On point: From ballerina to defence hawk
After injury but an end to her ballet career, Sophie Mayo went back to TAFE to finish her HSC because she left school in Year 10. Now she’s been awarded a prestigious scholarship to the US.
A professional ballerina turned foreign policy and defence researcher is heading to the US on the prestigious John Monash Scholarship with dreams of contributing to Australia’s defence capabilities and the US-Australia bilateral relationship.
Sophie Mayo, one of the 18 2025 John Monash Scholars, will study a Masters of Business Administration in the US and continue her policy studies on the Australia-US alliance with a focus on what Australia can get out of the relationship.
“Studying in US with the best practitioners and academics in that space will develop really important knowledge and connections for … for Australian national security outcomes. Ultimately the US is our most important security guarantor,” she said.
Ms Mayo said that through the MBA she wanted to work with students from different disciplines on national security challenges. “I’d love to, after getting experience in US, return to Australia and put skills I’ve developed to good use by contributing to … defence innovation challenges in the national resilience venture capital ecosystem,” she said.
Ms Mayo said she realised, while working on the Foreign Policy and Defence program at the US Studies Centre, that the commercial tech sector “now leads progress in the technologies required to bolster national security” and she wanted work in that space.
From a young age, Ms Mayo was on a path to becoming a professional ballerina. “When I was 17 or 18, I was training full-time to become ballet dancer and moved to Berlin. I was very much on the path to becoming a ballerina, but after a number of stress fractures, I had to stop dancing.”
Ms Mayo went back to TAFE to finish her HSC because she had left school and was studying via distance education in year 10.
She said it was “a challenging time” but that she always loved international relations.
The 17 other recipients of the 2025 John Monash Scholarship include an aerospace engineer with an interest in addressing skills gaps in Australia’s space industry, and a photonics and nanotechnology researcher who hopes to further explain the biology of the brain.
Named in honour of General Sir John Monash, the postgraduate scholarships are awarded each year. The scholars will attend top institutions in China, Germany, England, Scotland and the US, and study in fields thought to be critical to Australia’s future.
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