Jess Wade on the technologies of the future | The Royal Society

e e e e e e e e e e e e okay good evening everyone welcome to the raw Society uh my name is Mora it's Gerald I'm a a fellow of the raw society and I am delighted to be the person who is chairing and introducing this prize there's just a a few things that that I need to go through firstly could you make sure your your phones are turned off please um and if there is a fire alarm it will be a real one not a practice one so can you um make sure that you all go out through the door that you came through and then go out into the in into the street um the other thing to not is that um this is being live streamed this talk and on the society's YouTube channel and we'll be available to to view afterwards and there are live subtitles so let's move on to the reason that we're here this evening this is uh for the 2024 rosalin Franklin award which is being presented to Dr Jess Wade it's given annually this award um for a project that promotes women in stem but by an individual who has an established research program Dr Jess Wade is a Royal Society University Research fellow and a lecturer in functional materials at Imperial College London she was awarded this uh rosalin Franklin award for her Achievements not only in her research which is in functional materials but also for an outstanding project proposal which will support early career women scientists to pursue academic careers in Material Science her research considers new materials for opto electronic spintronic and Quantum Technologies with a focus on chyal systems and the identification of strategies to control Photon and electron spin together with her interdisciplinary research team she has developed new approaches to assemble chyal molecules and polymers on surfaces and create thin films that emit strongly Twisted light outside the lab Jess is passionate about science communication and has done so much march to improve research culture to make science uh more available to a diverse and inclusive environment to Champion and support and inspire people who are from historically excluded groups and she's School visits oncampus workshops science festivals so so many things and we are so proud to support her here at the Royal Society and and to give her this prize today she joins us with her talk Let's Twist Again rethinking the Technologies and Scientific careers of the future so Jess would you like to come to the stage thank you thank you so much for that great introduction I don't feel like I have to say anything now because that's everything I was going to say in the talk um so um thank thank you all so much for being here today um for those who's the first time it is at the Royal Society this is the world's oldest scientific institution in continuous existence whose mission is is to support excellence in science for the benefit of society um if you want to find out more there are lots of Royal Society staff here today and also they've got incredible digital archives I've not even been asked to say this I'm just very enthusiastic about everything they put online um so please do go and take a look um today I'm going to talk to you about Technologies chirality how Academia is a little bit broken and particularly what we can try and do to fix it technology has come a long way in the past 50 years driven by Innovations in Material Science physics and Engineering but we want more of our Technologies today we want their batteries to last longer we want to be able to text and use our phones outside when it's sunny we want to be able to monitor Health um um health conditions we want to be able to detect diseases before they even happen and particularly we want to think about sustainable ways to generate electricity that aren't ugly or don't compromise everyday lives on top of that we're facing huge supply chain issues the geopolitics crit of critical materials for Consumer Electronics is only getting more tense and the energy implications of data centers that power AI or future Quantum Technologies are completely extreme what if we could design materials that don't cost the Earth enter molecules I put enter in for Emily I feel like this is a stage call um so enter molecular systems um MO s have lots of advantages when you think about using them for functional and future Technologies particularly over their inorganic counterparts they can absorb and emit very strong and very bright and intense lights we can tailor them specifically using the rich toolkit of organic chemistry so you can change their properties by changing their chemical structure they can transport electrons and ions which is really useful for electronics and also bio Electronics we can deposit them on flexible and conformable surfaces or we can evaporate them from powders which is really useful if you're think thinking about manufacturing a technology um also they demonstrate all of these different kinds of properties at room temperature which is really really critical if you're thinking about any applications where you want to be sustainable I'm not a chemist but there are lots of Chemists in this room every single time they synthesize a chyom molecule it's an identical replica of the other every time they synthesize a molecule it's an identical replica of the other molecules which is really useful if you want to do something at scale they can interact with Fields whether they're magnetic or electric which is really useful if you want to try and detect magnetic and electric fields and they have lots of accessible electronic state which is really useful if you're trying to design some kind of quantum technology these kind of advantages over their inorganic counterparts is actually why they're so used in Technologies today in things like the display industry which is worth about $44 billion dollars a year from kind of OLED displays that underpin mobile phones and televisions and games consoles they're used particularly for high efficiency flexible photovoltaics and solar cells in Health monitoring and things like electronic skins for detecting disease and even if you want to try and do any kind of intercellular monitoring these kind of materials are really useful there as well what I'm really excited about and what our research group are really excited about is creating chyro functional materials chyal molecular systems chyal objects exist as a pair of non-s superimposable mirror images like your left and your right hand chirality manifests across multiple different length scales in the naturally occurring and the human-made worlds from the subatomic things like electrons and also photons you'll remember um if you left chemistry behind a long time ago um you draw a kind of spin up and a spin down electron light can also be chyal it can twist clockwise or anticlockwise as it propagates towards you we see chirality in molecules and these are actually molecules that you'll see a lot throughout this talk and they're really exciting because if you look at these molecular structures they can't actually sit flat on a plane they spiral up or they spiral down so we have that handedness in this molecular design you actually see chirality in lots of biomolecules in things like DNA and proteins which is a nice link to rosin Franklin who obviously decip with the structure of DNA using x-ray methods we see chirality at macroscopic Scales in thing like in things like shells in Fus pasta in the barks of some plants in the shells of some beetles um and even the light that comes to us from distant galaxies what's really really cool about chyal molecules is actually that we can use this chirality to control some of the functional properties so it's not just that Symmetry and shape actually this chyal structure in the molecule means that the electrons inside that molecule are delocalized in this Twisted ring which means that these molecules absorb and emit cyly polarized or Twisted light so the emission and absorption from these molecules is Twisted they act as spin filters at room temperature so if we push electron if we push current through them then spin polarized charges come out which is really really useful if you're thinking about spintronic or Quantum Technologies if you assemble them on some some kind of surface they can induce magnetization and as I mentioned before they show really interesting interactions when we start to put these kind of systems into Fields we're really interested in our group about using chirality for technology so to generate and detect Twisted lights which has applications in things like next Generation displays because we can bypass those anti-glare filters I mentioned before so you can bypass those anti-glare filters and actually increase the brightness of your display if your pixels in your LED are emitted Twisted lights but we can also use that Twisted light to be able to detect biomolecules we can use it to encrypt information and you could use it to send information or create images for augmented or virtual reality headsets we can also use chirality to control the spin of charges which has implications in kind of Next Generation photovoltaics where you might want to try and avoid charge recombination by controlling the spin of the electrons and holes or in spin LEDs where you preferentially inject controlled spins to boost the emission of light outwards we can also use chirality to control spins of reactions that happen in chemistry particularly recently it's been demonstrated as a technique to try and enhance hydrogen evolution in water splitting so you control the spins of the chemical reactions that happen on your anodes and avoid for um Avo avoid forming hydroxy radicals that can damage the electrochemistry that's going on in the device so chirality has lots of profound implications for future Technologies if we get it right if in our research group we try and control and design chyle molecules and materials we're really interested in the design and the synthesis and assembly of chyal small molecules which are on the top and then also chyal polymeric systems and how we can generate chyal systems where this chirality manifests across multiple different length scales we then turn these molecular systems into thin films whether they're kind of Assemblies of small molecules or big systems composing these polymers and I think these are really neat I'll see if there's a laser pointer on here oh my gosh there's a gigantic laser pointer where did it go um you can see in the top picture they're actually really beautiful maybe I'll try and go back so that you can see it well it's coming up um some of these molecules when they assemble into these kind of crystals they look absolutely Sensational from the top as well here you have these kind of Twisted Columns of molecules and that some of our research group have designed and synthesized um alongside kind of trying to create these chyro thin film structures we have to develop new ways to characterize them because molecules are obviously too little to look at with our eyes so we have to develop different spectroscopic Tech techniques or different fancy ways to use x-rays or different kinds of microscopy to really try and understand and optimize the arrangement of these chirom molecules in these thin films so we can translate them into a particular technology afterwards and then we' put those into devices and try and see those how how those devices function what we've been really interested in for a while is trying to put them into electronic devices that absorb and emit Twisted lights and and we've shown that actually if you play around with the different chemistry of the molecules that you're working with work out how to process them into the the precise materials you can put them into devices that emit probably the strongest Twisted light that anyone's been able to achieve in in in recent research we've also generated systems and built systems where we can use a kind of kyal host where we can generate long range chyal order and put a little chyro molecule inside that's really really good at emitting light at a different wavelength and boost the emission from that small molecule by transferring energy from that chyal host to that small molecule so we can show that we can tune how strong that Twisted light interaction is by generating the right Material Science system and then also that we can switch on and off different Optical transitions by controlling the orientation of molecules so really thinking about how chemical design Material Science and the kind of structures that we create impact the opto electronic properties of these systems our research has uncovered some really weird and wonderful things which has inspired kind of intense research activity both in our group and then all over the world um and I'm going to try and condens the findings of quite a few people over about 10 years into two slides now um all with gifts and animations if you haven't noticed I've tried to do that so far and but we've we've shown that the The Twist of the light that comes out of these devices depends on the thickness of the layer so if you go from a thin layer to a thick layer you control the handedness The Twist of that light and also that the twist of the light comes out that comes out depends on the direction of the current moving through that layer so if you switch the direction of current you'll invert the handness that comes out out feel like I'm going too quickly for my gifts now um also that the twist of the light that comes out depends on all the non- chyal layers in a device so we put a lot of these different layers in when we're making uh LED because we want to improve the way that charges can move through that device to that chyro layer where they're recombining um and actually we've shown that if we play around with those different layers then the twist of the light that comes out changes and we've also shown that actually they do really really interesting things when we put them in magnetic fields they're really really sensitive to the application of magnetic fields around them and and that hints are some really really interesting physics going on in these systems that we're still trying to work out and try and optimize and harness so what next um Beyond light absorption I told you some of the advantages of these systems was the diversity of chemical designs that can be achieved due to the versatility of synthesis um and that all of these weird and wonderful octo electronic effects happen at room temperature and also that we can create a kind of infinite number of identical replica molecules so now we're asking what happens if we can use these precisely ordered chyal assemblies to control spins for memories or for spin LEDs what if we could use their sensitivity to fields to be able to detect magnetic fields particularly for example those associated with brain function because that could replace the type of brain Imaging that we're doing at the moment um all of which requires kind of cryogenic cooling and really bulky systems what if we could generate a stream of Twisted single photons which could be used for a range of different applications in Quantum information processing um and then couple these kind of single photons into wave guides which are like little conduits of lights and which could provide fundamental building blocks for Ultra secure Quantum networks and what if we could create superpositions between the excited states of these chyro molecules for Quantum Computing so hopefully um what you've kind of learned so far um is that this is the Roslin Franklin lecture um and we've spoken a lot about chirality which is a a nice overlap with the theme of the evening um also the interdisciplinary curiosity driven science unlocks new technological opportunities none of these types of things that we've been working on were defined when we started doing this science it was just a kind of Journey of Discovery and working things out and learning a huge amount along the way um also that the best science is done by the most diverse teams I work in an incredibly diverse thems from all different demographic backgrounds ethnicities and disciplines of people coming together and and that's benefited the science You' that we've done hugely um I realized I'm not shown you any of them so far but I promise they're coming up in the next part of the talk um you've also probably seen the chemical structure um of this thing called Benzene a lot um actually it's the kind of one of the um six rings of benzene in this molecule called Hine and so there's six rings of benzene in there Benzene is this beautiful hydrocarbon and that it's a six-membered ring of carbon atoms um and actually the chemical structure of benzene or the arrangement of carbon atoms in Benzene um had perplexed chemists for hundreds of years until Kathleen lonell came on the scene um and particularly used x-ray defraction to prove that the Ring of benzene was flat Londale was one of the first women to be elected fellow of the Royal Society that was 80 years ago next year that's 283 years after the Royal Society first elected the first white man it would take the Fellowship of the Royal Society another 78 years to elect a black woman as a fellow the pioneering now technologist tabell yukong who has only elected a fellow last year her research has paved the way for safer cancer detection and treatment without the debilitating side effects of chemotherapy so I think science and the kind of scientific establishment has taken a really really long time to rec recognize Excellence when it doesn't look like them this isn't because there haven't been amazing incredible women or people of color or lgbtq plus scientists it's because they didn't look like or sound like what the scientific Academy expected take Lisa Minner who was one of the people who discovered nuclear fishing the process where atoms split into lighter nuclei M mner was nominated for the Nobel Prize 48 times but was never celebrated or and was consistently overlooked for her contributions I put a little um image of what nuclear fishion is in case you all forgot um or or or Gladis West the 94y old mathematical Pioneer whose calculations in the 1970s underpin the satellite navigation technology of today gladus West's contributions to science and engineering have only recently been recognized because allowed a group of us started telling her story well cathaline Kiko the biochemist who did the groundw work for the MRNA vaccines the technology used by fizer and Mna in the fight against covid-19 after Kiko moved to to the stat from Hungary in 1985 she struggled to secure funding for her work on mRNA she proposed it for about 20 years continuously applying for science funding and never managed to get it she was actually told by the university she worked at that she should either take a demotion because apparently she wasn't faculty quality um or take a pay cut she eventually quit to join what became Bion Tech um and then she won the Nobel Prize for medicine and probably saved the the lives of lots and lots of people in this room um but it wasn't because she didn't have fantastic ideas it's because she didn't look or sound like people expected her to do if she was going to be a scientific leader we really don't do enough to support or celebrate people from historically excluded groups and and people from historically excluded groups are still continuously being excluded in subjects that I like the one that I study which is physics or studied which was physics women people of color and people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are excluded from a really early age and the Royal society's motto is is nullus in verba which means take nobody's word for it so I'm going to give you kind of two minutes of Statistics to prove that point and not just try and tell you um at school level girls continuously outperform Boys in math and physics but they're really not confident in their own abilities and this confidence is knocked out of them really really early on by the age of three boys interrupt more by the age of six both boys and girls consistently say that boys are really really smart really really smart um schools and actually School teachers continuously underrate and undervalue Girl's um achievements or abilities in physics I'm not sure if you remember when our dearest social Mobility s Katherine bubl Singh said um girls don't like physics because they won't do hard maths that was that was a couple of years ago now actually um physics particularly suffers from a shortage of specialist science teachers 52% more than half of schools at the moment are saying they're short of physics teachers um and particularly they have a hard time not only attracting them but also keeping them um and I suppose one of the biggest challenges here is that the government are failing to recruit on the levels they want to schools are failing to get them and and it's not equal across state and private schools you have this kind of driving of socioeconomic inequality particularly in physics and math education from a really really early age and this obviously impacts who thinks they can go on to study Physics at University um and we see huge underrepresentation both of women and of black students actually in physics degrees but once you've got through all of those different hurdles and kind of started your scientific career the next step is to try and get research funding to build your own lab or to hire your team and and this is where um diversity is faces a huge number of challenges again women are consistently undited in science they're less likely to have big papers accepted they're less likely to win major grants um a freedom of information request to UK research and Innovation last year and which is the umbrella body that gives out science funding in the UK said that 71% of their big science projects whether their fellowship or grants go to teams led by men 71% that's not just in physics that's absolutely gigantic the success rate of black pis for ukri Grants is 8% compared to 29% for white pis and the average grant that they receive is less than half of the size this isn't because people aren't there or aren't brilliant or aren't having fantastic ideas it's because they're not getting the support they need to go on to bring these ideas to fruition I believe that excellent scientific ideas are distributed evenly across all demographic groups but obviously other systems and and award schemes have different ideas since the Nobel prizes were created in 1901 I promise the depressing statistics will end soon feel like I'm we're really on a Gloom spiral now since the Nobel prizes were created in 1901 only 25 of the Nobel prizes for science have gone to women fewer than 10 have gone well 10 have gone to people from lower or lower middle- inome countries and pretty much all of them have moved to North America to be able to do the science that won them the Nobel Prize and more than half of the Nobel laurates in science come from the top five% of household incomes actually there was a kind of big study recently and a report that came out in nature and also the guardian covered it to try and predict the ways that you could become a Nobel laurat in science and it said to be to become or to have children who are going to become a successful Nobel laat and make sure they're a man make sure that they're born into a rich family that they're from North America or moved to North America um or work with someone that already has a Nobel Prize um so even though brilliant scientific ideas are distributed evenly ac across the population opportunity really isn't horribly out ofd science prizes aside um what what does it actually take to have a shot of becoming a researcher and when I was I'm absolutely terrified as I put together this presentation I was thinking about my own academic Journey from kind of finishing High School to where I am today and all of the different people who've made it possible kind of instrumental for me to get to my to this stage there were my teachers at school at well my first family who gave me this nice little science set way back in the 90s see my great joy and my very nice tidy bedroom I hope you like that one um my science teachers at school some of whom um are here in this audience um who told me the building blocks of organic chemistry and physics I found this great photograph of um my chemistry class in a level who've drawn us as a hydrocarbon actually behind my head I've written I love benzene um which speaks to where I am today um and also maybe what a nerd I was at the time um then the teams of um professors who inspired me through my undergraduate studies and then my PhD to everyone who oh I can't um give a science presentation without me mentioning Seb he's he's not here tonight unfortunately but I've practiced every single science presentation of my life with Seb this is actually when I gave my first presentation ever um and now here I am so sorry that your npl Christmas dinner is tonight se but you should be here um everyone who um came around and actually supported me through through through my PhD beyond my PhD research group when I entered this kind of weird wonderful world of chirality Guided by Matt fer um and and Yen and the kind of science that we've managed to discover since everyone that I met on Twitter and massively informed the way I think about research culture and Science and how to approach being a scientific leader or appointing a team and this was back in the head days when um Twitter had a code of conduct and there was no Elon Musk um but actually I think we learned learn so much from each other by having this informal network of people who you could bounce ideas off and you could say someone's doing this really rubbish Behavior or how do I respond to these refers comments like we got a lot out of um those different types of interactions the broader chyro community that we've managed to assemble everyone incredible who's supported me since I joined the Department of materials especially Professor sreen hootz who's been massively instrumental in me having a scientific career the kind of team of um Legends Beyond Imperial and at Imperial everyone in the research group and the spin lab that I'm I'm building and working up to other early career lecturers without whom I don't think I'd manage to stay in this game because we have to all navigate this complex system together um and everyone else Imperial who just makes an incredibly fun place to be and kind of thinking strategically thinking impactfully um it actually takes an awful lot of people around a researcher for them to have any chance to succeed and that's something I don't think you appreciate when you go and apply for a fellowship or apply for a wward actually it's that network of people around you who make it possible this kind of group of scientific Legends have kind of helped me navigate this this this thing called The Hidden curriculum which are kind of the social and professional Norms in Academia that are second nature to some people but opaque to others especially people from underrepresented groups the hidden curriculum is all of the untaught parts of Academia they're things like applying for a job writing a science proposal doing a good interview responding to reviewer feedback um I was very lazy and tried to find a picture on the internet to sum it up but I couldn't find one um but I had a great conversation with Mike by text um um and we came up with this um and Mike pointed out actually the hidden curriculum particularly evolves over the course of your career so I can't use this later point maybe I'm too nervous to use it but kind of As you move through your academic career the types of things that you have to learn and take in and be able to do change and they adapt um and if you start to fall behind on it you've got a huge way to try and catch up with all of that learning um he also pointed out that it becomes really exhausting you have to constantly teach people people the things that you're only just finding out about yourself so what if we could kind of dismantle this this hidden curriculum a bit what if we could open everyone's ideas and Pathways to all of these different opportunities so so what am I going to try and do about it um anyone that knows me knows that I strongly believe in helping the public better understand science from school children to their teachers to their parents to policy makers and to investors I believe that Science Education is really important to helping people make informed decisions um I will will continue to Champion scientists and Engineers from ex historically excluded groups both my kind of nighttime side hustle of editing Wikipedia pages and then my um weekend side hustle of nominating people for awards and honors um just so you all know the RO Society Awards and honors are now open so if you want to nominate anyone for a prize you can do again they haven't asked me to say that I'm just really fantastic um also to try and um unhide the hidden curriculum um but also to to to try and kind of dismantle the old boy Club in Academia too many top level decisions and discussions in Academia happen behind closed doors where who you get who gets invited in depends on who you know rather than what you've got to say a while ago I was um in kind of supported and um pushed by a then research strategy manager at Imperial called Amy Nom Nom to apply for the L'Oreal for women in science Fellowship um and after I got this Fellowship on the second time of applying because they said apply apply apply and I applied and I didn't get it and I was so set which happens a lot and then you need that network of people around you to support you so you kind of bounce back and go again um I tweeted and said I've got this now and I'm really happy to help anyone if anyone wants to apply for this um I'd be happy to help to help you put together your proposal and I was kind of inundated with messages from people all around the UK who were asking for different types of advice and when I started thinking about how lucky I was actually to be at a university like Imperial where we have specific targeted supports we have an early career researchers Institute I'd assembled this kind of incredible team of people with extraordinary expertise that could support me um could help me write proposals to respond to reviewers comments and critically to not give up when things get really hard um and now as a ro Society research fellow you have access to the most kind of extraordinary training that you can imagine and in America they've had a scheme for a while called Rising Stars which is this support particularly for people from historically excluded groups particularly when they're making that transition to faculty positions it's not based on kind of who you are or whether you've already got a shiny Fellowship it's something there to support you to make that process easier um a while ago a couple of years ago me and um Mark Richards and actually Izzy Rab in the physics department at Imperial and and Mark's blacket lab family put on this kind of summer school for black physicists and Engineers where we really went through all of those different parts of the Hidden curriculum and tried to introduce people to all of the different things they need to think about when going for academic careers from kind of PhD to postto and actually since then I've worked with a few researchers all around the UK um Alex Katie and also Lucy um to try and put together a similar scheme for women in material scientist science but we we've always been limited based on the amount of money we can get to do this kind of program um and also the kind of diversity of people we can bring into that room to make it happen and so what I'm proposing to do here is this kind of uk-wide training and career development opportunities for people who want to enter Material Science from historically excluded groups particularly where we've thought about it from what we need as early career researchers and taking it to early career researchers I really want to provide ring fence targeted support to people at the most vulnerable stages of their Scientific careers and to help them navigate these parts of the Hidden curriculum so that the best ideas get funded and ultimately UK research will be more impact impactful um and we can make breakthroughs faster um that's my little symbol for that um so now I I I need to come to to to saying thank you um thank you to everyone who's provided some funding to do the science that I've been able to do to everyone in the Cairo crew at Imperial and particularly to Alisa Campbell who was my postdoc supervisor um and who unfortunately isn't with us anymore but was completely inspirational in this whole scientific Journey that I've been on um and also kind of my um growing research team who have been patient um with me as I try to work out what to do I like this photo of Louie setting up a spectrometer so this is Lou here um with SRE setting up a spectrometer so much um also to everyone in the spin lab who's been made the kind of transition to materials and also working in a completely new way in in engineering and so exciting um to my family and also to Emily um um to this very recent photograph of us all having a great time um to to to Ben to Ray to Mara to Larry to to Marcia and Alan and Dan and all of their family and to everyone else um it's been a really exciting scientific journey and I think I've had a fantastic support network around me and before we go to questions um I have to say a huge celebration and recognition that um five years ago today my my cousin Polly died and she should be here with us all she was a researcher and a lecturer at Kings um and an incredible person who bought so much light and wonder to the world and we miss her a lot every day um so thank you so much um to everyone who came to Izzy to Jennifer to Leslie to Abby to Alex to Katie to Charlie to Miju to Ryan to NY to PR Keith and Professor Liz socker and also Raga everyone from the Royal Society who've made this possible um thank you so much also for listening and I look forward to questions I wrote so many things on note cards and I forgot to look at any of them well you you didn't need to that was thank thank you very much for a a fantastic talk and so full of energy and and and real love of science which I think so infectious and and makes everybody feel I must I must do this so thank thank you very much now we're going to have some questions um on slido I think from uh people who are watching but while while we those come in are there any questions um from the audience if not if people need to think about it I might start with one okay never mind um so I'm I'm very interested as we all are I'm sure in in in in the support of of of early scientists and I think I think you possibly slightly underplayed your your own amazing talent and intelligence which comes across and that doesn't come some people are blessed with that but I completely agree that um the support that you get early on in your career is is critical you didn't use the word patronage but I think that patronage is still huge in science and that doesn't necessarily mean the oldfashioned sort of term that somebody sort of wealthy was kind of looking after you it it can mean that the people who train you the people who you first learn your science from are themselves very well respected in the field and are very well connected scientifically and there's there's no doubt about the fact that that definitely helps people um it doesn't mean that necessarily people who are no good get get do well that's not the case at all but it's what you were pointing out that it gives a set of people who if you like equally good it gives them the chance because of that patronage and I'm just going to ask you honestly whether you think that you yourself had that patronage in the I think it's important because Mo most of us did tough one start hard um I think that probably yeah of course I did I I work at Imperial I studied at Imperial and I've Pro been surrounded by I mean a lot of people are absolutely brilliant in science but I think that's given me a kind of extra energy to take that opportunity to other people I I don't think you know especially when when you're helping people with Fellowship proposals or something like that um everyone all around the UK has absolutely fantastic ideas it's just articulating them or it's knowing who to go to ask for a letter of support or it's knowing how to put together a really strong case for why your science is exactly the right thing that should be funded right now and I think that if we help people so that everyone has that opportunity recognizing the privilege that we have whether that's the support network you have or just discovering that you love science or whatever it is um then then I think you can start to really level the playing field um I think it's it's it's not about It's Tricky yeah okay so the short answer is yes I have the true answer is I want to try and um it and extend it to other people as well absolutely and and and everything that you're doing is in the right definitely in the right direction I just sometimes wonder how we can how we can stop it the patronage and make it that there is really equal opportunity for all well suppose I think the Royal Society is making steps in the right way I know there's been a big effort recently to try and diversify who gets elected F FRS because they're the lack of diversity isn't so much on well it is obviously on gender and ethnicity but also hugely institutionally so two institutions are over represented in who becomes F FRS perhaps everyone in the audience can guess which to um um so actually that's an effort that I think the Royal Society are doing and I think there are some schemes now you know the the Royal Academy of engineering have fantastic um access mentoring scheme for people from groups that have been historically excluded to get mentoring to put together a fellowship proposal the RO society's own Career Development fellowships are also specifically ring fence money for particular um demographic groups so I think those kind of initiatives that say we'll support you so that your ideas are the things that get you funded um not who's writing your letter of reference um that would be fantastic absolutely no I I I completely agree and and and also all of us if you ever come across anybody who obviously is is is bright and eager to en encourage them to apply for things I think people are sometimes put off because they feel oh I won't get that there's no no point applying so I don't know if there are any experiences that people like to share from the audience of their Scientific careers I'm sure you've got plenty of scientists here or do they all work with you so they don't just wondering um okay so I don't know if there's anything from um coming in from uh outside um anything coming in from Slider I haven't got anything here oh yes I have I'm so sorry so what inspired you to start your mission of creating Wikipedia pages and how do you believe this has impacted visibility in the scientific Community um what inspired me to start uh I I just get very frustrated when people complain about things all the time like there aren't enough women on Wikipedia because I think well that's actually something that we can do something about similarly to when you look around and you see there aren't there's too many portraits of old white men on the walls that's something that we can change or if you see there's not enough people nominated for prizes you we we can start to change that um so in about 2017 I um learned how to edit Wikipedia and I thought I can do something about this this is actually something well it's really easy to edit Wikipedia and so I started writing a Wikipedia page every day in the since the beginning of 2018 um and since then um obviously the percentage of women on Wikipedia has gone up a teeny tiny bit it was about 17 and a half percent when I started writing Wikipedia biographies and now it's about 19% um because people keep writing about men um um but also you you I start to see the people that I've written about um actually sometimes if they're living scientist that they they're profiled a lot more they're featured a lot more when when the pandemic happened I got very frustrated with how few women Public Health doctors or epidemiologists were on on the television and so I wrote about them on Wikipedia and then they were all on the television in the radio really quickly because broadcasters often go to Wikipedia to try and find people um actually Gladis West who I mentioned in the talk um I wrote her Wikipedia page in 2018 and she's a mathematician who was born in 1930 in Virginia um she did maths and then went to work in um the the US Navy and did the calculations for GPS and and when I wrote her Wikipedia page there was next to nothing about her online um but now there's all of this kind of um articles and biographies written about her she's been nominated for all of these prizes she won the Royal Academy of engineering Prince Philip medalin prize which had never gone to a woman before in the history of that prize um she's been elected to the US Air Force Hall of Fame and she's 94 and her accolades and honors are starting to happen post turning 90 um so I think yeah I don't know I think it's the most extraordinary thing to do that people start to learn these names and then even if it's it's too late but they still get that champion and that recognition I quite agree it's a fantastic thing that you did I mean if you go to schools and talk to children in schools which I know you have done um do you think that they're they're excited by that the the concept of an an older woman being being um I mean what what do you think excites young children to become I think I think science excites young children I think there's no shortage of enthusiasm for science you know that every young child starts off experimenting and Engineering even if you don't call it experimenting or engineering they're making potions or they're building how stop how do you stop it that the boys always push to the front and ask the questions is it this is not their fault I think you've got to have you've got to have um good teachers you've got to have teachers who are kind of confident in controlling a class but also making the subject really exciting and engaging in a thing that they love I was very lucky my physics teacher from school is actually here um but I was very lucky because our teachers could take it from beond the curriculum and make it something that was really exciting and was relevant to the real world and was things that were going to make a difference to Technologies of tomorrow and I think you need teachers who can do that part and also recognize that children have different levels of confidence and you've got to bring them in differently but also to you know we can contribute to their science experiences outside the classroom um whether they're you know seeing science on television or watching it on YouTube or playing with science toys or whatever um museums so I think you make science something that's part of of their everyday life and school just reinforces that and gives them the technical Concepts they need to go on and have Scientific careers absolutely I quite agree with you okay so um what are the most exciting possibilities that your research offers anything out of Star Trek somebody asked I'm sorry I don't I maybe skip that bit just to no I don't know I think you could probably make some kind of Kyro laser um I um we well we're very shortterm opportunities we're very excited about using these types of chirom molecules to be able to detect magnetic fields um I think that example I gave of being able to detect brain function is really cool um I'm the daughter of a neurologist and also a sister to a neurologist they're different neurologists crucially um um but but actually the the ability there to to to do something really transformative in brain Imaging where you can do kind of optically detected magnetometry so detecting magnetic fields with light rather than the way that we have to detect magnetic fields at the moment with all of this bulky expensive unsustainable instrumentation would be really incredible and actually some of these optically detected magnetic field systems um are used to detect brain function um in children who it's often quite hard to image their brain or when people are going about their day-to-day life when it's quite hard to get kind of information while you move around and so I think that's a really really cool application um because anything that helps in kind of medical understanding actually is something where you impact Society really quickly so I'd be very excited if that happens yeah absolutely I quite agree not Star Trek though but they need Imaging in Star Trek as well so so has there ever been a time when you felt you would like to leave science or would have to leave science okay um no I I I I don't know I've got I think I I I I've had difficult times in the last few years where I've put um been supported to helped do very big proposals which were probably way too well I felt were way too far away from where I was at the stage of my career um to be working on something so big but someone high up had confidence in me to be able to do these things and and that was a huge um privilege and a huge opportunity to do it and I think it's very hard in science when you put so much effort into something and it doesn't work you know you can put months of your life your creative thoughts all of those evenings when you could have been writing fantastic Wikipedia pages you put those into writing these big science proposals and it can't always work you know I told you that statistic that only um the success rate for black Pi is only 8% compared to 29% of white Pi that shows you that science is really hard to get funded and increasingly hard especially when the government's facing such big economic challenges um and I think that when that happens you really do feel like I should give up I'm not good enough you know every feeling that everyone in this room probably feels when they do feel like they're doing badly in their job but you feel it particularly personally when you've put your whole passion and enthusiasm and creativity into that and then it's about having that extraordinary network of great people that I showed those pictures of around you to be able to pick you back up again um and to say this is still really exciting this is still a really big research challenge this is still a big exciting Science question that we have to answer together so even if you're completely heartbroken because that one thing didn't work actually remember you still got the best job in the world and you can go into the lab and do this other thing afterwards um and then foolishly start writing another one of these failed proposals like a month later um so so yeah it's it's the highs are really high and the lows are really low but I think I think it would be foolish to think that doesn't happen in every job where you're passionate about what you do you know I think if you're a musician or if you're an actor if you're a lawyer and you care a lot about getting something right when you put effort into something and it doesn't come out the way you think it will and that's really painful and I think in Academia we think we're unique but actually everyone who cares about their job feels like that yes I I I I I agree but I think you have to be quite a resilient person and and and women women do leave science they leave science in droves and that and that that that there'd be a lot of reasons for that the lack of security um as you say the trying and getting the funding climate is it's it's very very competitive um and also within universities women get given far more of the the the sort of the the caring jobs they they do loads of that loads of teaching I personally would like to see some stats on that actually um because you need time don't you to do science and think about it and write grants yeah I think I think there's I I saw a really fantastic person speak once you called it all the dishwasher tasks yeah it's like like someone else pulls out the roast beef from the oven but you're doing all of the that's a dig at you so you exemp from but I do I do think I do I do agree with you I think that but it's not only women it's everyone from a historically excluded group I think that the I kept using um black research as an example there because I think the challenges they face they particularly unique they're kind of minority tax on having to not only do fantastic science do it so fantastically that people ignore the fact that you don't look or sound like they expect but also do all this advocacy work to support other researchers from other demographic groups that's a lot it's a lot it's aot to carry um and and I think I think institutions some institutions recognize it better than others I think award schemes that are starting to pop up to recognize kind of the contributions people make to research culture Beyond Academia Beyond academic study I mean the first time I ever had to talk in this terrifying room the only other time I've spoken in this terrifying room was um at the Royal society's research culture conference in I think 2018 right and there I had two minutes and I still got as nervous and as sweaty as I am right now um but that really said we need to change research culture to reflect how much people do beyond the science and teaching that we usually think of as being research so I do think those conversations are happening but you know this this organization has been here since 1662 some academic institutions have been around for that long as well and they're slow to change certainly but if everyone keeps the fire up that we should change it then I believe it will happen yeah and I I I think that that women have to have to say no I mean I I think if your head of Department asks you to take on a whole new program of teaching you have to say no and and certainly in my own experience my head depart men are much better so I feel like I'll I'll say just don't ask her right because I I I I think there's saying no but there's also being a team player and I think science is a team thing and the more you say no you just dis you just push it on to someone else so I think there should be fair and equal distri that's an incredibly female answer I've got to do it because someone I don't want someone else to suffer no I I really agree with you but I I think I think it's it's it's about being a bit tough as well as being fair and and I'm sure that you've been very successful you evidently have been so tell us about your children's books you've written some children's books yes fantastic I don't know where you find the time to do there's not many words in a children's book telling you that um they're very good words but there aren't many of them um I it took a very long time actually I I started writing it in about 2018 and it came out in 2021 um and it's called Nano the spectacular science of the very very small and it's really beautiful but it's really beautiful because there's a fantastic illustrator called Melissa Caston who did this completely beautiful um imagery around kind of molecules and materials and how we start to build materials out of molecules and how we apply those materials to Technologies um I should have used her illustrations to make this presentation actually um and it was the first non-fiction book that she ever agreed to do so she's done a lot of really beautiful fiction books and then she was asked to do this non-fiction and apparently all her illustrator friends were like don't do it it will be so boring um but actually it's completely beautiful and and um it's also given us a really great chance to do workshops with children where she draws all the structures we have a kind of visualizer and she draws all the different structures sometimes really complex Crystal Crystal structures that you couldn't ask thirdy year undergraduates to draw and she can't pronounce them because her training is in art but she can draw them and then that means that you can get a room full of children to draw them too and I can talk about their properties and it's really fantastic too approach science from completely art and craft and creativity and and yeah thinking about materials it's been a great joy absolutely well must be amazing so you've got a lovely question here which is what would you say to the 7-year-old Jess oh what would I say to the seven-year-old Jess I think I was very determined to be in a pop band um and if you read my kind of leaving school book from year six it said that I wanted to be in s-club 7 if I remembers that fantastic band um but I would say um just to keep having fun um we we did we didn't do science every week at school when I was in primary school we did science every other week um and and I knew some I knew then it was something that I found really exciting um but I think I'd just say to keep keep being curious and keep exploring in it I had fantastic teachers at school I was really lucky in that in in physics chemistry and in art um and and I would say to to to keep being excited by the art Parts even if School tries to tell you to choose between Art and Science um actually it's really important to be thinking scientifically in the Arts and then to be thinking artistically in the sciences and and I think too much now School tries to split kids into one of two parts and so I'd say stick to it you're doing the right thing so getting back to really a very important point that you make about people from underrepresented backgrounds would you would you have any sort of top tips if you like to try and encourage um people from underrepresented backgrounds to get them to apply uh for positions and grants and so on I would find people around you who can support you you know I'd say that to anyone irrespective of what whether you're from an underrepresented or an overrepresented background probably I'd say a bit louder to people from underrepresented background but I think to find someone who's applied for that scheme before or someone who's in that research area or if you're applying to go and work in a research group to write to maybe a post in that group or a PhD students in that group um I wouldn't be afraid of just emailing and saying I just need a little bit of advice for this um people have been so generous and kind with their time to everyone I know who's asked for it you know it's for certainly for me and I've had so much help on every application I've done from people often just emailing or dming as we used to do on Twitter people to say can I just have a little bit of help um I would say to not not be afraid to do that and also be ready to put the time make the time um to to to put together a proposal don't assume you can just do it on kind of half a day a week or just do it in the evenings because actually you need space to be able to think creatively scientifically so make the time ask people for help and and be ready to kind of um listen to and respond to their feedback you know don't don't take Psy busy people's time for granted um but do sit down and kind of think about what they've said and put it into action um I would say Don't just email someone out of the blue who you've never met and say can I have your research proposal because that happens quite a lot more than you'd think that someone will email and You' be like you know that thing that you spent a month writing that you like went crazy for um could you just send me your whole proposal and I'm like I've never met you in my entire life or your friend Michael that you're asking for and so and so I would I would say to to try and to to speak to people and to to recognize that their time is valuable and what they're putting in is valuable and and to and and to really listen and to act on it um because I I truly I truly believe everyone is very generous with their time when you approach it in the right way yeah I agree so which aspects of the Hidden curriculum do you believe is the the most critical to to tackle well that's a really tricky question I suppose it does it comes back to Mike's great Insight that it changes so much over the course of your career you know I think that the the networking thing is really something that you've got to get used to in science you know building your scientific network but als

2024-12-11 20:14

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