Persistence, Obstinacy and Red Lines

Posted on April 18, 2026 by Athene Donald

Persistence: such a positive word, nicely aligned with others such as resilience and self-confidence. All positives. But what do you think when you hear the word obstinacy? It conveys an edgy, tiresome quality. Perhaps someone who stops others doing what they want or ignoring what is good for them. Yet, in reality, they are two sides of the same coin.

As my last post indicated, my most recent talk has been on the subject of my ‘leadership journey’. It’s not the first time I’ve talked about how my career panned out, although the audiences vary. I well recall being asked – in Sydney to, somewhat bizarrely, a group of women lawyers – what had got me through the tough times. And, without thinking very hard about my choice of word, I described myself as obstinate. I felt that, at a time when good friends as well as those less supportive, were questioning either (or both) of my choice of research topic and university, it was obstinacy that got me through. I was determined not to let others choose what or where I did my rather unconventional research. (I was researching food physics and the interface with biology at a time when that was regarded as beyond the pale by my more conventional colleagues in Physics, who were inclined to stick with less messy materials that they thought were appropriate for a physicist). I stuck to my guns and am amused to see that these days, for instance, the Institute of Physics has a Food Physics group – so it must be respectable now. I flatter myself by thinking that I was just ahead of the game.

However, to call that persistence feels not quite right, although I clearly was persistent. I think obstinate is the more appropriate word, because I was ignoring all those wise heads around me who could either not see the point of what I was doing (the more hostile ones) or felt that I was hurting myself – and possibly my PhD students – by sticking with something that was causing me grief (my friends who knew I was finding the going tough).

Nevertheless, persistence is a virtue, whether or not you consider obstinacy is. The challenge is knowing when just a little bit more persistence will pay off, and when you should cut your losses if an experiment is not working or you can’t get the accuracy you need or…any of the hundred other things that can go wrong in the lab. There is no simple answer to that.

What about red lines? When should you feel this is a point beyond which you will not go, versus when should you persist (and we needn’t consider Theresa May’s red lines in this context)? You can set red lines in advance: perhaps to say I won’t spend more than six more months doing experiments before I write up my PhD or I won’t spend more than an additional sum of £X on reagents before I give up this approach. But the time I most remember setting red lines in advance was before a meeting with the head of department and a professor who was trying to lay claim to space (essentially both mental and literal) that impacted on what I was doing. I was no junior researcher by this point, but already an FRS, but the other professor was the new ‘kid’ on the block (also an FRS) and people were falling over themselves to accommodate him. I knew this would be a hard battle to win and being obstinate in this situation would not lead to a good outcome. So, I worked out very clearly in advance what I would concede, so that I could hold on to what was most precious to me. I also made sure I took a bottle of water with me so that, when my mouth turned dry as sawdust, as I knew it would, I was prepared.

Those red lines were very useful to me, and probably allowed me to come out of the meeting with the best outcome I could have hoped for under the trying circumstances. It taught me the importance of not going in feet first. This latter is a phrase I have used to describe an earlier style of ‘leadership’ of mine, which I learned to shed: when someone or some system is awry, just going in all guns blazing will likely get you enemies and not the desired change. It pays to think about framing of your arguments, and – as in my example above – what you imagine to be other people’s red lines or viable concessions, as well as your own. Playing the long game of persuasion is generally much more successful than a short, sharp blaze of righteous indignation.

I am reminded of this, not just because of the ‘leadership journey’ talk, but because of ongoing situations I’m involved with beyond academia, where it is clear to me how much taking your time to bring people around is more likely to be fruitful than just getting cross with any protagonist. I may not rigidly be setting red lines, but I am definitely consciously thinking where I am not prepared to go/lose ground/ or give up on. This looks much more like persistence than obstinacy to me, and I hope to the protagonists with whom I am engaging. Mentally I know the difference, and it probably behoves others to do so too.

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Taking the Chair (for the first time)

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Athene Donald

Sometimes things bring you up short in ways you weren’t expecting, and that happened this past week as I was trying to prepare for a talk. I’ve been asked to discuss my ‘leadership journey’ with a group of mid-career academics who may be facing up to the challenges of moving beyond research to, for instance, chairing committees for the first time. Now, over the years I’ve written a lot on this blog about the ups and downs of committee work and the characters one encounters.  You might have thought I’d find it easy to do such a talk. Instead, I found myself reacting badly to the whole concept initially: I’ve never been a leader was my initial thought, stoked by the fact I failed both to become a head of department or a PVC, for all I tried. (What went wrong on both occasions is perhaps a story for another day.)  But, not only was I Master of Churchill College for ten years – undoubtedly a leadership role – but I have chaired more committees over the years than I could possibly count. My first reaction was simply imposter syndrome getting loose again. For younger readers (probably just about everyone, given I’ve been retired for some time) suffice it to say imposter syndrome – at least in my case – doesn’t go away, one just gets better at managing it.

As I say I’ve written a lot about chairing committees but over the years I’ve also learned that every committee is different and one has to flex tactics to suit. When asked, by the facilitator for the upcoming talk, what my style was I can come up with some overarching themes regardless of the nature of the group, but beyond a handful of phrases one has to adapt one’s style according to what the nature of the desired outcomes is (sometimes much clearer than other times as for instance when a ranked list of grant applications is required) and whether the committee is made up of well-known colleagues or a bunch of strangers meeting for the first time. The dynamics will vary, particularly if everyone knows everyone else and has strong views about their colleagues. More on that below.

The first, and I think most important word I used to describe my style of chairing in this preliminary chat with the facilitator was ‘inclusive’. This is a word currently much bandied about; some years ago, I would have used a less definitive statement, such as ‘make sure everyone’s voice is heard’, caveated with ‘and don’t let anyone dominate’. The latter is easier said than done. Some people like to take over any discussion, regardless of their depth of knowledge or what anyone else might want to say. Practicing phrases for how to shut such people up without being downright rude can be helpful. Things like ‘that’s very interesting, now can we hear from other people round the table’ tending to the more blunt ‘I think we’ve heard your thoughts, but not everyone agrees’ if needed. At meetings where hands are raised (electronically or otherwise) it is possible simply to ignore the dominant voice for as long as possible. Sadly, on hybrid calls I have had people say ‘since I’m online I’m just going to jump in here…’ which is a tough one to control. Hybrid meetings are, in my view, the hardest to keep in good order.

But to be inclusive, it is important not just to shut the vociferous people up, but to make sure the quieter voices are heard. In Churchill, the governance arrangements at the time (since modified) meant that both students and staff were equal Trustees on the College Council. Both groups were often, I suspect, daunted by the louder voices and I tried to make sure I always brought them into the debate, particularly on matters specifically relevant to them. In general, turning formally to them meant they were happy to express their views but might have been reluctant to jump in without that invitation.

A College Council is an example of a meeting where many of the individuals know each other and may have done so for twenty or more years. That can bring its own challenges as old rivalries or tensions get played out for the nth time. As an example of how not to handle this situation, I am reminded of a search committee I sat on (not as chair) in my department many years ago. One of the other members was someone who I had a fractious relationship with, and I went into the meeting apprehensive about this. When push came to shove the two of us, in discussing one particular candidate, ended up in the unhelpful situation of claiming that ‘yes he would’ versus ‘oh no he wouldn’t’ about someone well known to both of us. As the external on the committee said to me afterwards, that was not a very constructive discussion but was definitely fuelled by past antagonism and present anxiety (at least on my part).

All that is about inclusivity, which I believe has to sit at the heart of good committee work. There are lots of other tactics I use to make sure that people remain engaged: a bit of light humour, coffee breaks in long meetings and keeping to time, for instance. I can remember one committee – again not one I was chairing, but one where the chair seemed to have no regard for time – which turned into farce as one after another of the members left for other meetings as the meeting dragged on about an hour past its scheduled end point. It is a trick to manage to keep to the allotted time without making anyone feel a decision was rushed or that they didn’t get a chance to speak. For sure, no one objects to a meeting finishing a few minutes early, but everyone can get peeved with an overrunning meeting. Once more, an example of how not to do this comes to mind, again not when I was chairing. The chair of this committee allowed the group to go round and round in circles about a particular candidate until the then Vice Chancellor stepped in and essentially said ‘enough’ and broke the loop. The chair should have done that at least half an hour earlier.

As will be apparent, I have learned a lot from watching other chairs make what, to my eyes at least, are a mess of things. That is certainly a key piece of advice I will be passing on to the mid-career academics later this week. Know what works and what does not from watching others succeed or fail. Chairing is a skill that improves with practice (and confidence). I copy below a list I made in a previous post on this subject that includes what I think are some crucial essentials (to be read in conjunction with how to be a better committee member):

  • Do your homework, read the paperwork and think about where the sticking points are likely to arise;
  •  If necessary and appropriate (and it often may not be) talk to people in advance if you know that they hold strong but opposing views;
  • Know who everyone is and what their backgrounds are; remember names;
  •  Concentrate so that you know when to wind up a particular discussion point;
  • Take the time necessary to reach a consensus, or at least let those whose views are being over-ridden feel that they have been heard;
  • Try to ensure anyone who wants to speak gets their chance – in particular do not let a couple of vociferous and possibly arrogant people dominate. It is the chair’s job to see this does not happen and that the timid get their moment;
  • Do not let tempers flare and use humour if you can to keep the meeting light (self-deprecating humour is fine and is often described as typically British);
  • Use breaks as time-outs if necessary, but also to allow legs to stretch, comfort to be restored and caffeine and sugar levels to be banked up as desired.

Finally, it is probably good to be aware of what not to do. I had fun many years ago describing all those chairs you do not want to be or meet. Sadly, I have met all of them, but I sincerely hope I cannot be pigeonholed into any of the categories myself.

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Equity for Women Around the World

Posted on March 30, 2026 by Athene Donald

It is always good to be stretched beyond one’s own comfort zone, even if by definition it is an uncomfortable thing to do. Recently, I found myself stepping up to the podium to talk following four successive philosophers, whose take on the policy questions under discussion, was inevitably going to be very distinct in language and form from my own approach. The occasion was the Royal Society’s Discussion meeting on Science as a Global Public Good. The philosophers approached the problem from a variety of different viewpoints – what is a ‘public good’ and how does it differ from the commons, legally what is enshrined in different UN charters and so on.

What about the importance of science diplomacy? This was discussed in the talk immediately before mine by Angela Liberatore, a colleague I’d known back in the days I served on the ERC Scientific Council, although she has since moved on from heading up their research team. We need every kind of diplomacy we can get in this uncertain world. There may be scope for links with the USA, as detailed in this recent piece by Hollie Chandler from the Russell Group, but many scientists of my acquaintance will not attempt to enter the USA for conferences right now. Who knows what might be lurking on their phone that officials take exception to? That will not be helping diplomacy. Nevertheless, I recall many years ago how the Royal Society was supporting links with North Korea in the area (if I remember rightly) of volcanology, at a time when there were essentially no other links between the UK and that country.

My own talk was, perhaps predictably, much more rooted in numbers and facts than legal niceties, looking at the subject of women entering the scientific pipeline. There are some striking numbers out there. According to UNICEF data, globally119 million girls are out of school (34 million of primary school age, 28 million of lower-secondary school age and 58 million of upper-secondary school age). Those are striking numbers, and nothing that is happening in the world right now makes me confident that the numbers are likely to be improving. But, around the world, we need all the talent we can get to move the agenda forward, not just in terms of obvious innovation opportunities, but in terms of maternal and neonatal health, nutrition and vaccination choices. These are all issues that women are the prime movers in and denying them an education means they are less well positioned to make decisions around them, or appropriate innovations.

The week before this conference I had been at another two-day event at the Royal Society, this one the culmination of the organisation’s year of celebration around the election of the first female fellows, with the theme of focussing on where we are now and where we need to go around Women In STEM. On the Royal Society’s website you can find new analysis of HESA data from JISC; a new film about Hertha Ayrton’s life and contributions (the first woman nominated for Fellowship, but rejected on the grounds she was a married woman and, under the laws of the time, was therefore a ‘non-person’); and a map on which anyone can enter information about a female scientist from the past at their location. On the site there is also a brief blogpost from me about women at the Royal Society.

During the conference there were strong views expressed about the status of women in AI and the dangers of their absence as AI is developed, algorithmic bias being the most obvious and visible one. Chair of the session Wendy Hall was particularly strong on this point, and outspoken in an interview with Rachel Sylvester published ahead of the conference. There she spells out her worries with regard to Silicon Valley:

“It’s all tech bros. It’s very aggressive. Silicon Valley is very difficult for women to work in, but we need women there”.

Currently, in England, the percentages of girls taking Computing at GCSE or A Level are dismally low, so little is likely to change without a radical rethink in our education system. It is to be hoped that the revised curriculum in the subject provoked by the recent Curriculum and Assessment Review will improve the situation, but only if the school environment itself doesn’t put girls off. I am a strong believer in the importance of teachers not inadvertently reinforcing gendered stereotypes, and the whole school environment ensuring the school’s culture does not deter girls from typical ‘male’ subjects. This is a topic close to the heart of the DSIT secretary of State who has convened a Women in Tech Taskforce. They have a consultation currently open – so now is a good moment to submit your views on how the situation at all levels can be improved.

There were many fascinating sessions at the Royal Society Conference, highlighting where things have improved and where, inevitably, work needs to be done. At a societal level I feel it is hugely important we don’t simply look at the fact that, on average, girls are outperforming boys at school and therefore not look at the detail of what that means. If white working-class boys are struggling in school, that is clearly a massive target for improvement and the situation for them needs to be remedied. But if girls are passing their exams and then walking away from many of the subjects that would, not only satisfy them as individuals, but allow them to progress to some of the higher paying jobs – due to the messaging they receive from the world around them – we have a different sort of equity problem.  With so much attention paid to metrics of school performance, this problem is too easily overlooked. As Michele Dougherty said at this Women in STEM conference:

“‘we will know we have got equity when I no longer get asked if things were difficult for me.”

(Of course right now things are difficult for her, as Chair of STFC, but that’s a different problem.)

These past weeks of intense meetings have been simultaneously rewarding and exhausting. Sadly, the two meetings merely confirm that in this country and around the world, equity is still a long way off, in STEM and, still, at much more basic levels of education.

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Unintended Consequences

Posted on March 15, 2026 by Athene Donald

We appear to be living in a world currently beset by unintended consequences, or at least a world in which the main proponent does not seem to have thought about the consequences the rest of us now have to live through. In lesser matters, though, unintended consequences may also be rife, including in the pursuit of science and the role of leadership.

I am prompted to write this in part from a musical direction. I recently heard a piece of music I last encountered as a teenager, singing in a choir organised outside of school but run by the school’s music teacher. We were known, back then, as the Carissimi singers and this was a piece written by this very Giacomo Carissimi (ca 1604-74), Jeptha. It tells the biblical tale of a successful, if unwise, leader who, having won some battle, vows to sacrifice the first person he encounters on returning home. Sadly, for him and indeed her, this turns out to be his daughter. Radio 3 played the plangent tones of the final chorus as he laments his loss. Vows like that are dangerous things, but his unintended consequence only wiped out one person, unlike some current actions.

So, let’s scale down again. In our every day lives we may all perform actions that don’t turn out as we intended but are unlikely to lead to actual human sacrifice. Having spent the start of last week at the Royal Society’s conference on Women and the Future of Science (part of their celebrations of 80 years since the first female fellows were elected; I wrote a framing document for it), there was more cause to think about consequences, unintended or otherwise. In several of the sessions there was discussion about leadership, both how one acted as a leader, but also actions that had made a difference to each speaker during their career path. Empathy, support and above all kindness got a lot of air-time; one might wonder if panels of men would have mentioned the same topics, even if they equally identified with them.

It reminded me of one time when I thought I was being kind to a struggling PhD student, only to find that the consequence of that was not all that helpful.I had a student (male) who was writing up their thesis. As was usual in my conversations with students at this stage, I  would set him targets about what I wanted to see from him each week. To start with, every week he turned up empty-handed with plausible explanations why. I wanted to encourage him not deflate or bully him, so I accepted these excuses. Then he asked for longer between meetings, so he had time to complete things. Again, I went along with this. After about 3 months it became clear that this was not the right strategy. Once I pushed him harder, he admitted that he had completely failed to write anything and was in a complete tizz. Once he’d opened up to me, we agreed he should just come each week and talk about how he was, or wasn’t, getting on. That turned him around and in due course he completed the thesis and got his PhD. But I realised that being ‘kind’ had been anything but, as it just left him able to stay in denial about his own progress and leave me in the dark. A lesson learned. But every student is different and needs a ‘personalised’ strategy to get them through what can be a really challenging period.

As a supervisor, a teacher or any kind of mentor means that one’s words can have an effect that may or may not be intended. Again, this past week, we heard of women saying how being told they ‘couldn’t’ do something, or – probably even worse, they weren’t ‘up to’ doing something – pushed some people to stamp their feet and determine to show their interlocutor they were wrong. As a clear example of this, take Rita Colwell (the first woman to lead NSF in the States). In her book, A Lab of One’s Own in response to being told by a professor at Purdue that ‘we don’t waste fellowships on women’, she says:

‘My first reaction is dismay – quickly followed by anger at the injustice of this policy and at his off-handedness in telling me about it…..He seems to think I have no future. Well, I tell myself, I will damn well prove you wrong.’

And she did. That was 1956, but today as then, many people – regardless of gender – may have their hopes apparently dashed by some ‘off-hand’ remark, only for that to spur them on to achieve whatever it is they are apparently being denied. Unintended consequences, but in that framing a positive outcome, sadly not so often true.

As a leader and a mentor one can immediately see that brushing someone off carelessly and without thought, as that professor brushed Colwell off, is not a kind or caring thing to do. The trouble is, there will be people who may be aiming at something beyond their reach and it is necessary to let them down gently. That can also be kind, but it can appear to be quite brutal to the recipient. In reality, and as the panel at last week’s discussion made clear, for those (all women as it happens) who had succeeded, a helping hand, a frank piece of advice, sponsorship and just ‘being there’ as a support were the things that stuck in their mind and coloured their own leadership styles as they rose in seniority.

Business gurus tend to talk about ‘being authentic’ as the right way to lead. But if you are a testy, over-bearing soul being authentic may be very destructive for those around you. The mantra, I believe, means don’t be afraid to show your own weaknesses – perhaps you’re tired having spent the weekend visiting your elderly parents 200 miles away, or are struggling with PTSD or whatever upset is occupying your mind – but too many people may want to deny they have any weaknesses at all. In which case being authentic may lead to yet more unintended consequences, as an exhortation to a team to strive harder may come across as bullying and lead to resignations. I prefer the encouraging words that Ijeoma Uchegbu, spoke last week, having experienced this herself when junior, that it is ‘always important to show empathy and kindness.’  We should all remember these words. Who knows who we will inspire or encourage to progress and who will thereby go on to make the most of their potential.

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There’s Always Another Forgotten Woman

Posted on March 8, 2026 by Athene Donald

It’s International Women’s Day and across the internet many stories will be spreading of amazing women – in science and in many other arenas – who either don’t, or haven’t, got the attention they deserve. The Royal Society is continuing its celebration of 80 years since the first women were elected FRS, as my previous blog alludes to, with a two-day conference this coming week. Additionally, a map is being constructed by them to identify locations associated with women in the history of STEM, to which anyone can add. There are the obvious names – Dorothy Hodgkin, Florence Nightingale, Ada Lovelace, all associated with London – appearing on this map, but it is time some of the less familiar ones got attention, and with a far wider geographic distribution. Many more names are appearing in stories and anecdotes on the web, of women whose contributions have been overlooked or claimed under the name of some man (the so-called Matilda Effect).

This year on IWD, I want to write about Ida Freund. In one sense I have known about her all my adult life, since I was awarded an Ida Freund Prize from Girton College as an undergraduate. Did I think about who she was? Not at all, women from the past held no interest for me at 20, I had my own life to worry about then. But, having just re-encountered her name, I realise what an interesting woman she was. Not just a woman in science at a time when that was rare, but also a foreign emigrée who had had a leg amputated in childhood, so someone living with a significant disability. Much more of a teacher than a researcher, she made significant impact on chemistry teaching in Cambridge and more widely.

Ida_Freund

Ida Freund (1863-1914) was born in Austria and came over to England in 1881 after the deaths of both her mother and grandmother, to be with her uncle as guardian. At the time, women’s education was still a contentious issue, but Girton College had been founded as a woman’s college in 1869 (and moved from Hitchin to its current location just outside Cambridge a few years later)  and she was enrolled there. Accounts imply she didn’t want to do this, although no explanation of why is given, but she obviously thrived there and went on to the Cambridge Training College for Women (now Hughes Hall) as a lecturer. From there she moved on to Newnham College where she spent the rest of her life, teaching chemistry to generations of students.

In those days, women were often excluded from the main university lectures (the male lecturers had to agree to their attendance) and the practical work for the women had to be done at Newnham, where a laboratory was created over which she ‘reigned supreme’. (I believe the Girton students also attended.) Women were allowed to sit the same exams as their male counterparts, but their names and classes were posted on a separate list and they were not allowed formally to proceed to degrees, thereby being denied the right to put BA after their name (no one, still, gets a BSc in Cambridge). This situation, it must shamefully be admitted, continued until 1948.

Ida Freund in labThe Newnham Lab in 1912, with Ida Freund sitting

Freund seems to have cut a strange figure. A letter from one of her students described her thus:

‘Miss Freund is the presiding genius, a jolly, stout German, whose clothes are falling in rags off her back. We made lots of horrible smells….’

Another said of her:

‘Miss Freund was a terror to the first-year student with her sharp rebuke for thoughtless mistake. One grew to love her as time went on, though we laughed at her emphatic and odd uses of English. Yet how brave she was trundling her crippled and, I am sure, often painful body about in her invalid chair smiling, urging, scolding us along….’

She never pursued a doctorate, or even very much of her own research, with a total of two papers to her name during her life. Teaching, however, was something she took extremely seriously. Her first textbook (The study of chemical composition: an account of its method and historical development with illustrative quotations) was published in 1904; her second (The experimental basis of chemistry: suggestions for a series of experiments illustrative of the fundamental principles of chemistry) was published posthumously in 1920. Her teaching seems to have been firmly rooted in experiment, but she also – as in her 1904 book – managed to discuss some quite cutting-edge ideas for the time, including sections on the electron (discovered in 1897 in Cambridge by JJ Thomson) and radioactivity (discovered by Henri Becquerel in 1896 in Paris).

The theme of this year’s IWD is Give to Gain. So, what did Ida Freund give and who gained? Firstly, she gave the proceeds of a University Prize she won (the Gamble Prize in 1903 for an essay on the early history of the atomic theory), in part to Girton to create the fund from which I received my prize some seventy years later. There must have been generations of natural science students at the College who likewise benefitted from her generosity. Newnham also has an Ida Freund Memorial Prize. But perhaps there is another lasting legacy of hers we should celebrate her for, with a higher sugar content: periodic table iced cakes/cupcakes. This was a tradition she started, with clear pedagogical intent as well as a light-hearted character. One of her students described this:

‘In my year we were requested to go and make a further study of the ‘Periodic Table of the Elements’: We found a very large board with the Table set out. The division across and down were made with Edinburgh Rock, numbers were made of chocolate, and the elements were iced cakes each showing its name and atomic weight in icing. The nonvalent atoms were round, univalent had a protruding corner, bivalent two, trivalent triangular, and so on . We divided it up between us!’

Periodic Table cupcakes are of course still to be found in some locations with a chemical bent on celebratory occasions.

So, an early teacher of women chemists, who themselves no doubt trained many other women to go on and teach (or research) and who contributed to successive generations through her generosity. Certainly one of the many less well-known women who deserve to be remembered on this day, as on every other. Let us not forget those who forged a path for others of us to follow.

My sources for this blogpost, beyond Wikipedia, come from Chemistry was their Life, Marylene and Geoff Rayner-Canham, Imperial College Press 2008; and Ida Freund – Pioneer in Women’s Education in Chemistry, Margaret Hill and Alan Dronsfield, Education in Chemistry 2004 https://edu.rsc.org/download?ac=133519

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