12:00pm Monday 13th October 2008
A SCIENTIST is on a worldwide mission to explode stereotypes and encourage more young women into physics.
Dr Liz Ainsbury is discussing the global quandry with woman physicists from more than 70 countries at an international three-day conference in Korea starting today, Wednesday.
The 27-year-old former Hartford woman, who went to Hartford High School and Sir John Deane’s College, now works in the radiation protection division of the Health Protection Agency in Oxfordshire and is keen to inspire others.
She said: “Science isn’t thought of as interesting and one of the problems of physics in particular is that you have to learn all of the boring stuff at school first, which is quite dull, and the experiments don’t seem relevant.
“But the reason I love my job so much is because it’s completely relevant – all science is about how the world works and that’s the most interesting thing you can do.”
She added: “You have to learn the basic principles but at the end of the day if you get through that it’s so interesting, and you can work on what you find most fascinating.”
Only 21 per cent of UK physics undergraduates are women and only four per cent of physics professors are female, figures that Liz, in her position on the Institute of Physics Women in Physics Group committee, is determined to challenge. She started visiting schools to encourage children into science when she was studying at the University of Bristol.
“I go into schools and I’m female, don’t have grey hair and don’t wear a lab coat at all – we’re trying to break through that science stereotype and show that science is interesting and has great career prospects,” she said.
Liz said she received a lot of encouragement from her scientist parents, who live in Hartford, and from teachers at school and college.
She is currently at the forefront of research into radiation and the conference will give her chance to share her work and ideas with other physicists, as well as discussing the role of women in UK physics.
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