Women in Science: Why We Need Role Models

Women's participation in science is on the rise, but their recognition is not on par with their accomplishments. This talk will be based on personal experiences and conversations with famous women scientists. It will feature women who excelled in their scientific fields, sometimes against all odds, and many of them also successfully managed to hold high administrative positions. The intriguing topic of missing recognition, especially when it is the question of the Nobel Prize, will be touched upon. Some statistics about the participation of women at different levels of academia will be shown and examples from all over the world will illustrate women's accomplishments in different areas of the sciences. They include Nobel-laureates, presidents of major universities, and other luminaries. 







About Prof. Magdolna Hargittai :

Magdolna Hargittai is Research Professor at the Materials Structure and Modeling Research Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. She is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and of the Academia Europaea (London). She has a Ph.D. degree from Eötvös University, D.Sc. from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and an honorary doctorate from the University of North Carolina. In 2011 she was named one of the Distinguished Women in Chemistry/Chemical Engineering by IUPAC. 

Her research is in the determination and modeling of molecular structures, especially of high-temperature species. She spent about eight years as visiting scientist at different American universities and has lectured in 15 countries. She has published about 130 research papers in peer-reviewed journals. She has authored/co-authored 10 books and edited 11 books in structural chemistry, symmetry-related topics, and on the human aspects of science. Her latest books include Symmetry through the Eyes of a Chemist, Third Edition (Springer 2009, 2010) and Visual Symmetry (World Scientific 2009). She is a founding member of the Hungarian organization of Women in Science and has lectured extensively on this topic all over the world.