Pioneering astrophysicist and champion of women in science gives public lecture at the University of Leicester | News

Two scientific superstars are coming together at the University of Leicester next month for a special public lecture.

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, who made one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 20^e century, has been invited to give a keynote public lecture by university chancellor and fellow academic Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock.

In 1967 Dame Jocelyn discovered a new type of star called a pulsar, but it was her male supervisor who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1974.

As well as inspiring a new generation of female scientists, Dame Jocelyn has worked hard to push boundaries to make science a more diverse and inclusive industry.

The astrophysicist was the perfect choice for the second edition of Dame Maggie’s Chancellor’s Distinguished Lecture Series, which takes place on campus on Tuesday 14 May.

“Her incredible career, plus her tireless championing of women in science, means Dame Jocelyn is the one person I desperately wanted to bring to Leicester for my lecture series,” said Dame Maggie.

“She has paved the way for women, including myself, to have their voices heard in what is still often seen as a male-dominated region.

“But things are changing for the better, and that change in attitudes and opening of opportunities can be traced directly to Dame Maggie’s campaign for diversity in science. The term role model has never been more appropriate.”

In Dame Jocelyn’s public lecture, which is free to attend, she will discuss the changes that have occurred for women in science over the past fifty years, particularly in Britain, and reflect on how these have come about.

Dame Jocelyn has received many awards and honors during her long career as an astrophysicist, including being appointed Dame of the British Empire, Professor at the University of Oxford and President of the Institute of Physics. In 2009 she also received an honorary doctorate of law from the University of Leicester. But on her journey to the highest levels of physics, she has faced many challenges as a woman.

As a 1950s Northern Irish schoolgirl, Dame Jocelyn was subject to a ban on girls studying sciences, and was forced to take cooking classes instead.

At Glasgow University she was the only woman in her class of fifty students. It was there that Dame Jocelyn experienced the humiliation that many women suffered when entering a lecture hall while men shouted and banged their desks.

Dame Jocelyn studied for a PhD at Cambridge University in the 1960s, where she discovered pulsars, and was one of the few women in the physics department.

“I had imposter syndrome,” she told the Institute for Physics. “I felt like I didn’t really deserve to be there, so I worked very hard and thoroughly and discovered the pulsars, even though they weren’t part of the research program I was working on. I saw the signals produced by the pulsars, and they didn’t fit the current explanation we had, so they needed attention.”

The discovery earned the Nobel Prize in Physics, but the prize went to Dame Jocelyn’s male supervisor. She was later awarded a US Breakthrough Prize of £2.3 million and used the money to set up the Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund. She is confident that bringing people from a wider range of backgrounds into physics will improve research.

She said: “Diversity contributes to a team’s creativity, it adds openness, and scientific breakthroughs are about collecting data and when you come across something new, exploring it with an open mind. People from non-traditional backgrounds won’t necessarily make the traditional assumptions, and that’s how you get breakthroughs. That’s what I did: I saw the data and realized it didn’t fit and needed attention – it was an anomaly that didn’t fit, and so did I.”

Tickets for the lecture, which takes place on Tuesday, May 14 from 5:30 PM to 8:00 PM, can be reserved via the event website.