DISCOVERY MOMENTS La Fondation d’Entreprise L’Oréal
Pardis Sabeti is lead singer in a rock band called Thousand Days and it helps her convince youngsters that being a scientist is cool. To popularise science in America, she told a Discovery Moment group, it is necessary to make science hip: “Kids are defined by what’s cool,” she said. It was also important to engage the media. “Scientists seem to think it’s frivolous to do media stuff, but it’s critical”, she added. Apart from other considerations, much science is funded by government, so the public ought to know what science is doing, but “millions of people don’t know what DNA is. That’s ridiculous”, she commented. Sabeti was born in Iran but grew up in the U.S., becoming only the third woman at Harvard Medical School to graduate summa cum laude, before studying genetics at Oxford. Next January she will start as Assistant Professor at Harvard University, and her focus will be on malaria, TB and the evolution of pathogens. One reason for choosing Harvard, she said, was its commitment to the advancement of science. She was particularly keen to raise awareness of science among young girls, an approach shared by the two other winners of L’Oréal science awards who also spoke at the event: Habiba Bouhamed-Chaabouni, Laureate 2006 for Africa, and Prudence Mutowo, International fellow 2006 for Africa. Bouhamed-Chaabouni is professor of medical genetics at the University of Tunis and Chief of the Department of Congenital and Hereditary Diseases, as well as director of the Human Genetics Research Laboratory at the Faculty of Medicine in Tunis. She was introduced as “one of the most influential women in Tunisia.” Research, she stressed, was fundamental to the life sciences. It led to knowledge, opened up the possibilities of treatment and prevention of diseases, and by bringing together people in different fields could raise the level of knowledge. Mutowo said that apart from facilitating her scientific work, her L’Oréal award had enabled her to enter a community of women in science. In Africa, she pointed out, it was uncommon to find women at senior levels in science, so Bouhamed-Chaabouni was a rare role model with whom she could identify. She also felt inspired by Sabeti: “I’d like to be like her. She’ll be my compass,” she said. Mutowo recalled that when she decided to take up science it was an act of defiance “because I was told I couldn’t do it,” she recalled. Girls were discouraged from an early age, which was one of the reasons for the shortage of women scientists. As a child she would open a book and see a picture of a doctor, who was a man, and a nurse a woman. “It’s important to add to the pressure for more women in science, to add to their visibility,” she said. “It’s not enough to just to lie on the beach and enjoy yourself." Jennifer Campbell of L’Oréal explained that one of the aims of the company’s Women in Science programme was to nurture female role models. More than 100 international fellows and 250 national fellows had been named since the programme started. Several thousand other people had been involved as nominators and juries. Together they formed a growing community, linked via the website www.womeninscience.com. ___________________________ |