Dame Athene Donald is the first to admit she doesn’t have all the answers – especially if the question is how to get more women into scientific fields.
“Whenever I give a talk, sixth-form girls will come up to me and say, ‘This is great’…but it’s still the teachers and policymakers we need to reach, and I don’t know how to do that.”
In the past decade, the physicist and master of Churchill College, Cambridge has given many a talk in her campaign to diversify science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Her latest book, Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science, tries to get at the root of one of academia’s most obvious and persistent problems.
“I am very conscious that…take girls doing the physics A level, the numbers don’t change very much,” she told Times Higher Education at an event hosted by Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. “And why, if everyone recognises this is going on, why is nothing changing?”
