meaning I can hear your guests
that was a remark thrown into a
discussion
with a man who really should have known
better and it wasn’t said to me many
years ago when I was young and
inexperienced it was said to me just a
few years ago it was a great way to try
and derail the debate he was losing it
still lost
but he needs certainly certainly back
and afterwards I thought what she’s
really % to him was a progressive blonde
I can hear you’re getting angry and
maybe better to have the same it
occurred to me that next time I will be
better prepared that I will know what to
do when someone tries to plant on me I
think one should think of situations
like that as a learning experience so my
message for you today is nothing is
wasted
good or bad now as you heard I am a
Cambridge professor an FRS I’m a master
of Churchill College but I wouldn’t like
you to think I’d always know what I
wanted to do that my life is carefully
planned I think when you’re young it’s
very easy to think that you uniquely are
the father about what you’re trying to
do and everyone else knows exactly what
they want to do and how to get there
another week saying but
their lives like that I know I certainly
happened but what I do think is as I
have gone through life I have taken the
different experiences I’ve had
I’m woven them into the fabric of what
comes next a bad experience may teach
you never to go near that situation
again or as with my first example teach
you how to do better I think that
everything that happens like your mic
packs up you have to learn how to get
through it in one piece without falling
flat on your face and it’s not always
easy but bad experiences may teach you
you never know what to do another TEDx
talk no let me take you back let me take
you back to when I was young and
inexperienced and I had finished my PhD
and my husband and I decided we were
going to go to the States
it looked like there was something there
for both of us that would satisfied both
of us but my first poster was a total
disaster I spent two years being utterly
miserable I produce just about no
results I really got culture shock
actually and I found the whole
experience very dismayed so what did I
learn from that well with hindsight not
at the time I realized that being a
failure at something doesn’t mean that
you are inherently a failure that you’re
always going to be a failure and I hope
that it is also helped me understand
better now that I’ve supervised students
and postdocs myself I hope it has helped
me understand when they are struggling
and I can say to them look I know what
it’s like I’ve been there and they can
absolutely see that I know what I’m
talking about
because I have this sort of two year
blank in my CV now obviously I wouldn’t
be standing here if my next post had
been equally disastrous I was very lucky
I I stayed at Cornell for reasons to do
with my domestic circumstances and they
need to get another V
I stayed at Cornell I swapped who I
worked with I moved field slightly I
work for the different professor and
this professor was just a totally
different kind of person to work for and
he encouraged me and he was the first
person who really encouraged me to think
about an academic career I had to be
able to pick myself off this very
literal floor that I had fallen on
failing to do my research tour well I
had to motivate myself to get on but I
quickly found that I’d fallen in love
with a research in a way I never had
done before so I think resilience is
another skill you have to learn but
having been through that process as I
say I hope it helps me sympathize with
my students some of whom undoubtedly
find research very disturbing and
difficult to get on with throughout my
career I’ve moved from one research
topic to another I’ve worked on starch
I’ve worked on plant plants I’ve worked
with plastics I’ve worked with living
cells and I think one can always take
what you learn sort of in the previous
bit of your research and turn it into
something that is relevant to what
you’re doing now
so for instance at one point I was
working on the mechanical properties of
snack foods made out of starch think
cheezy what’s it’s I think what happens
when you buy too cheesy what’s it you
want the right mechanical properties so
the theoretical equations that were
relevant to divert to getting some sense
out of our experimental results turned
out some years later those equations
were just as relevant when I was trying
to understand what happens when you
slice carrots carrots are a vegetable
phone the same equations apply now you
might be thinking those are really odd
things for a physicist to study and many
of my colleagues colleagues thought the
same thing when I set out and started
working on the really quite messy world
of food and biological systems some of
my colleagues were undoubtedly quite
sniffy did not think that these really
very complex materials will at all
approach
pria for a physicist and again
relatively early in my career I had the
kind of remark that is very hard to deal
with thrown at me by the then senior
professor in my department the Cavendish
lab in Cambridge who said things have
come to a sad pass one people at the
Cavendish study starch and again I
didn’t really have a very good answer I
could try and say that it’s really
interesting or I could try and say with
a bit more sort of sum for its what
physicists do but neither of them are
particularly good reports and I’m not
sure I’ve ever got a very good one to
that one but nevertheless I hope I had
the last laugh because as complexity has
become sort of fashionable far more
people are moving into the kind of areas
I was working in 20 years ago so I think
yep well tough I did I did the right
thing and staying with it
now it’s my first anecdote showed I
don’t think it’s just a case of knowing
facts and taking effect from here and
applying it there or a theoretical
equation I think it’s also about soft
skills of how to deal with situations I
expect many of you will have had that
experience when a child have being taken
to visit an elderly relative and your
parents sort of trying to tell you how
to behave and you feel as if they’re all
nice adult rules and you don’t really
understand them but somehow you’ve got
to get through the maze of this visit
and I think that kind of feeling that
there are rules that you have to apply
is something that applies to
professional life – the difference
perhaps is when you’re an adult you know
when you can break rules and you know
when you’re likely to get away with it
but I think you can learn an awful lot
in this sort of soft skill arena by
watching other people watching other
people get things right or get things
wrong and you can learn from both of
them so think about all the awful
presentations you’ve ever been to and I
know I’m sort of putting myself at risk
here but just pause for a minute and
think about the awful presentations
you’ve been to where people have had
umpteen PowerPoint slides in very small
font and you can’t possibly take him
he said or remember it because it’s just
being thrown at you really really fast
or the one where the speaker spends the
entire time muttering into their shoes
or standing pointing at the screen and
never showing you eye contact at all no
you can sit and go sleep during
presentations like that and if you’re
the parent of a small child that may be
the best thing to do during the
afternoon but otherwise I would say you
should watch and think well I wouldn’t
do it like that and I realize that
10-point font really doesn’t work in
this lecture theater so you can learn
and you can profit from it and one of
the situations where I think I’ve
learned most is actually sitting on
committees and watching the chair who
has quite clearly never been videoed so
they absolutely don’t know what they’re
doing wrong so you will all have seen a
committee chair who never stops talking
never gives there anyone else a chance
to talk or the committee chair who never
intervenes at all and just lets two of
the committee have an argument over in
one corner and everyone else gets very
bored and he’s just doodling on the
agenda or she or you have the situation
where no comfort break disaster or no
coffee and biscuits that’s about to or
the meeting just over runs horribly
you’ve seen all these examples of bad
chairing and they’re all quite
straightforward to sort out get someone
to organise some coffee it’s not that
difficult so do you actually profit from
watching people get things wrong because
I think it’s a very valuable skill to
get under your belt as it were so that
when you’re asked to take on some new
and exciting opportunity you are in a
good position to do it well now I think
this willingness to dip your toe into
lots of different ponds it’s very
important when I was introduced it was
said that I chaired the Royal Society
Education Committee and I was asked to
do this it’s school education it’s not
higher education and I was asked to do
it and I said well I don’t know anything
about schools and they said no no we
don’t want anyone who actually knows
what they’re talking about we just want
someone who’s going to draw all the
different bits together so I thought
okay
and it was really educational if you
like taking on that role I got to attend
a select committee for instance I had a
meeting with schools Minister Nick gig
who during the course of the meeting
else which do a long division some and I
said excuse me Minister I don’t really
think that’s the best use of our time
and the staff around the edge of the
rooms have had a quiet snicker I think
because I refused to do this long
division zone and it was during the time
that Michael Gove was the Secretary of
State for Education there were
consultations coming out all the time
and I had to read the suggestions about
the curriculum and everything you’ve
helped the wonderful staff here do the
responses and everything I learned a
huge amount now had I known back in 2010
when I did this that I was going to be
the master of a Cambridge College I
couldn’t have asked for better
preparation most researchers don’t know
about school education and for me to
have had this crash course was really
really useful but in 2010 and I had no
aspiration to be master of Churchill’s
so it was just by the by but I think it
demonstrates the fact that whatever you
do you will probably find it comes in
useful some time or other as long as you
have the confidence to join up those
dots which may not be entirely obvious
and as I say that applies to bad
experiences too so if I go back to the
remark I introduced this talk with a
fini I can hear you’re getting emotional
that was said to me when I was Cambridge
University’s gender equality champion by
a senior colleague who did not like the
fact he was losing the argument but it
sort of sums up why I had become the
gender equality champion because I was
fed up with sitting on committees where
I was stuck there as the token female
professor and then find that no one was
listening to me
or I would look around me and think why
are all these other professors getting
more space or students or whatever
resource and somehow my voice falls on
stony ground and it I think it was
because I was different so the comment
that was explicitly said to me when I
tried to be head of depart
and that I was too emotional it’s the
same thing again I was a female in the
male world if you don’t know physics
it’s very male I do not look like your
typical physicist and I think I just saw
through them and this comment about
being emotional I’ve come to realize it
simply means you’re not like us
it doesn’t mean actually we think you’re
about to burst into tears but they might
be worried I might begin to burst into
tears but I have never done that so they
have no justification but it seems to me
that it’s one area where being a woman
you are judged differently it seems to
be alright to be cross angry thump the
table I have seen men do that don’t
think I’ve seen women do that but I’m
saying they come and you have this
situation where being sort of different
is an issue and that is why I became the
university’s gender equality champion
again I learned a huge amount from that
role including I hope how to be more
persuasive so you can learn from all
experiences I took what was anger but a
slow burn kind of anger not a thump the
table kind of anger to take to that work
being gender equality champion and I
hope I made a difference in my own
university while I was doing that but I
think you can learn from any experience
good or bad and you should take away
from this that nothing is wasted so as
you leave here I hope you’ll go away
think about how to be true to yourself
how to take advantage of the different
experiences that come your way and not
forget that luck is something to play
with so good luck with it all thank you
you
that was a remark thrown into a
discussion
with a man who really should have known
better and it wasn’t said to me many
years ago when I was young and
inexperienced it was said to me just a
few years ago it was a great way to try
and derail the debate he was losing it
still lost
but he needs certainly certainly back
and afterwards I thought what she’s
really % to him was a progressive blonde
I can hear you’re getting angry and
maybe better to have the same it
occurred to me that next time I will be
better prepared that I will know what to
do when someone tries to plant on me I
think one should think of situations
like that as a learning experience so my
message for you today is nothing is
wasted
good or bad now as you heard I am a
Cambridge professor an FRS I’m a master
of Churchill College but I wouldn’t like
you to think I’d always know what I
wanted to do that my life is carefully
planned I think when you’re young it’s
very easy to think that you uniquely are
the father about what you’re trying to
do and everyone else knows exactly what
they want to do and how to get there
another week saying but
their lives like that I know I certainly
happened but what I do think is as I
have gone through life I have taken the
different experiences I’ve had
I’m woven them into the fabric of what
comes next a bad experience may teach
you never to go near that situation
again or as with my first example teach
you how to do better I think that
everything that happens like your mic
packs up you have to learn how to get
through it in one piece without falling
flat on your face and it’s not always
easy but bad experiences may teach you
you never know what to do another TEDx
talk no let me take you back let me take
you back to when I was young and
inexperienced and I had finished my PhD
and my husband and I decided we were
going to go to the States
it looked like there was something there
for both of us that would satisfied both
of us but my first poster was a total
disaster I spent two years being utterly
miserable I produce just about no
results I really got culture shock
actually and I found the whole
experience very dismayed so what did I
learn from that well with hindsight not
at the time I realized that being a
failure at something doesn’t mean that
you are inherently a failure that you’re
always going to be a failure and I hope
that it is also helped me understand
better now that I’ve supervised students
and postdocs myself I hope it has helped
me understand when they are struggling
and I can say to them look I know what
it’s like I’ve been there and they can
absolutely see that I know what I’m
talking about
because I have this sort of two year
blank in my CV now obviously I wouldn’t
be standing here if my next post had
been equally disastrous I was very lucky
I I stayed at Cornell for reasons to do
with my domestic circumstances and they
need to get another V
I stayed at Cornell I swapped who I
worked with I moved field slightly I
work for the different professor and
this professor was just a totally
different kind of person to work for and
he encouraged me and he was the first
person who really encouraged me to think
about an academic career I had to be
able to pick myself off this very
literal floor that I had fallen on
failing to do my research tour well I
had to motivate myself to get on but I
quickly found that I’d fallen in love
with a research in a way I never had
done before so I think resilience is
another skill you have to learn but
having been through that process as I
say I hope it helps me sympathize with
my students some of whom undoubtedly
find research very disturbing and
difficult to get on with throughout my
career I’ve moved from one research
topic to another I’ve worked on starch
I’ve worked on plant plants I’ve worked
with plastics I’ve worked with living
cells and I think one can always take
what you learn sort of in the previous
bit of your research and turn it into
something that is relevant to what
you’re doing now
so for instance at one point I was
working on the mechanical properties of
snack foods made out of starch think
cheezy what’s it’s I think what happens
when you buy too cheesy what’s it you
want the right mechanical properties so
the theoretical equations that were
relevant to divert to getting some sense
out of our experimental results turned
out some years later those equations
were just as relevant when I was trying
to understand what happens when you
slice carrots carrots are a vegetable
phone the same equations apply now you
might be thinking those are really odd
things for a physicist to study and many
of my colleagues colleagues thought the
same thing when I set out and started
working on the really quite messy world
of food and biological systems some of
my colleagues were undoubtedly quite
sniffy did not think that these really
very complex materials will at all
approach
pria for a physicist and again
relatively early in my career I had the
kind of remark that is very hard to deal
with thrown at me by the then senior
professor in my department the Cavendish
lab in Cambridge who said things have
come to a sad pass one people at the
Cavendish study starch and again I
didn’t really have a very good answer I
could try and say that it’s really
interesting or I could try and say with
a bit more sort of sum for its what
physicists do but neither of them are
particularly good reports and I’m not
sure I’ve ever got a very good one to
that one but nevertheless I hope I had
the last laugh because as complexity has
become sort of fashionable far more
people are moving into the kind of areas
I was working in 20 years ago so I think
yep well tough I did I did the right
thing and staying with it
now it’s my first anecdote showed I
don’t think it’s just a case of knowing
facts and taking effect from here and
applying it there or a theoretical
equation I think it’s also about soft
skills of how to deal with situations I
expect many of you will have had that
experience when a child have being taken
to visit an elderly relative and your
parents sort of trying to tell you how
to behave and you feel as if they’re all
nice adult rules and you don’t really
understand them but somehow you’ve got
to get through the maze of this visit
and I think that kind of feeling that
there are rules that you have to apply
is something that applies to
professional life – the difference
perhaps is when you’re an adult you know
when you can break rules and you know
when you’re likely to get away with it
but I think you can learn an awful lot
in this sort of soft skill arena by
watching other people watching other
people get things right or get things
wrong and you can learn from both of
them so think about all the awful
presentations you’ve ever been to and I
know I’m sort of putting myself at risk
here but just pause for a minute and
think about the awful presentations
you’ve been to where people have had
umpteen PowerPoint slides in very small
font and you can’t possibly take him
he said or remember it because it’s just
being thrown at you really really fast
or the one where the speaker spends the
entire time muttering into their shoes
or standing pointing at the screen and
never showing you eye contact at all no
you can sit and go sleep during
presentations like that and if you’re
the parent of a small child that may be
the best thing to do during the
afternoon but otherwise I would say you
should watch and think well I wouldn’t
do it like that and I realize that
10-point font really doesn’t work in
this lecture theater so you can learn
and you can profit from it and one of
the situations where I think I’ve
learned most is actually sitting on
committees and watching the chair who
has quite clearly never been videoed so
they absolutely don’t know what they’re
doing wrong so you will all have seen a
committee chair who never stops talking
never gives there anyone else a chance
to talk or the committee chair who never
intervenes at all and just lets two of
the committee have an argument over in
one corner and everyone else gets very
bored and he’s just doodling on the
agenda or she or you have the situation
where no comfort break disaster or no
coffee and biscuits that’s about to or
the meeting just over runs horribly
you’ve seen all these examples of bad
chairing and they’re all quite
straightforward to sort out get someone
to organise some coffee it’s not that
difficult so do you actually profit from
watching people get things wrong because
I think it’s a very valuable skill to
get under your belt as it were so that
when you’re asked to take on some new
and exciting opportunity you are in a
good position to do it well now I think
this willingness to dip your toe into
lots of different ponds it’s very
important when I was introduced it was
said that I chaired the Royal Society
Education Committee and I was asked to
do this it’s school education it’s not
higher education and I was asked to do
it and I said well I don’t know anything
about schools and they said no no we
don’t want anyone who actually knows
what they’re talking about we just want
someone who’s going to draw all the
different bits together so I thought
okay
and it was really educational if you
like taking on that role I got to attend
a select committee for instance I had a
meeting with schools Minister Nick gig
who during the course of the meeting
else which do a long division some and I
said excuse me Minister I don’t really
think that’s the best use of our time
and the staff around the edge of the
rooms have had a quiet snicker I think
because I refused to do this long
division zone and it was during the time
that Michael Gove was the Secretary of
State for Education there were
consultations coming out all the time
and I had to read the suggestions about
the curriculum and everything you’ve
helped the wonderful staff here do the
responses and everything I learned a
huge amount now had I known back in 2010
when I did this that I was going to be
the master of a Cambridge College I
couldn’t have asked for better
preparation most researchers don’t know
about school education and for me to
have had this crash course was really
really useful but in 2010 and I had no
aspiration to be master of Churchill’s
so it was just by the by but I think it
demonstrates the fact that whatever you
do you will probably find it comes in
useful some time or other as long as you
have the confidence to join up those
dots which may not be entirely obvious
and as I say that applies to bad
experiences too so if I go back to the
remark I introduced this talk with a
fini I can hear you’re getting emotional
that was said to me when I was Cambridge
University’s gender equality champion by
a senior colleague who did not like the
fact he was losing the argument but it
sort of sums up why I had become the
gender equality champion because I was
fed up with sitting on committees where
I was stuck there as the token female
professor and then find that no one was
listening to me
or I would look around me and think why
are all these other professors getting
more space or students or whatever
resource and somehow my voice falls on
stony ground and it I think it was
because I was different so the comment
that was explicitly said to me when I
tried to be head of depart
and that I was too emotional it’s the
same thing again I was a female in the
male world if you don’t know physics
it’s very male I do not look like your
typical physicist and I think I just saw
through them and this comment about
being emotional I’ve come to realize it
simply means you’re not like us
it doesn’t mean actually we think you’re
about to burst into tears but they might
be worried I might begin to burst into
tears but I have never done that so they
have no justification but it seems to me
that it’s one area where being a woman
you are judged differently it seems to
be alright to be cross angry thump the
table I have seen men do that don’t
think I’ve seen women do that but I’m
saying they come and you have this
situation where being sort of different
is an issue and that is why I became the
university’s gender equality champion
again I learned a huge amount from that
role including I hope how to be more
persuasive so you can learn from all
experiences I took what was anger but a
slow burn kind of anger not a thump the
table kind of anger to take to that work
being gender equality champion and I
hope I made a difference in my own
university while I was doing that but I
think you can learn from any experience
good or bad and you should take away
from this that nothing is wasted so as
you leave here I hope you’ll go away
think about how to be true to yourself
how to take advantage of the different
experiences that come your way and not
forget that luck is something to play
with so good luck with it all thank you
you
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