For the final unit for her second Masters of Education, her thesis was on "Anomalistic beliefs in Australians : a Rasch analysis",[8] and she was a co-author on a paper raising questions about the Wiseman and Watt’s short scales of positive and negative superstitions.

At the beginning of 2006, after an influential lecture on 'Teaching Critical Thinking in the Physical Sciences' by Liam McDaid of Sacramento City College, the West Australian Skeptic Association ran an Award for challenging pseudo-scientific and paranormal claims.

[12] Sturgess was a presenter of a paper at the James Randi Educational Foundation's The Amazing Meeting 5, with the title "The West Australian Skeptics Awards for Young Critical Writers: Investigations and Questions about Future Directions when Studying High School Students’ Beliefs in the Pseudoscientific and the Paranormal.".

[13] In 2008 she presented at the Australian Skeptics National Conference in Adelaide, South Australia with "On Sex, Smarts and Where The SkepGrrls At: An Investigation into Gender Differences and Belief In Weird Things".

[14] She has been a speaker on a number of panels on the SkepTrack at Dragon*Con from 2009 to 2011[15] and in 2010 spoke at Global Atheist Convention, Melbourne 12–14 March 2010 on "Sex and Skepticism: a Study of Belief in Australian Women".

[16] and presented on a panel at the QED Convention 2011 in Manchester, UK, called 'Reaching Out Reasonably’ with Eugenie Scott, Sile Lane, David Kirby, and moderated by Janis Bennion.