Author Archives: Athene Donald

The Art of Festive Conversation

A frivolous post appropriate to the time of year. Type ‘conversation’ into Amazon, and you’ll get a whole list of self-help books, such as: The Art of Conversation, Or, What to Say, and When; How to Talk to Anyone: 92 … Continue reading

Posted in Communicating Science, Science Culture | Tagged , , | 31 Comments

On Passion

In the past few weeks there have been a number of articles commenting on the lack of women fronting up science on TV. First there was Jenny Rohn writing on ‘In which I Contemplate the Ranks of the Invisible’, quickly … Continue reading

Posted in Communicating Science, Science Culture, Uncategorized, Women in Science | Tagged , , | 31 Comments

Where’s the Wow Factor?

Where’s the Wow Factor? was a question posed at the Physics Meets Biology meeting in September in the context of teaching Biological Physics, as I discussed before.  I was reminded of this question while attending this year’s Institute of Physics … Continue reading

Posted in Biological Physics, Education, Interdisciplinary Science, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

The Media and (Un)Constructive Reporting – the David Lammy Saga

This week, universities and their funding have been much in the news, coupled with telling images of the anger of many students around the country at the proposed hike in fees.  Another story also hit the news about universities, or … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Equality | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Committees and Reverse Discrimination

Recently I was discussing a new working group that was being set up within the University, and realised that all the members that I had heard named were female.  I queried this and was told that that did indeed seem … Continue reading

Posted in Equality, Science Culture | Tagged , , | 8 Comments