Corey Tutt is an Indigenous mentor and STEM champion. He is the founder of DeadlyScience, an initiative that provides science books and early reading material to remote schools in Australia. Tutt is the 2020 NSW Young Australian of the Year.
Early life and family
Tutt was born in Nowra, New South Wales, in 1992. He is aboriginal of Kamilaroi country. Tutt attended Dapto High School, where his favourite subjects were science, agriculture and history and animals. Tutt appeared on ABC Radio national program with the year that made me: Tutt spoke about the year he lost a close friend to suicide and the impacts that had on him which lead him to becoming an alpaca shearer and finding the love of science again.
He founded DeadlyScience whilst working at the University of Sydney. Originally working two jobs to fund DeadlyScience he set up a go fund me that attracted over $100,000 in donations, after realising that there was a school in remote Australia who had only fifteen books in their library. As well as receiving book donations from high-profile scientists such as Professor Brian Cox and Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, as of 2020, Tutt raised more than $100,000 to purchase books and equipment, and distributed more than 11000 books and 480 telescopes and various other scientific resources. Tutt particularly wants to ensure that every remote Australian school a copy of Bruce Pascoe's book Dark Emu – a history of Indigenous science and agriculture – to help educate them about the real story of Australia's past. In 2020, DeadlyScience began assisting with rebuilding schools affected by devastating bush fires which ravaged most of the South Coast of New South Wales. They did this by providing books and resources to schools that have been destroyed by fire. DeadlyScience successfully raised $7,000 for Broome Primary School in Western Australia that was burnt down by an arson attack. Tutt said on the ABC nightlife program "Schools are the heart beat of our community and for our community in Broome we stand with you during this dark time". Tutt appeared on Wil Anderson's podcast wilosphy where he spoke about overcoming trauma as child to creating DeadlyScience.
