Name: Pushing the Boundaries of Science and the Role Women Play
Uploaded: 2018-10-15
Duration: 7 min 1 s
Description: Donna Strickland zeros in on that at Fortune’s Global Forum in Toronto, Canada.

It's extraordinary how long it takes for this kind of science to find it's application. You know we have a very sort of short horizon when we think about research and developing and particularly base science. How long did it take before the first ideas were put to paper between the first uses? Well, again this is just sort of one piece of the puzzles. You have to remember that. It is Albert Einstein that had the first equations that said laser would work. He's the one who understood stimulated emission, cuz Einstein seemed to understand everything So, that was 1917. It took to 1960 to get a laser. The lasers started to get to be shorter pulses the very next year. So, there was a bit of a curve, and then it slowed down. And so when Drew Moore gives the talk he will show that it was slowed down until 1985 when CPA was invented and then it's been taking off ever since. CPA being chirped- Chirped pulse amplification, yes. Okay good CPA. Cuz in this room CPA probably means something else. Yes, that's why I fought against that as being the acronym because people would think it's certified public accountant. But we tried every other combination and nothing else worked. So one of the challenges we've been talking about here is diversity in the workplace. Diversity in academia is part of that and out of that Of the 844 people that have won Noble prizes, fewer 50 are winning in sciences is actually 20, you're one of those 20 which is extraordinary. But even at the academic level in your department the University of Orleans you've got all these full professors there that at in the physics and astronomy department are 6 to 7 women out of 42. It's harder for women to get into this positions in some cases because why? Well I do it's change. So I was the first full- time female professor in physics. We had a half- time. Woman in astrophysics there, and she had to fight to get the job. She brought her own money to start with, because her husband was working at McMaster, and you do try to live with your husband. And as I was saying, most female scientists are married to scientists, just because it's so easy to find a man. [ LAUGH ] So that'll go away if we get 50- 50. We'll have to leave the lab to find them. And so she was there trying to be with her husband and so she got her own funding and eventually, she made a case for why they should hire her to stay on Waterloo. So I was the first one, and it was a hilarious story when they, and so I know how few women they actually interviewed, because we go for lunch, and Gretchen Harris was on the committee to help hire me as the one woman. And another colleague said here, I'll take, you know, come with me, and we'll take the coat into the coat room. At the University club. And Gretchen said no, she's not gonna follow you. She's gonna follow me. They had this whole argument. And when I finally followed Gretchen, which I could tell that's what I was supposed to do, then I realized it was the women's room. And when John comes out, he goes it's a good thing you didn't follow me. I never noticed it's the men's room. And so I went boy you've obviously brought a lot of women here before. But now, since then, I was the head of the optics hiring, ever since I've been hired. And so I actually brought Melanie Campbell over from optometry, I convinced her to join us. And we brought in [ UNKNOWN ], and now we've had Zoya, and we've had two more at the Institute of Quantum Computing. So really, it's now every year we're bringing on another female. And do you see this happening at academic institutions around Canada, around the United States? I mean, it seems like it's still a Huge gap between the number of men in basic science and women. Well, it's true but I mean, we still only have less than 30 % women even as undergraduates. So it's very hard also then to get too far along in getting In more than that we're up to in Canada cuz I was the director of academic affairs with Canadian Association of Physicists. So I had to look after this data. It is about 17 % women right across Canada now and that's probably what it is in the United States. [ UNKNOWN ] gas But there are initiatives. The American Physical Society did come to visit us a few years ago. We asked them to come and visit us, to say, what are we not doing correctly. What can we do? And part of that is starting earlier. Like we talked about, my daughter has a woman who's the physics teacher in her class. You talked about your own Daughter's experience with that. You said that the teacher sorta didn't make it interesting. And you were gonna, I'm gonna go in and teach this class. Well, she sort of told the class she didn't really like physics herself. And so when she said that, I thought, mm, Hannah, I've gotta go in. My daughter loved that I went in in grade four, five, and six. But this was grade eight, awkward age for all of us, right? And she goes, mom, it'll be embarrassing if you come into the class. And I went, no, no, we're going to introduce Newton's laws by somebody who loves Newton's laws. So I went. I don't know that I changed any minds in the grade eight- Well, you changed her mind, she became a physicist She is a physicist. Well, she's in graduate school here at Toronto in astrophysics. Well, so there is one other predecessor of yours who's not only won the Nobel Prize in physics but here daughter also won. People say that. Marie Curie's daughter also won, Irene Curie. And people have said to Hannah well now you have a role model and I'm going let's put some pressure on the girl. No. [ LAUGH ]. You grew up less than 100 kilometers from here in the town of Gelf. Welf. Welf. Mm- hm. Is that how you pronounce it? Yes. Welf. Okay it does. It's the Gulfites as the Romeo and Juliet story. Apparently the Guelphites really. What's it like to sort of win a Noble prize for Canada being a native Canadian? Well first of all it's just been very exciting for me I mean every friend I think I've ever had in my life has reached out to me. Suppossedly my alimentary school Victory public is going to celebrate its 100th anniversary so they've asked for momentum and if I have my repport card. And my mother was a teacher so she has kept all my repport cards so I will give them one of my repport cardsfrom Victory public school. But the [ UNKNOWN ] qualification- Did you keep your calender from your high school years, did you? Well, if you get your report card, that will be a great memento. Donna Strickland, Nobel Laureate in Physics, thank you so much. Thank you.

Pushing the Boundaries of Science and the Role Women Play

Donna Strickland zeros in on that at Fortune’s Global Forum in Toronto, Canada. 