an airport was built in Australia, and I was delivering strategic advice to the executive managers,” says Renee.
“I finally found my people and the sort of work I love doing.”
After Western Sydney Airport, Renee stepped into another unexpected role. Her former employer, Qantas, headhunted her to lead First Nations engagement at an executive level, a role she jokes “was not on my bingo card!” but too interesting to turn down.
“I was like, I’m an aerospace engineer and a pilot. Why am I getting hired to do people strategy? And it ended up being the best job – the experience surprised me and challenged me the most, perhaps because people management is very subjective. It’s not black and white like technical roles, it’s quite emotional,” explains Renee.
She made a huge impact during her time at Qantas, teaching 18,000 staff about First Nations history and culture and helping shape a strategy for hiring more First Nations people and moving them into senior leadership roles.
After two years, her curiosity once again came knocking. She returned to a more technical role, accepting the position of Director, New Market Development for LanzaJet. It was in this role that she finally aligned her passion and purpose with her bigger ‘why’.
“It connected all the things I cared about – aviation, sustainability, economic development and creating opportunities for First Nations people,” explains Renee.
“For the first time, I felt like I was working on something bigger than myself.”
Little did she know, but her experience at LanzaJet was also setting her up for her biggest challenge yet: entrepreneurship.
Today, Renee is Founder and CEO of New Era Energy, which focuses on accelerating Australia’s energy transition while creating opportunities for First Nations communities.
“My mission is to decarbonise aviation and reduce our impact on the environment, and include First Nations People in the energy transition,” says Renee.
“I want to make sure that this industry is around for generations to come.”
It’s ambitious work. But then again, Renee has never been particularly interested in easy challenges.
As an Aboriginal woman operating in traditionally male-dominated industries, she knows first-hand how difficult it can be to gain access to decision-making rooms.
“The systems I’m operating in are built for the most privileged people,” she says. “It took so many alternative pathways and scholarships to lift me up and give me a voice at the table.”
Even now, she says, those barriers haven’t disappeared.
“Even with my credentials, I still can’t get a seat at the table without finding alternative doors to walk through.”
Rather than accepting those barriers, Renee has made a career of dismantling them.
"The world is very much full of barriers. And so I break those things down everywhere I go."
Today, Renee is helping build the kind of future she wishes had existed when she was growing up.
One with more pathways. More opportunities. More seats at the table.
"Imagine if we gave every person as ambitious as I am the resources and opportunities to make an impact."
It's a compelling thought. After all, that's exactly what happened when one curious kid from regional Queensland looked up at a plane and decided to see how far she could go.
A degree that opened doors
A strong reputation that opened doors across the aviation sector
Opportunities to thrive
Alternative pathways that made aerospace engineering accessible
The opportunity to study both aerospace engineering and flying at one university
Hands-on learning through internships, industry projects and research
Support every step of the way
The support of Nura Gili and the Indigenous student community
Mentors and tutors who helped her succeed
Scholarships that provided stability while studying
CareerTrackers Indigenous Internship Program
2011–2016
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Qantas
Engineering Intern, 2011–2016
Graduate Program, 2016–2018
Senior Commercial Analyst, 2018
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Kintell
Business Development Manager, 2018
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QantasLink
Fleet Technical Specialist, 2019–2020
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CAE
Project Engineer, 2020–2021
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Western Sydney Airport
Commercial Strategy and Planning Manager, 2021–2022
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Qantas
Group Manager, First Nations Engagement, 2022–2024
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NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Visiting Student Researcher, 2024
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LanzaJet
Director, New Market Development, 2024–2025
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New Era Energy
Founder and CEO, 2025–present
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Oceania
Director of Partnerships, 2026–present
The Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) (Aerospace Engineering) at UNSW explores the science behind flight, giving students the skills to design, build and improve aircraft and aerospace systems. You'll study everything from aerodynamics and propulsion to flight mechanics and aircraft structures.
The UNSW Graduate Diploma of Flying combines academic study with professional flight training, preparing students for a career as a commercial pilot. Split between UNSW's Kensington campus and the Flying Operations Unit at Bankstown Airport, students develop their aviation knowledge while gaining hands-on experience in the cockpit, completing the flight training required for a Commercial Pilot Licence and other key industry qualifications.
