UW’s Donna Strickland accepts Nobel Prize in physics
‘This is a landmark in terms of women in science,’ says student
WATERLOO — It’s official.
University of Waterloo professor Donna Strickland has accepted her Nobel Prize in physics.
She was handed the award at the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm on Monday. Meanwhile, colleagues and students watched a live broadcast of the event with much fanfare, in a boardroom on the university’s campus.
“This is a landmark in terms of women in science and women in STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and math),” said Isabel Drummond, a first-year geography student who was at the university viewing party to see Strickland get her award.
“I’m really proud of the fact that a professor at my school got to have this opportunity and was able to do this.”
Strickland, 59, was awarded the prize for her groundbreaking work in the field of laser physics, alongside her former PhD supervisor, French scientist Gérard Mourou. The two discovered Chirped Pulse Amplification — high-intensity,
short-pulse lasers — in the 1980s while Strickland was a student at the University of Rochester, in New York.
The technique has been used in many applications since then, including for corrective laser eye surgery.
Strickland, originally from Guelph, runs the UW Laser Lab. She is the third woman to win the physics prize after Maria Goeppert-Mayer won in 1963 and Marie Curie in 1903. Strickland is the university's first Nobel laureate.
Arthur Ashkin of the United States also received this year’s physics prize for his work with lasers.
Strickland and Mourou will split one-half of the US$1.01 million prize and Ashkin will receive the other half.
On Monday morning, with sparkling water in plastic flutes, cookies with a Strickland caricature on them, and noisemakers, students and colleagues cheered the professor on as she walked across the stage to accept her prize, beaming in a long red gown.
“Congratulations to Donna,” said Prof. Raymond Laflamme of the Institute for Quantum Computing and a colleague of Strickland’s in the physics and astronomy department. “She’s been recognized for ... a piece of work which was really founded on pure curiosity when it was done, but it has applications for all of us.”