Waiting for Publication
As I get my hands on the first copies of my new book Not Just for the Boys: Why we need more women in science (publication date May 11th), and prepare for my first talk specifically about the book on...
View ArticleWhat Should I Say to my Kids?
As well as attending the Hay Literary Festival, I’ve been involved with a number of interviews and podcasts over the last couple of weeks relating to the publication of my book Not Just for the Boys:...
View ArticleInnovation: New ideas and New people
Earlier this week I had the pleasure of delivering a public lecture with the above title in the beautiful interior of Hereford Cathedral. This unusual venue, a wonderful testament to the ingenuity of...
View ArticleBin the Boffin
Speaking personally, I hate the label ‘boffin’. Maybe once upon a time it was seen as a positive, but not any more. The Institute of Physics is running a ‘Ban the Boffin’ campaign, as part of their...
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New Scientist Live and Other Talks
It’s the start of a new term in Cambridge and this weekend the streets around the city will be full of nervous looking parents trying to find somewhere to park to unpack their anxious looking children....
View ArticleVoice: Finding Yours
Last week I was the protagonist in the curious ritual called a ‘post-prandial’ talk at my College (Churchill). In other words, after the whole Fellowship had met for the formal governance activity...
View ArticleBeing Festive about Women in STEM
Last week I attended an event at Murray Edwards College, a Women in STEM Festival. Dorothy Byrne, their President though not herself a scientist (she studied Philosophy at Manchester), had done a...
View ArticleTalking to Strangers
I was struck by an article in the Guardian written by Catherine Carr about the pleasure she derives from talking to strangers, which forms the basis of her podcast ‘Where are you going?’ (disclaimer,...
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Conversations in Amazing Libraries
Remarkably, I have been in three magnificent rooms of books in the last week, starting off with the Wren Library in Cambridge’s Trinity College. The first photo (which I admit I have taken from Diane...
View ArticleNot Being in the In-Crowd
Recently I was preparing a talk about work scientists may do that is not simply research and it has provoked me to think about when I fell into doing policy work, or at least moving out of the lab...
View ArticleBeing Exceptional
One of the books I read over Christmas was the 2023 book by Kate Zernike, The Exceptions. It is a story about that committed band of sixteen female scientists at MIT, led by Nancy Hopkins, who built up...
View ArticleRole Models for Girls?
Recently I received an email from a young girl (aged 8 and a half, as she signed herself off, with overtones of Adrian Mole) complaining about the lack of representation of women in STEM. As she says...
View ArticleWhat Can I Do to Help?
Men who’ve heard me talk about my book (Not Just for the Boys: Why we need more women in science), or more generally about the issues facing women in STEM, not infrequently ask me this question: what...
View ArticleClimate Change and Seneca Falls
Those of you familiar with American women’s call for the vote will recognize the name Seneca Falls. It is situated in picturesque upstate New York, near the top of Lake Cayuga, at the bottom of which...
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