Tag: women in stem

‘People are ready’ to recognize female scientists, says Canadian Nobel winner Donna Strickland

allthecanadianpolitics:

A Canadian scientist who became only the third woman to win the Nobel Prize for Physics said her personal triumph doubles as a sign of progress for her male-dominated industry.

Donna Strickland, associate professor at Ontario’s University of Waterloo, was honoured on Tuesday for being half of the team to discover Chirped Pulse Amplification, a technique that underpins today’s short-pulse, high-intensity lasers.

The 59-year-old Guelph, Ont., native made the discovery while completing her PhD at the University of Rochester in New York and will share half of the US$1.01-million prize with her doctoral adviser, French physicist Gerard Mourou. The other half of the prize will go to Arthur Ashkin of the United States, who was the third winner of the award.

Strickland’s victory not only cemented her own place in Nobel history, but ended a 55-year-long drought for female physicists being recognized by the prize committee. She joins the ranks of Marie Curie, the first woman to claim the honour in 1903, and 1963 winner Maria Goeppert-Mayer.

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‘People are ready’ to recognize female scientists, says Canadian Nobel winner Donna Strickland

stupendoussciencenaturepanda:

brightpapercrane:

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vilebloodexecutioner:

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shychemist:

Seeing this girl with visible body mods (lip piercing, 1 inch stretched ears) who is a Chemist makes me feel better that I’ll be able to keep my current piercings and stretch my ears bigger. 🙂

I don’t see too many scientists/Chemists/etc with body mods that often, so I thought this was neat.

Plus its great to see more Women in Stem fields in general.

In my experience, STEM fields are more welcoming to people with body mods than other fields. I think the only exception has been engineering, in my experience.

When I was a kid the only professional fields really accepting of tattoos were tattoo artists (duh), army and police, or surgeons. For the latter two they needed to be covered by your regular outfits.

Piercings are actually really surprising because just like in cooking, you run the risk of them falling off into whatever it is you’re making.

(AND ENGINEERS ARE A BUNCH OF DORKS)

Most STEM fields seem to be pretty accepting of body mods, because honestly, if you put in enough work to get into a STEM field and actually have that much of an interest, they have no real desire to deny you. Especially off of something as arbitrary as body modifications. 

I’m just sitting here wondering where she got those fly-ass goggles.

I thought I wouldn’t be able to keep mine when I entered education but now I’ve seen multiple teachers with body mods and loads more with tattoos, even in places usually deemed ‘unacceptable for work’. Never had a school tell me my lip piercing wasn’t allowed yet, but I have had a minimum-wage job say it.

When I worked in fast food, my coworker had to put bandaids over her “nontraditional” ear piercings.

When I was a server, my coworker (who was 25 and her hair was already starting to grey naturally) was told she couldn’t dye her hair grey the way she wanted and instead had to dye it blonde.

As a Lab Technician in one of the largest genomics companies in the world: I can proudly display my nose stud, one of the lab managers has a nose stud, one of my coworkers has a wrist tattoo, a good majority of my coworkers have tattoo, a coworker has dyed her hair crazy colors, a coworker has gauged earlobes, and a lot more I can’t think of right now.

Don’t let anyone tell you that body mods are unprofessional.

I knew more than a few NOAA and Smithsonian scientists who had stretched lobes, visible tattoos, interesting piercings, and one particular fellow who liked to shave half of his head and keep the rest chin length in bright blue. As long as your hair is up, your shoes are close-toed, and you have proper safety gear, most scientists are happy.

I work as a science teacher, have my lip pierced, my hair is currently a pink to purple fade (last month it was shades of blue), and part of my head is shaved. My coworkers have all sorts of tattoos as well, but mine isn’t visible. Work and the parents haven’t said a thing – except to compliment my latest hairstyle or clothing! The kids love it, they think it’s the best thing ever.

This woman fundamentally changed climate science — and you’ve probably never heard of her

rjzimmerman:

Excerpt:

It was “blind luck” said Ray Sorenson, a retired petroleum geologist, regarding how he first came across Eunice Foote’s name. Sorenson, whose basement in Oklahoma is full of more than 300 pre-Civil War era technical books, discovered Foote’s name sometime in 2010.

Sorenson had found copies of the Annual Scientific Discovery by David A. Wells, and “I really liked them, and started collecting them,” he told ThinkProgress. It was while reading the 1857 volume that he stumbled upon Foote.

As he quickly realized, Foote was the first scientist to make the connection between carbon dioxide and climate change. She discovered CO2’s warming properties in 1856, more than 160 years ago and three years before John Tyndall, a British scientist who has widely been credited with first establishing the connection between increased global temperatures and carbon dioxide.

But for a number of reasons — chief among them the fact that she was a woman — Foote’s name was until recently lost to history, a minor footnote within climate science.

“I knew just enough about the history of climate science,” Sorenson said of his ability to grasp the significance of the name and date. “I recognized that it was something that had been missed by historians,” he explained, “and I felt she deserved recognition.”

In January 2011, Sorenson published his findings in the journal AAPG Search and Discovery as an independent researcher. “I’ve had more response to that than anything else I’ve ever written,” he said.

This woman fundamentally changed climate science — and you’ve probably never heard of her