A Canadian professor has become the third woman to be awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize for Physics. The Canadian Press spoke with Donna Strickland about winning the prize, her work in the field of laser physics and her message for aspiring female scientists. How did you feel when you got the call about your win?
Over the years people would kid me and say, 'haven't you heard from the Nobel Prize committee yet?' But I always thought that was silly ... There is an awful lot of physics to choose from. I think I was sort of just stunned. It's obviously a great honour to be given such an award.
Sweden's Royal Academy of Sciences called your 1985 development of the technique known as chirped pulse amplification "revolutionary." Can you explain your work?
At that time in the early 80s there were both short pulse lasers and high energy lasers. People wanted high-peak powers, but if you put high-peak powers into your laser, you'd then blow up your laser. That's why you couldn't have both high energy and short pulses. Chirped pulse amplification just got around that. It's a very simple idea.
BREAKING NEWS⁰The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the #NobelPrize in Physics 2018 “for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics” with one half to Arthur Ashkin and the other half jointly to Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland. pic.twitter.com/PK08SnUslK
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 2, 2018
Did you know, when you made this discovery as a PhD student, that you were breaking new ground?
Yes, we knew that. My very first talk that I ever gave, the very first one that we published in 1985, made a gigawatt of power, but (PhD supervisor and prize co-winner Gerard Mourou) said ... 'when you go give your talk, you say this is the way to make a petawatt laser.' As a very young student I said 'you want me to say we have a gigawatt laser but it's the way to make a petawatt?' And that's like six orders of magnitude more. Of course, I knew he was right, it just seemed very bombastic for me to say it in front of the experts of the world. I found that hard.
How has it felt to watch your discovery evolve over the years?
It's been a lot of fun. There's still interest in taking the discovery further. In 2010 there was a symposium just to congratulate Gerard and I on 25 years of CPA. People from around the world were there ... and they were all trying to say how they were going to be the ones to 10 petawatts. There was an excitement about it. It's fun to watch, and you think, 'wow, how does that happen.'
You're only the third woman to win the Nobel Prize for Physics. Was it a fairly male-dominated field when you began?
Yeah, it was, but I sort of ignored that. Possibly that's why I didn't get stopped, because I just ignored it all. I actually don't think I even really noticed it so much. And I loved being the only girl to walk into a bathroom at the big laser conferences and have 30 stalls all to myself. I've always gotten paid equal to my colleagues and I feel I've been treated equally. I feel that women should start to get to be recognized more because for some reason not all men want to recognize us or not all people, but I think that's a minority. I think the majority of people are ready to recognize us.
Donna Strickland, this year's #NobelPrize laureate, was born in 1959 in Guelph, Canada.
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 2, 2018
She is Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada @UWaterloo
https://t.co/Hc4lyWhZTG pic.twitter.com/vGEpjnmfCL
Has there been a bit more gender parity in the field over the course of your career?
We were probably about 10 per cent women going to the laser conferences. Now it's up to about 25 per cent. It's getting there. I compare myself now ... to Maria Goeppert-Mayer (the second woman to win the Nobel physics prize). I cite her in my thesis, but what I cite her for I don't think she got paid to do.
She just followed her husband the professor around, and they'd let her have an office or they'd let her teach or they'd let her do some things, and yet she won a Nobel Prize. It was only about 10 years before winning the Nobel Prize that she got paid as a scientist. It's true that a woman hasn't been given the Nobel Prize since then, but I think things are better for women than they have been. We should never lose the fact that we are moving forward.
What are your thoughts on what your win may do for helping attract girls to science, technology, engineering and math fields?
I have trouble answering that because I think that's up to each female or girl for herself to see if that would make a difference. I've heard enough people say that there's a need for role models, so that would hopefully help.
Would you be open to being viewed in that light now?
I already have been. There are very few women scientists and very few academic physicists, and we do get asked to play that role. I do put myself out there for that.
Is there a message you have, in light of your win, for aspiring female science researchers?
If you want to do something, get out there and do it. That's all you can do.
"We scientists like to puzzle as to why something is working."
— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 2, 2018
Donna Strickland never worked as hard or had as much fun as when she was performing the research that led her to the 2018 #NobelPrize in Physics.
Listen to full telephone interview: https://t.co/k9U8auEqFB
'People are ready' to recognize female scientists, says Nobel laureate Donna Strickland WATERLOO, Ont. — A Canadian scientist who became only the third woman to win the Nobel Prize for Physics said her personal triumph doubles as a sign of progress for her male-dominated industry.
Donna Strickland, associate professor at Ontario's University of Waterloo, was honoured on Tuesday for being half of the team to discover Chirped Pulse Amplification, a technique that underpins today's short-pulse, high-intensity lasers.
The 59-year-old Guelph, Ont., native made the discovery while completing her PhD at the University of Rochester in New York and will share half of the US$1.01-million prize with her doctoral adviser, French physicist Gerard Mourou. The other half of the prize will go to Arthur Ashkin of the United States, who was the third winner of the award.
Strickland's victory not only cemented her own place in Nobel history, but ended a 55-year-long drought for female physicists being recognized by the prize committee. She joins the ranks of Marie Curie, the first woman to claim the honour in 1903, and 1963 winner Maria Goeppert-Mayer.
Strickland said reflecting on Goeppert-Mayer's career shows how far the scientific field has come in terms of gender parity despite the fact that women still make up only a quarter of attendees at major conferences.
Goeppert-Mayer, whose work was cited in Strickland's own award-winning efforts, went largely unpaid throughout her career.
"It's true that a woman hasn't been given the Nobel Prize since then, but I think things are better for women than they have been," Strickland told The Canadian Press in an interview. "We should never lose the fact that we are moving forward. We are always marching forward."
Strickland noted she has not personally experienced fundamental inequality and believes the field is ready to give women a more prominent place.
"I've always gotten paid equal to my colleagues and I feel I've been treated equally," she said. "I feel that women should start to get to be recognized more because for some reason not all men want to recognize us or not all people, but I think that's a minority. I think the majority of people are ready."
On Tuesday afternoon, Strickland received a standing ovation from faculty and students at the University of Waterloo during a news conference where, at one point, she told a young female scientist in the crowd to believe in herself.
"If somebody else thinks something that you don't believe in, just think they're wrong and you're right and keep going," Strickland said. "That's pretty much the way I always think."
Strickland's words moved Kristi Webb, a physics graduate student, to tears.
"I think she's a really great role model," said Webb, noting that Strickland won the Nobel prize for work done on her first published research paper. "This was at the very beginning of her career, but she's done a million things since then and that's the dream."
There were also lighter moments at Strickland's news conference, including when university president Feridun Hamdullahpur was asked whether Strickland's win was enough to vault her to the position of a full professor — he said there was a process for all to follow.
"I told her she doesn't have to submit a very long CV, one line will be sufficient," he said, drawing laughter from the crowd.
Sweden's Royal Academy of Sciences, which chose the winners, described Strickland and Mourou's work as "revolutionary."
The Chirped Pulse Amplification Technique, first laid out in a 1985 article, was described by the academy as "generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses," which have become a critical part of corrective eye surgeries amongst other uses.
Strickland said she and Mourou were well aware that they were onto something in 1982 when they began researching ways to allow lasers to perform high-intensity, ultra-short pulses that would not damage the equipment.
When the pair refined the technique, Strickland recalled Mourou's advice to talk up their accomplishment and tell their peers that the gigawatt laser they had developed would lay the groundwork for devices a million times more powerful down the road.
"I knew he was right," she said. "It just seemed very bombastic for me to say it in front of the experts of the world."
Mourou's prediction came to pass a mere decade later, she said, adding Chirped Pulse Amplification now has broad applications.
The University of Waterloo called Strickland's win a "tremendous day" for the school and the campus was abuzz with the news.
Charmaine Dean, vice-president of research, said the university will be celebrating Strickland's win all year, but also emphasized that the prize means so much more than just an achievement for the professor and the school.
"This gives us a rallying point and a flag to hold high," Dean said with a broad smile. "This gives a beacon for further conversations about women in science and technology."
The sentiment was echoed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who issued a statement congratulating Strickland on Tuesday evening and thanking her for "inspiring other women and young girls to dream without limits and pursue the careers of their choice."
Bob Lemieux, the school's dean of science, said he was "bouncing off the walls" with joy and added that faculty and administration members celebrated Strickland's prize Tuesday morning with champagne.
"I'm so damn proud of her," Lemieux said of Strickland. "It's a recognition of the strength of the physics and astronomy program and Donna in particular."
List of Canadians who have won the Nobel Prize
Here is a list of Canadians who have won the Nobel Prize:
1923: Frederick G. Banting, Nobel Prize in Medicine for the "discovery of insulin"
1949: William F. Giauque, Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "contributions in the field of chemical thermodynamics, particularly concerning the behaviour of substances at extremely low temperatures"
1957: Former Prime Minister Lester Bowles Pearson, Nobel Peace Prize for his role in defusing the 1956 Suez crisis
1966: Charles B. Huggins, Nobel Prize in Medicine for "his discoveries concerning hormonal treatment of prostatic cancer"
1971: Gerhard Herzberg, Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "his contributions to the knowledge of electronic structure and geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals"
1976: Saul Bellow, Nobel Prize in Literature for "the human understanding and subtle analysis of contemporary culture that are combined in his work"
1981: David H. Hubel, Nobel Prize in Medicine for "discoveries concerning information processing in the visual system"
1983: Henry Taube, Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "his work on the mechanisms of electron transfer reactions, especially in metal complexes"
1986: John Polanyi, Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "contributions concerning the dynamics of chemical elementary processes"
1989: Sidney Altman, Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "discovery of catalytic properties of RNA
1990: Richard E. Taylor, Nobel Prize in Physics for "investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics"
1992: Rudolph A. Marcus, Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "his contributions to the theory of electron transfer reactions in chemical systems"
1993: Michael Smith, Nobel prize in Chemistry for for "his fundamental contributions to the establishment of oligonucleotide-based, site-directed mutagenesis and its development for protein studies"
1994: Bertram N. Brockhouse, Nobel Prize in Physics for "the development of neutron spectroscopy"
1996: William Vickrey, Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for "contributions to the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information"
1997: Myron S. Scholes, Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for "a new method to determine the value of derivatives"
1999: Robert A. Mundell, Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for "his analysis of monetary and fiscal policy under different exchange rate regimes and his analysis of optimum currency areas"
2009: Jack W. Szostak, Nobel Prize in Medicine for "the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase"
2009: Willard S. Boyle, Nobel Prize in Physics for "the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit - the CCD sensor"
2011: Ralph M. Steinman, Nobel Prize in Medicine for "his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive immunity"
2013: Alice Munro, Nobel Prize in Literature for being the "master of the contemporary short story"
2015: Arthur B. McDonald, Nobel Prize in Physics for "the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass"
2018: Donna Strickland, Nobel Prize in Physics for co-developing a "method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses"
