In the meantime, what tips for the top would the professors give to budding female physicists? Both Davies and Chapman suggest applying for personal fellowships rather than a postdoc on someone else’s project. “If you’re looking to establish yourself it’s a question of visibility – who goes and gives the papers at the international conferences, and whose name goes first,” explains Chapman. She feels personal fellowships have helped her succeed by giving her more control over the kind of work she was doing, and when and where she did it.
Some women suggest female mentors can help, but Susan Cooper disagrees. “I certainly never had a female mentor, and I never felt the lack of it,” says Cooper, who does not feel being female has made any difference to her own career progress. At the end of the day, anyone with a strong interest in the subject would do well to take Ruth Lynden-Bell’s advice, which is simply: “Do it!”
© IOP Publishing Ltd. Reproduced with permission.
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