Tessa Kulik

Woman of the Day nuclear physicist Daphne Jackson of Peterborough died OTD in 1991. The first woman physics professor in the UK, she set up the first ever retraining initiative to help women scientists return to research after a career break. Born in 1936, Daphne was the first in her family to go on to higher education but crucially, she had the encouragement of her parents. There wasn’t much offered in the way of physics at Peterborough County Grammar School for Girls but the headmistress spotted her potential and arranged for her to have extra coaching. It paid off. Daphne won a place at Imperial College to study physics, one of only two women out of the ninety on the course. (That’s when I warmed to her. If you’ve ever been in that position too, you’ll understand how isolating it can feel. You put on a tough persona to deal with the casual everyday sexism, leaving the real you to crack on with the work at hand). Daphne graduated in 1958 and that’s when she had her second break. She was invited by Professor Lewis Elton to become his first research student at Battersea College of Advanced Technology. A German Jew who had escaped the Nazis, he was dedicated to furthering the development of other scientists. Moreover, he was pro-women. (You might have heard of his son, Ben). In 1962, Daphne was awarded a PhD in Physics and appointed as a lecturer. She was described by her students as “a somewhat daunting but very inspirational presence”. One said, "I recall her teaching us differential equations and what are called 'special functions.' We might have skipped some lectures but we would never skip hers. She had a very clear way of explaining complicated maths." At the same time, she was working on research into the theory of nuclear reactions with Professor Elton. When Battersea College of Advanced Technology became the University of Surrey in 1966, it became the Nuclear Physics Group. In 1971, Daphne became the first woman in the UK to be appointed as a Professor of Physics when she took up post as the Head of Department of Physics at Surrey. Her focus changed to applications of nuclear physics, especially in medicine, and she was instrumental in setting up Surrey's MSc programmes in Medical Physics and in Radiation and Environmental Protection. In 1983, Daphne led the Women's Engineering Society as president and set out to encourage girls into science and engineering - just as she had been - by helping to establish the Women in Science and Engineering initiative but she came to realise that women physicists who had to take a career break faced invisible tariffs when they tried to return to work. Giving birth, needing to care for a family member or having to follow their husbands who transferred to other posts meant that women’s records of attainment, achievement, qualifications and skills were ignored or dismissed by employers who would only offer work well below their capability. “Qualified women who are unemployed or under-employed following a career break for family commitments represent an appalling waste of talent and of investment in their initial education. Many such women are eager to return to their original careers or to a new field of activity for which their initial education is relevant, provided that retraining can be given and that they can, at least initially, work on a part-time basis.” The solution was obvious. Daphne set up a return-to-work Fellowship scheme in 1985 which allowed women two years to re-establish themselves after a career break. Within five years, 150 women successfully returned to their discipline. Awarded the OBE and with 55 published articles on the use of nuclear physics in medicine in her name, Daphne died in 1991 of cancer. She was just 54. "Imagine a society that would allow Marie Curie to stack shelves in a supermarket simply because she took a career break for family reasons."