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Author Archives: Athene Donald
Leadership by Gravitas or Passion?
A couple of years ago I blogged about my feelings about leadership and role models. The difference is clear and whereas then I felt OK about being considered one of the latter I had issues with regarding myself as a … Continue reading
Posted in committee meetings, innovation, leadership, Science Culture
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An Education in Education (and Policy)
For the last three and a half years I have been chairing the Royal Society’s Education Committee. Under Secretary of State Michael Gove, education in England has been going through a tumultuous time (other parts of the UK have been … Continue reading
Posted in education, michael gove, Royal Society, Science policy, SCORE
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Embedding the Gender Agenda
I feel as if I have been involved with gender issues forever, but this is just the bad habit one has of reimagining personal history. Probably acting wisely, in fact for most of my professional career I just got on … Continue reading
Posted in committees, Equality, minorities, Unconscious bias, Women in science
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Student Satisfaction Good, Student Learning Better
Reading the responses from students to one’s teaching is all too often painful. Even for a course that has gone reasonably well you will probably get as many panning you for making it too simple as complaining it was impossibly … Continue reading
Posted in education, evaluations, lectures, Unconscious bias
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Mood Music
‘Are you dead or just revising?’ was a telling question I remember seeing as graffiti on a wall in Cambridge many years ago. This is the time of year when that question seems particularly pertinent. Signs abound in college courts … Continue reading
Posted in offices, revision, Science Culture, silence
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Past Women in Science, Present Digital Age
Following on from my last post I’d like to discuss experiences of a very different interdisciplinary meeting which I went to after immediately after the STS one I described there (I suspect I will return to that theme another time). … Continue reading
Posted in Ada Lovelace, digitisation, heroines, History of Science, Revealing Lives, Trowelblazers, Women in science
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Social Scientist for the Day?
This week I attended what was probably my first serious social sciences/STS (variously Science and Technology Studies or Science, Technology and Society) conference in my life. I was only able to attend the first day and I came away not … Continue reading
Posted in Blogging, Communicating Science, communication, journalism, Science Culture, social science
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What Can You Do in a Minute?
Responding to the simplest questions about life as an academic scientist seems to pose me serious problems. I have written before about the difficulty I have in answering the straightforward question ‘who inspired you?’ because I don’t feel as if … Continue reading
Posted in Communicating Science, education, excitement, microscopy, practical work
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Attacks on the Royal Society Miss the Point
This post was originally posted at ScienceGrrl. Another year, another occasion to thump the Royal Society for the make-up of its new fellows. This time it was Nature that screamed ‘Royal Society still trails the US National Academy in female … Continue reading
Posted in Equality, refereeing, Research Councils, Royal Society, Women in science
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Mentors: Does Age Matter?
Over the years I have benefitted significantly from mentors. Two in particular stand out: in Cambridge Sir Sam Edwards (whom I wrote about here) and, at that critical juncture when as a postdoc I quit the world of metals that … Continue reading
Posted in Career advice, Science Culture, support
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