Meet the Founders
Today is the 6th anniversary of Noisy Guts company formation.
And its approximately 5 years since we first starting experimenting in the Marshall Centre kitchen with recipes for our Superflora Shakes – we think that is worth celebrating and a great time for us to share a little of our story.
Read on to find out more about us from our passions to our pet peeves.
Meet Dr Josephine Muir - CEO and IBS Warrior-in-chief
Backstory:
While her mum wanted to become a nurse from age 5, Josephine never had that compelling career call – that one over-riding passion that she wanted to pursue. While her buddies were making definitive career choices in high school, she viewed university as a tasting-plate. The fact that her tastes varied so widely made her feel like an anomaly. In Josephine’s first year at uni, she took classical piano, industrial relations and political theory. It took some time to refine her palette, finally graduating with a degree in public relations and politics. Once Josephine caught the curiousity bug, her insatiable appetite translated into Honours at Monash, a Masters of Public Policy at ANU and a PhD at UniMelb.
Josephine’s career path too has been anything but linear. What she loves most is making a difference. In 2016, Josephine was employed by UWA as the Associate Director of the Marshall Centre for Infectious Diseases – setting the research agenda for WA’s Nobel Laureate Prof Barry Marshall. One project that caught her attention was using acoustic sensing technology to decode gut noises. Together with her office mate Mary, she decided to jump off a cliff, leaving academia to pursue IBS diagnostics, management and treatments. While how they’re achieving this has changed over the years, Mary and Josephine are still committed to their north star – making the lives of people with IBS better.
What Fuels your passion?
Josephine has lived with IBS for 30 years. It’s been a wild and sometimes unpredictable ride. While mostly well managed through a combination of exercise, mindfulness and the low fodmap diet, Josephine is energised by helping others manage their gut health symptoms.
Meet Dr Mary Webberley - CSO and Chief Data Wrangler
Backstory:
Mary grew up in England and has a background in biology. She studied a broad Natural Sciences degree at Cambridge zooming in on Ecology and Evolution for her final year of undergraduate study and her PhD.
In her 20s, Mary focused in on how parasites spread through insect populations and spent happy summers collecting ladybirds across the nettle beds, rose bushes and lime trees of Europe…and cold winters in London coding computer simulations, whilst getting to know an energetic Aussie geneticist.
Mary made a change to clinical research after moving to Australia and having a family. She started working with Prof Barry Marshall at UWA helping with his research and science writing. Expanding her expertise, Mary delved into clinical trial design and took on the role of project manager for the innovative Noisy Guts Project, which leveraged gut sounds to revolutionize IBS and IBD diagnostics.
With Josephine, she spun the research out of the University in 2019 and founded Noisy Guts Pty Ltd. Although early findings showed promise, a subsequent larger clinical trial revealed that gut sound analysis was unlikely to achieve the level of accuracy necessary for widespread application.
Making the most of all they had learnt about IBS and other common gut disorders, Mary and Josephine pivoted to science-backed, low FODMAP gut health products…something they keep expanding on today.
What Fuels Your Passion?
I love having a role with purpose – something that has me skipping up the stairs to the office in the morning and keeps me going even in the face of supply chain delays, ingredient price hikes or contract manufacturer hiccups.
For me that purpose is taking the science and translating it into something tangible that helps people with gut issues.
That might mean reviewing the research papers on different fibre types or probiotics to choose the most effective ingredients for our products.
Alternatively, it might be translating research findings into key tips about lifestyle and diet that can help our readers live healthier lives.
Happily, this ties in with the Noisy Guts mission to improve gut health.
Quick Fire Questions:
Favourite Task at Noisy Guts:
Mary: Working with our creative partners, our graphic designer, photographer and videographer, always gives me an energy lift.
Josephine: Developing new low fodmap recipes for photoshoots. I love experimenting in my kitchen and torturing my family with new dinners & desserts.
Favourite productivity hacks
Mary: I use a variation on the Pomodoro Method for any writing task that requires focus. I remove all distractions, switch on a timer for 25 mins and just write, often when the timer goes off I’m immersed in the topic and just keep going.
Josephine: I use habit-stacking to embed new habits into my routine.
What’s Your Superpower (and Kryptonite)?
Mary: My superpower is my physical strength - yes, really! Regularly lifting weights in the gym means I’m surprisingly handy at lugging 20kg bags of WPI upstairs or shifting boxes of Boosts.
My kryptonite is getting absorbed in a project, working late and then regretting the lack of sleep the next morning when my kids and husband get up early for sport.
Josephine: My superpower is the ability to locate a bathroom. 30+ years of IBS has fine-tuned my detective capabilities! I’m a bathroom sleuth.
My kryptonite is procrasti-baking and procrasti-running. Turns out that my kryptonite is disguising procrastination with productive hobbies to hide the fact that I am actually procrastinating.
Favourite snack for brainstorming sessions?
Mary: A cup of coffee
Josephine: A hot pot of tea. And chocolate
An item you always have on your desk?
Mary: My desk is always a scene of organised chaos. Typically it has two notebooks, one diary, a weekly planner with to-do list, two coffee mugs (see above) and a spare pair of glasses.
Josephine: My tea pot. No point in denying it. I am a tea snob. There is nothing worse than a lukewarm bag of disappointment.
The best advice you’ve ever received?
Mary: This one came from my husband. Prioritise your health first in your day and fit everything else around that. For example, do your exercise first thing or have it booked in your diary. My body performs better later in the day, so for me this strategy means having plenty of fibre and protein for breakfast and planning my yoga and exercise classes with friends and gym sessions with my daughter to ensure I show up.
Josephine: Run the mile you’re in. As someone who likes to take on BHAG (big hairy audacious goals) but can get overwhelmed with the size of the goals I set myself (think ultra marathons), I’m learning to stay present, breakdown large tasks into smaller chunks, smile and tackle each challenge one step at a time.
What winds you up?
Mary: Unsubstantiated wild claims on health foods and supplements with dubious ingredients…especially anything with inulin.
Josephine: AI-generated food pics.
Who is your canine best friend?
Mary: Jimmy the Wonderdog, a big boofhead rescue dog.
Josephine: Miss Piper, a playful cavoodle.
Trivia Challenge:
Q: Who’s more likely to spill cocoa powder all over themselves?
A: Mary
Q: Who’s more likely to steal office pens?
A: Josephine
Q: Who’s more likely to leave typos scattered throughout a blog or Instagram post?
A: Mary (The Queen of Typos)
Q: Who’s more likely to accidentally slam the front door to the office?
A: Josephine (who manages to do this every. single. day.)
Favourite Superflora product:
Mary: This is a hard one. It changes regularly. I recently starting mixing the Tropical+ Daily Gut Health Boost through coconut yoghurt and got pretty obsessed, but I think my new favourite is a new hot drink we’ve just developed…watch this space. It will be launching soon.
Josephine: My favourite post-workout drink is the vanilla gut health shake with frozen raspberries blitzed with lactose-free milk.