Heroines of Science

On 6 March 2019, Holly (I), Amelie (J) Cecilia (K) and Mohammed (G) competed in the Heroines of Science event at the University of Reading that celebrated the work of female scientists.

Coinciding with International Women’s Day, schools were invited to submit a team of up to four pupils to present a ten-minute talk on the work of a female scientist of their choice. Cecilia explains how they got on:

“It was a brilliant opportunity to listen to many like-minded individuals talking about some of the world’s greatest female scientists.

Our heroine was Martha Chase, an amazing woman who played a key role in the Hershey-Chase experiment, which proved that DNA held genetic information, not proteins. We chose her because she was practically ignored and written out of the legacy and was not mentioned by Hershey as he won a Nobel Prize for the experiment.

The second part of the event was a poster competition in which we had to make an A4 poster and each person voted for the best one. This we found more difficult as we had very limited time and none of us had a knack for drawing.

Although we didn’t win, I know everyone involved came out of the room with a far deeper understanding of many women, from Rosalind Franklin to Dorothy Hodgkin and Marie Curie and it was a brilliant experience.”