Professional women do amazing things and have cut through many glass ceilings.
What motivates them to get out of bed each morning and to deliver what is — or in many cases what isn’t expected of them?
For a student setting out, the life of senior professionals may seem very mysterious, particularly as many may end up taking on responsibilities and activities far removed from where an individual started.
The trajectory after university is rarely a straight line, with twists, setbacks, time out and/or opportunities (taken or declined) all to be combined with a personal life.
This series of conversations aims to explore the individual paths of some eminent professionals who have made it to the top in their own particular ways. How have they found their own solutions to ‘life’, what tips do they wish they’d been given earlier on, and what might they view, retrospectively, with most pleasure or regret?
Recent Conversations
Professor Sharon Peacock FMedSci CBE
Master-Elect and Professor of Microbiology and Public Health in the Department of Medicine WatchProfessor Deborah Prentice
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge WatchDr Gillian Tett
WatchProfessor Miranda Wolpert MBE
Director of Mental Health at Wellcome and Professor in Evidence Based Research and Practice at UCL WatchDr Anne-Marie Imafidon
Thought-leader in the tech space and champion of diversity in STEM WatchProfessor Hannah Fry
Professor in the Mathematics of Cities at University College London WatchProfessor Sheila Rowan
President of the Institute of Physics WatchChi Onwurah MP
Shadow Minister Digital, Science and Technology WatchProfessor Lucie Green
Professor of Physics and a Royal Society University Research Fellow at University College London WatchProfessor Diane Coyle
Inaugural Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge WatchProfessor Dame Janet Thornton
A Vice President of the European Research Council WatchProfessor Dame Nancy Rothwell
President and Vice-Chancellor of The University of Manchester WatchPast Conversations
Professor Melanie Welham
Executive Chair of BBSRC, part of UK Research and Innovation WatchProfessor Alison Finch
Honorary Professor Emerita in French Literature at the University of Cambridge and Churchill Fellow WatchDame Jocelyn Bell-Burnell
Astrophysicist and co-discoverer of the first radio pulsars in 1967 WatchMartha Lane Fox
Businesswoman, philanthropist and public servant WatchDr Helen Czerski
Physicist at University College London, author, science broadcaster for the BBC, alumna of Churchill College. Photo by Alex Brenner WatchBridget Kendall
The first female Master of Peterhouse College and formerly the BBC’s award winning Diplomatic Correspondent WatchProfessor Dame Sally Davies
Former Chief Medical Officer for England and Chief Scientific Adviser to the Department of Health and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge WatchProfessor Alice Roberts
Broadcaster and Professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham WatchJackie Ashley
Political journalist, broadcaster and President of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge ListenProfessor Dame Carol Robinson
Dr Lee's Professor of Chemistry, Oxford University and Honorary Fellow of Churchill College ListenProfessor Mary Beard
Professor of Classics, University of Cambridge and Fellow of Newnham College ListenProfessor Uta Frith
Professor Emerita at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience ListenWomen and Science
Past speakers tell us why they think women should work in the sciences
