Blazing trails for female scientists
In April 2017, Canada’s federal science minister, Kristy Duncan, bemoaned the fact that female scientists occupied just 30 per cent of the 1,612 positions in the Canada Research Chairs Program.
Duncan, herself a former research scientist and university professor, called the situation “dismal.”
Canadian women in science might have received a welcome boost with the naming this week of Ontario’s Donna Strickland as a winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics. Strickland, an associated professor at the University of Waterloo, was one-half of the team honoured for discovering Chirped Pulse Amplification, a technique used in short-pulse, high-intensity lasers.
Strickland became the first woman in 55 years to earn a Nobel Prize in physics, ending a drought that followed Maria Goeppert Mayer’s win in 1963. Along with Marie Curie in 1903, they are the only women physicists to claim the renowned prize.
Strickland, who cited Goeppert Mayer’s work in her own PhD efforts for which she won the award, noted that life for female scientists has improved markedly in the past half-century. While Goeppert-Mayer, a German-born American physicist, went largely unpaid through her career, Strickland said she hasn’t experienced gender inequality and believes women are poised to earn greater prominence in the field of science.
“We should never lose the fact that we are moving forward,” Strickland said in an interview with The Canadian Press. “We are always marching forward.”
Scientists like Strickland are helping pave the way for the next generation of women. In fact, during a news conference Tuesday at the U of Waterloo, the newly minted Nobel winner encouraged a young female scientist in the crowd to believe in herself.
“If somebody else thinks something that you don’t believe in, just think they’re wrong and you’re right and keep going,” said Strickland, whose Nobel triumph is well timed, with Persons Day to be celebrated this month, paying tribute to the historic court decision that allowed women to serve in the Canadian Senate.
Strickland is the latest in the long line of Canadian women in the field of science who have been blazing new trails for other women to follow, women such as as Elsie MacGill, the first Canadian woman to receive a degree in aeronautical engineering (in 1927). By 1938, she was serving as the Chief Aeronautical Engineer at Canadian Car and Foundry, making her the first woman in the world to hold such a position (as noted on the website www.amightygirl.com).
Another was Harriet Brooks, was Canada’s first female nuclear physicist. Interestingly, she worked with Marie Curie while obtaining her Master’s degree.
Strickland’s Nobel victory will certainly be an inspiration for the next generation of female scientists.
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