Professor Dame Athene Donald to present ‘Women Progressing, Progressing Women’

The University is delighted to announce that Professor Dame Athene Donald DBE FRS, University of Cambridge, will present the first of a series of seminars focusing on Diversity and Inclusion on Tuesday 3 May.

Our new series of seminars will be presented by leading figures working for diversity and equality, both in the UK and internationally.

The lecture, Women Progressing, Progressing Women, will take place from 2pm until 3pm, at LT1 Chemistry Building, Whiteknights Campus.

Staff across the University are welcome to attend. After the seminar, refreshments will be available in the ground floor foyer of the Chemistry building. To help us plan the refreshments, please inform Frances Raimo if you wish to attend.

Using personal experience and a little well-placed science, Professor Donald will discuss how seemingly small culture changes and heightened self-awareness can have a profound effect on team morale and an individual’s ability to feel encouraged and supported.

Professor Donald is an eminent physicist, working particularly in soft matter physics. She is Professor of Experimental Physics and Master of Churchill College at the University of Cambridge, and amongst her many scientific accolades, was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1999.

She has long been an outspoken champion of women in science, chairing the national Athena Forum from 2009–13, this an organisation which aims to provide a strategic oversight of developments that seek to, or have proven to, advance the career progression and representation of women in science, technology, mathematics, and medicine (STEM) in UK higher education.

Currently she is a member of the BIS Diversity group and the Gender Balance Working Group of the ERC.  From 2006–14 she was Director of WiSETI, Cambridge University’s Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Initiative, and she was the University’s first Gender Equality Champion from 2010–14. She regularly writes on the topic of women in science in both mainstream media and on her personal blog(We have highlighted many of Athene’s blog posts here!)

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