• Question: I go to a girls school and the TV comedy series The Big Bang theory they were promoting women in science. I think this was a really good episode and inspired me about women scientists like Marie Curie. How do you think we can involve more women in science? Do you like big bang theory? :)

    Asked by oliviawarren99 to Christina, Colin, Jess, Samaneh, Steve on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Colin Dick

      Colin Dick answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Hi Olivia,

      I always get confused between Big Bang Theory and How I met Your Mother… but both are pretty decent!

      We definitely need more women in science! We have around 25 aerodynamicists at Lotus and they are all guys, how crazy is that?! I remember at school there was a bit of a split, where boys did physics and girls did biology… I wonder if this still exists?

      I don’t think we need to go out of our way to encourage particular groups of people into science – it should just be as open as possible so that we naturally end up with a diverse group of scientists, and that way we also end up with the most motivated people =)

    • Photo: Steven Gardner

      Steven Gardner answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      There is definitely a need to encourage girls into science, specifically physics and engineering. During my undergraduate physics course boys outnumbered girls by 8 to 1, and I was told the engineering department was even worse. I found Christina’s comments on the subject of her girl’s school interesting. Could it be girls in mixed schools are somehow convinced maths and physics is a boy thing?

    • Photo: Christina Pagel

      Christina Pagel answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Women should do science!! we’re pretty good at it 🙂
      I’ve definitely seen that there are loads more women who do biology/medical/social science research (like psychology) compared to maths/physics/chemistry… and, maths departments in universities can be pretty weird places full of slightly odd men. But, don’t let that put you off!! be the scientist that changes the status quo 🙂

      I don’t think there’s much sexism anymore in science (i’ve not really come across any in the last 15 years) – if you’re good people want to work with you. So that’s good!!

    • Photo: Jess Bean

      Jess Bean answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      This is a really interesting argument!

      As a women in science coming from a mixed comprehensive school, there were definitely more guys than girls in my science classes. Unfortunately throughout my A levels I was the only girl in my Chemistry class.

      This being said, once I got to university the tide is definitely changing – my chemistry class had around 50:50 girls to guys, and as a PhD student there are loads of women in the department (my research group in fact will soon be all-girl!).

      As the guys have referred to though, in the engineering and physics sides of research it could really do with a few more women about!

      p.s. love Big Bang!

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