What better day than International Women's Day 2019 to write a post about a nuclear physicist who was in the Physics Department here in Surrey some time before me, Daphne Jackson.
Daphne Jackson was the first female professor of Physics in the UK, here at Surrey — appointed in 1971, at the age of 34. Initially she worked on the local Surrey specialty of nuclear reaction theory, before applying the theoretical work to nuclear medicine, in diagnosis and treatment.
She was a strong promoter of women in physics, particularly supporting those who had had a career break for family reasons from which the route back in to academic research used to be practically impossible (and is still very difficult). In 1985 she started a fellowship scheme to enable women to return to research careers. The scheme was continued after her untimely death in 1991 by the Daphne Jackson Trust, which continues today to help returners (both male and female) to academic research careers.
I attach to this post a couple of pictures I took this morning. One is of a picture of Prof Jackson, which is hanging up in our Jackson Room. I took the picture from the side to avoid reflections, hence the strange choice of angle. The other picture is of a monograph that she wrote with Roger Barrett on fundamental nuclear physics in the mid 70s. It's still referred to today: Here is Google Scholar's take on citations in 2018-2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment