This year, the award is given to Prof. Athene Donald of Cambridge.
Professor Donald, who is the Deputy Head of the Department of Physics, beat out such candidates as scientist Baroness Susan Greenfield and internet entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox to win the prize from the iconic women's lifestyle magazine.
In announcing the award in their latest edition, the magazine praised Professor Donald as a "great role model" who has "forged a real path for herself in the male-dominated world of physics."
OK, I just wasted several minutes erasing something I wrote about my cynicism regarding a fashion magazine giving awards about Science and Technology and talking about role model. My head told me to just shut up and report the damn news! :)
Zz.
2 comments:
OK you may think it strange. So do I (particularly as I knew nothing about it until someone wrote to congratulate me). BUT think about the demographics of the magazine. If we want more young women to choose physics - and we do don't we - then having science and technology identified by their 'lifestyle magazine' (as I believe Glamour is called) as an important subject has to be good news. Physics doesn't get much coverage in the average sort of media the teenage girl reads or watches, so we should be glad of any opportunity to say physics is an OK subject done by people who don't necessarily look like Frankenstein. So mock not! I'm the one who has to cope with the amusement of my peers.
Prof. Donald,
Please know that I was not mocking you. I think it is an accomplishment in itself for you to be singled out by a magazine not known for having any knowledge of such an area.
It is just that the magazine and "science" are just so ... contradictory. It's like Playboy Magazine giving an award modesty!
I should have also quoted what you said towards the end of that article, where you hoped that the award gives science some free advertisement to girls who wouldn't have thought about it.
In any case, congratulations on the award.
Zz.
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