Category Archives: Research

Seminars that Bomb

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Athene Donald

It’s a strange thing how giving essentially the same talk at different venues/to different audiences can lead to such variable responses. The reasons for this are many and complex, and not always under one’s control; sometimes it is far from … Continue reading →

Posted in Interdisciplinary Science, Research, Science Culture | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Innovating with Sex and Gender in Mind

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Athene Donald

If you are designing seat-belts, who do you design them for? Or if teaching aspiring doctors the symptoms of heart disease and the presentation of heart attacks, whose symptoms do you describe? Clearly the correct answer to both questions should … Continue reading →

Posted in Research, Science Culture | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Levelling the Playing Field

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Athene Donald

This article has been published in the November issue of Physics World. The Research Assessment Exercise (RAE),which has been used to measure the quality of UK research for more than 20 years, has now morphed into the equally clunky sounding … Continue reading →

Posted in Equality, Research, Women in Science | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

How Do You Know How to Write a Thesis?

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Athene Donald

I wrote my PhD thesis so long ago it was typed for me by someone else based on my handwritten chapters; the diagrams were drawn laboriously and messily by me with a pen, ink and a fair number of smudges; … Continue reading →

Posted in Communicating Science, Research, Science Culture | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Athene Donald

This book review first appeared in Times Higher Education on September 1st 2011. Knocking on Heaven’s Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World By Lisa Randall Bodley Head, 464pp, £20.00 ISBN 9781847920690 Published 1 … Continue reading →

Posted in Communicating Science, Research | Tagged , , | 3 Comments