WELCOME

"If this is a major step forward in women's science,

March 14, 2019 by James Ashley

"If this is a major step forward in women's science, I'm very surprised that a woman would want to try this out," says Emily Zuckerman, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Pittsburgh who is studying how to "understand the fundamental nature of pulsars, how they work, how to explain their behaviour and what they're able to do to make them shine."

"For me, this is a great moment that makes the sense of the moment," adds Bell Burnell. "It would be nice to see women scientists who have been doing it for so long, and who have gotten their hands on this prize, get to work it out.

"I think it's an amazing opportunity and I'm sure we'll be seeing more of this as we go forward and we'll see more of what we can do to contribute to the whole community," she adds. Bell Burnell's Open Access Initiative will also be giving the prize and it is still being considered.

Bridging the gap between women and men scientists is perhaps the most important issue facing the field since the 1950s. The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 had a single recipient, and it was in the form of a prize given by the National Academy of Sciences to the world's best physicists.

The Nobel Prizes were created in 1974 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RNS) to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the birth of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1970. The Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded to the first woman to win a prize with such a single recipient.

Since then, many in the physics community have called for the award to be given to all researchers of their kind, and some have asked that, as part of a larger international campaign to raise awareness about the "unconscious bias" that permeates science.