20 Issue 54 – October 2015 – QUEEN MARGARET CALLING
She attended Queen Margaret College
from 1959 to 1966 and was a keen
sportswoman.
“One of my favourite memories of College
was being named Berwick Sports Captain in
my final year,” Mary Jane comments.
She trained from childhood in Ballet, Jazz
and later Contemporary Dance, and always
knew what she wanted as a career, even as early
as secondary school.
“I wanted to be a ballerina.”
In 1968 she received a Tertiary Diploma in
Dance from the National School of Ballet in
Wellington followed by a Solo Seal qualification
from the UK Royal Academy of Dancing.
Then in 1969, Mary Jane received a Royal
Academy of Dancing Scholarship to attend
the Royal Ballet School in London (UK) at the
Senior Advanced Ballet Level.
These qualifications set Mary Jane up
for a professional career in dance spanning
Past pupil Mary Jane O’Reilly QSM (née McDonald) has
carved out a dance career many could only dream about.
Dancing Queen
over 25 years both nationally and
internationally as a dancer, choreographer,
teacher, director and producer.
In 1977 she co-founded the Limbs Dance
Company in Auckland. As dancer and
choreographer with the Limbs Dance Company
until 1989, she also held the position of Artistic
Director from 1979 to 1986.
Limbs certainly kept Mary Jane on her
toes – the dance company’s choreography
was acclaimed not just nationally but around
the globe, with tours of Australia, Papua New
Guinea, the United States, Mexico, Hong Kong
and Japan.
Mary Jane was also Founder and Artistic
Director of the Auckland Dance Company
from 1996 – 2001 and Artistic Director of
Tempo, New Zealand’s Festival of Dance for six
years.
Highlights of her career also include
being Director of Choreography for the 1990
Alove of scientific discovery propelled
Davey into a fascinating research
career as a Developmental Biologist.
Her passion for Science started from an early
age, when she attended Queen Margaret
College from 1989 to 1993. However the
budding scientist was unsure what career path
she would take.
“I just knew I liked biology and wanted to
know more about embryonic development,”
she comments.
A proud Berwick supporter and New
Zealand representative in Underwater Hockey,
her journey took her to become the Group
Leader of the Davey Research Group at the
Roslin Institute at Edinburgh University where
her latest finding could hold clues about the
causes of cancer.
Self-confessed perfectionist Dr Megan Davey believes the greatest
lesson Queen Margaret College taught her was that hard work is
as important as talent.
Science of Success
It started with a scholarship to study
Developmental Biology at University College
London. Achieving a Bachelor of Science
with Honours majoring in Anatomy and
Developmental Biology was just the beginning
of her academic career. She continued on to the
University of Dundee and began working on
her PhD in Developmental Biology.
After completing her PhD, she was offered
a post-doctoral research position at the Roslin
Institute, a leading animal sciences research
centre at the University of Edinburgh and
earned a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences
Research Council (BBSRC) Fellowship, which
funded her continued work into Bio-Science.
In 2014 one of her research projects found
that emu eggs may hold clues to causes of birth
defects and in turn hold clues about the causes
of cancer. This made news around the world.
She studied emu and chicken eggs to see how
genes control the way our bodies grow and
develop, helping her understand how genes can
go wrong and cause birth defects.
A mother of two children, Megan says
combining being a single mother and a research
career has been challenging but extremely
rewarding.
“Working in an area you love will always be
more rewarding than an area you do not like -
even if it pays more.”
Auckland Commonwealth Games Opening
Ceremony, which involved a cast of 6000 people
and the Millennium Dawn Event in Gisborne.
During her busy career, Mary Jane also
balanced family life with the birth of her
daughter Morgana O’Reilly in 1985.
Mary Jane’s hard work and dedication has
not gone unnoticed. She received the $30,000
Allen Highet Award in 1984 for outstanding
achievement by a mid-career artist and a
Queen Service Medal for her services to Dance
in 1990.
Not one to slow down, Mary Jane is
currently teaching ballet and presenting her
neo burlesque work In Flagrante, which is seen
by thousands all over the world.
Remembering fondly of her time at Queen
Margaret College, Mary Jane says the school
taught her how to be a leader.
She has but one word of advice for current
students: “Focus.”