Ryan-Weber is originally from Ballarat, where her early memories include seeing Halley's Comet in 1986, when she was 10. In year 10 at Loreto College, Victoria, she won an essay contest to travel to the US for a Space Camp. She became a student of physics at the University of Melbourne, continuing there for her Ph.D. with doctoral research on radio astronomy at the Parkes Observatory,[2] focusing on observations of neutral hydrogen both in galaxies and in intergalactic space.[3] Her 2004 doctoral dissertation was supervised by Rachel Webster.[5]
She obtained a five-year postdoctoral research position at the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge,[2] from 2004 through 2008,[3] through which she gained access to several large optical telescopes. She returned to Australia to her present position at the Swinburne University of Technology,[2] initially as an Australian Research Council Queen Elizabeth II Fellow.[3]
At Swinburne, and as director of ASTRO 3D, Ryan-Weber has been a strong advocate for women in science, and over five years has brought the center up from having 30% women among its researchers to 50%.[2][6]
