The One Question This Brilliant Physicist Wants People To Stop Asking Her; Huffington Post, 12/15/15

Lila Shapiro, Huffington Post; The One Question This Brilliant Physicist Wants People To Stop Asking Her:

"In Eileen Pollack’s recent book, The Only Woman in the Room, she talks about how isolated she felt in the physics department at Yale, and how she never received the academic support or encouragement of her male colleagues. Does this resonate with your experience at all?

This sort of thing certainly does still happen. Whether inadvertently or deliberately, people tend to support others like themselves. Women at universities therefore don’t always receive the same type of support that men do. And almost all women know they are more likely to be interrupted (and that when they do the interrupting it is far more obvious).

But there are measures of success beyond what your immediate colleagues say. Like people inviting you to speak on your research or referencing it. I was at one point the most cited theoretical physicist over a five-year period, which is incontrovertible proof that scientists are paying attention to my work -- whether I received immediate encouragement or not.

So if you focus on the facts and not a few dismissive remarks, it’s pretty good actually. Yes, there are times you might feel isolated but there is also an entire community out there with similar interests, which is actually pretty wonderful. And many of my colleagues are great."