Interview – Donna Strickland, 2018 Nobel Prize of Physics
Donna Strickland was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics for her invention of the chirped pulse amplification (CPA) technique with Gérard Mourou in 1985. This technique amounts to stretching a short pulse at low energy through diffraction gratings, then amplifying it to high energy before finally compressing it in order to get a short, high energy pulse. This technology opened the route to petawatt lasers used in high-field science, ultrafast imaging and spectroscopy techniques, eye surgery, and many industrial applications such as micromachining, to mention a few.
International Day of Women and Girls in Science
February 11th is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. This day was established by the United Nations General Assembly to promote the full and equal participation of women and girls in education, training, employment and the decision-making processes in the sciences.
AIP Women in Physics Lecture Tour: call for nominations 2018
The Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) Women in Physics Lecture Tour (WIP) celebrates the contribution of women to advances in physics. Under this scheme, a woman who has made a significant contribution in a field of physics will be selected to present lectures in venues arranged by each participating branch of the AIP. Nominations are currently sought for the AIP WIP Lecturer for 2018. We are seeking a woman working overseas who:
Natasha Jeffrey: looking at the beautiful Sun and (much) more
Natasha Jeffrey is an early career researcher in solar physics at the University of Glasgow, UK, a world-leading solar group. She is interested in solar flare plasma physics and studies the largest explosions in the solar system, solar flares, a key component of space weather. She uses both observational tools and modelling to understand how flares accelerate and transport high energy particles efficiently, a vital topic in all high-energy astrophysics. In 2016, she received the EPS Plasma Physics Thesis Prize and in 2017, the European Solar Physics Division Early Career Researcher Award. In 2018, she will receive the European Geosciences Union ST Division Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award.
New Data on Gender Inequality in Sciences Salaries
There is a difference between male and female physics faculty salaries and the culture of physics is partly to blame, according to an article that is available for free this month from Physics Today, the world’s most influential and closely followed magazine devoted to physics and the physical sciences community.
Cracking the code: girls’ education in STEM
The UNESCO International Symposium and Policy Forum will take place from 28-30 August 2017 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Winter 2016 Emmy Noether distinction presented to Patricia Bassereau
On 20th March, the Winter 2016 Emmy Noether distinction was presented to Dr. Patricia Bassereau (Institute Curie of the CNRS in Paris, France), by the EPS Equal Opportunity Committee (EOC) Chair, on behalf of the EPS President.
From Turkey to Japan: the key point is to know what you want
Gülfem SÜSOY DOĞAN is a young researcher in nuclear physics at Istanbul University. She obtained a Master degree in 2010 and a PhD degree in 2015 from the Istanbul University Nuclear Physics Division. She worked as a guest researcher at Osaka University in 2014-2015 (based in Japan) and participated in nuclear physics experiments at Caen-France GANIL, at Tokyo HIMAC Research Centre and at Yale University.
February 11th, the UN International Day of Women and Girls in Science
On 22 December 2015, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a resolution to establish an annual International Day to recognise the critical role that women and girls play in science and technology communities: “Girls continue to face stereotypes and social and cultural restrictions, limiting access to education and funding for research, preventing them from scientific careers and reaching their full potential. Women remain a minority in science research and decision-making”, wrote Irina Bukova, Director-General of the UNESCO. A celebration event took place on February 9th 2017 morning at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, focusing on Building capacity and Empowering women and girls and on various actions on Women, Science and Society.
Kumiko Kotera: doing beautiful physics without giving up on family, art and the rest of the world
Kumiko Kotera is a young researcher in Astrophysics, at the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, (IAP) of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). She builds theoretical models to probe the most violent phenomena in the Universe, by deciphering their so-called “astroparticle” messengers (cosmic rays, neutrinos and photons).
Autumn-Winter 2016 Emmy Noether distinction to Patricia Bassereau
It is a great pleasure to announce that the Autumn-Winter 2016 EPS Emmy Noether Distinction for Women in Physics goes to Dr. Patricia Bassereau from the Institute Curie of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, France. Patricia is a world leader at the Physics-Biology interface and carries out outstanding research on the physics of bio-membranes. She is a role model for how soft matter scientists coming from the physical sciences can make contributions in biology.
International Day of Women and Girls in Science
On 15 December 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/70/212 declaring 11 February as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The United Nations invites all Member States including academia, individuals and society in general, to observe the International Day of Women and Girls in Science to promote the full and equal participation of women and girls in education, training, employment and decision-making processes in the sciences.
