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Author Archives: Athene Donald
Playing to Your Strengths
With many fresh graduates on the market seeking jobs, the Independent recently ran an article on interview tips. They were at the basic level. Fair enough for those people who’ve never had to endure such an experience before: be on … Continue reading
Posted in careers, interview panels, job interviews, Science Culture
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Women on the Platform
Too often one hears of — or attends in person — conferences where all (or nearly all) of the invited and keynote speakers are male. It is dispiriting every time one comes across such an occasion. It isn’t as if … Continue reading
Posted in burden, committees, conference, keynote speaker, Science Culture, Women in science
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Being Stern about Portability
Most people seem to think the Stern Review of the REF (Building on Success and Learning from Experience), published today, has done a fine job, with (if my Twitter stream is to be believed) the exception of the issue of … Continue reading
Posted in ECRs, Lord Stern, REF, Research, research outputs
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Keeping Track
I am a great believer in Post-it notes. Every room in which I work (perhaps embarrassingly there are three: in the Department, the College and my home in the Master’s Lodge) has torn off Post-it notes scattered around and a … Continue reading
Posted in office tidiness, post-it notes, Science Culture, to do list
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Why Side-line the Women?
‘I bumped into my supervisor on the stairs when I was with X [my fellow postdoc]. I might as well have been invisible, he didn’t address a word to me. It really hurt.’ So wrote a young female postdoc during … Continue reading
Posted in job share, mommy track, motherhood, part-time, Women in science
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Politicians, Leadership and Academia
We now have a new Prime Minister. A woman. I well remember a young relative saying to me as Margaret Thatcher stood down ‘Was it possible to have a male prime minister?’ Well yes, and history tells us this is … Continue reading
Posted in emotional intelligence, interpersonal skills, leadership, Science Culture, TEF
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Dressing for Success?
Women’s attire is so often the focus of media attention. I expect the relative merits of Andrea Leadsom’s and Theresa May’s wardrobes will be dissected as front page news for weeks, along with Angela Eagle’s. Focus on the importance of … Continue reading
Posted in job interviews, professionalism, Science Culture, suits, Women in science
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Science Funding from Europe and Commissioner Moedas
I went to Brussels this week for a Plenary meeting of the European Research Council’s Scientific Council. It was a strange week to go. As I sat on Eurostar and stared out at the passing countryside I strongly felt, what … Continue reading
Posted in Brexit, ERC, funding, Research, Science Funding
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Graduation into Uncertainty
Graduation. That rite of passage that indicates the student moves on into the wider world. This past week has seen many hundreds of Cambridge undergraduates pass through the Senate House and emerge with their BA’s (or other appropriate degree(s)). So … Continue reading
Posted in Brexit, Equality, EU Referendum, michael gove
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Forgetting Compassion
Last Thursday I sat next to the Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir Mark Walport, at a College dinner. We discovered we were exact contemporaries in Cambridge, both coming up in 1971 to a world utterly different from the one we … Continue reading
