Dr Heather Williams

Celebrating Ada Lovelace Day – join our Manchester watch party!

By Dr Heather Williams / September 24, 2023

Ada Lovelace Day is an annual event held on the second Tuesday of October since 2009 to celebrate and raise awareness of the contributions of women to STEM fields. It is named after mathematician and computer science pioneer Ada Lovelace. We are joining in the celebrations this year with a FREE watch party of the…

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The Wonder of… Bluedot 2023!

By Dr Heather Williams / July 17, 2023

This year we return, again, to the Star Field overlooked by the Lovell Telescope for three days of chat, laughs, and interactive demos for all ages as part of Bluedot Festival. Our theme this year is “The Wonder Of…” On Friday, we will studying the “The Wonder of the Tiny” – looking at molecules and…

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Congratulations to Heather on her MBE!

By Dr Heather Williams / December 28, 2020

Congratulations to ScienceGrrl Director Dr Heather Williams on receiving an MBE in the 2021 New Years’ Honours, for services to diversity and inclusion in science. Heather says: “I’m delighted to have been nominated for this honour and am very pleased that diversity and inclusion in science has been recognised as a worthwhile goal, which has…

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ScienceGrrl 2020 – All is Quiet

By Dr Heather Williams / December 28, 2020

2020 took us all by surprise. After watching the events of January and February unfold with a growing sense of dread, March (and all the months that followed) saw us juggle responsibilities at home and work in ever more complicated ways as we responded to the many and varied pressures of living through the Covid19…

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Science Grrl at Bluedot 2019: space games, crafts and more!

By Dr Heather Williams / July 7, 2019

  As you *might* have seen on our Twitter feed, Science Grrl is super excited to be heading back to bluedot in 2019 to celebrate fifty years since the moon landings! We’ve teamed up with Women of Science again this year to bring you the very best stories, games, crafts and, of course, the infamous…

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To you, future scientist

By Dr Heather Williams / April 28, 2019

  It’s warming to my heart to see so much of me in you,  That wide-eyed awe, that eager smile: “What else can science do?” “What spaceships, cars or nano-bots will engineers design?” “What next for astrophysics on the history of time?”   So no matter what they tell you in your college applications, There is…

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This Summer You Can Do It Too!

By Dr Heather Williams / August 12, 2018

The summer holiday is a great time to get inventing with kids. Airing on CBeebies, Bitz & Bob is the STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and maths) focussed animation for pre-schoolers that brings the fun of engineering home. One of the key principles of Bitz & Bob is to practice problem solving and we’re very…

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Science Grrl at Bluedot: What to expect

By Dr Heather Williams / July 19, 2018

For the last blog in our pre-Bluedot series, we thought it was about time we shared with you all the fun that the ScienceGrrl team will be getting up to at the intergalactic festival this weekend…. Located in the Star Field under the stunning Lovell Telescope, festival-goers visiting the Science Grrl stand will be able…

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Science Grrl at Bluedot: Neurotrash

By Dr Heather Williams / July 18, 2018

The content of this blog is explored in Angela Saini’s book, ‘Inferior: How science got women wrong and the new research that’s rewriting the story’. We encourage everyone to read this wonderful book! The brain is a wonderful organ that truly makes us who we are. But, unfortunately, it has been at the epicentre of…

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ScienceGrrl at Bluedot: The Brain

By Dr Heather Williams / July 17, 2018

From 20-22 July 2018 the Science Grrl team will be descending onto Jodrell Bank in Cheshire to de-bunk gender myths in science at Bluedot Festival. Ahead of the much-anticipated event, we’ll be posting some blogs to introduce the topics our team will be exploring at the festival. To begin our series, we’re starting by exploring…

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Symmetries: A Zine about Science & The Arts

By Dr Heather Williams / June 21, 2018

Symmetries is a zine all about the interconnections between physics and the arts. As a full time physicist and part time illustrator, I have always been passionate about communicating the similarities between physics and the arts. Zines are typically small-circulation self-published works that convey a niche topic – I thought that a zine would be…

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The Unbreakable Bonds between Physics and The Arts

By Dr Heather Williams / June 17, 2018

It’s often thought that science and art are polar opposites. At school, the methodical way scientific subjects are taught couldn’t be more different from the teaching of creative subjects. In fact, it was back in school that I remember trying to work out if I was a “scientifically-minded” or “creatively-minded” person, convinced that I couldn’t…

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Invent a Way to Save the Day with Bitz & Bob

By Dr Heather Williams / May 3, 2018

Imagine that your chances of pursuing a subject are dictated before you’ve even began to study it? There is clear evidence that children as young as 4 years are already beginning to develop basic stereotypical attitudes towards STEM subjects – all based on gender. The statistics speak for themselves: in the UK alone, the shortage…

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Learning to talk

By Dr Heather Williams / January 18, 2018

New year, new job. After 13 years as a Senior Medical Physicist at Manchester University Hospitals, I have just moved to the Christie Hospital to take up a new post as a Principal Medical Physicist. My new job involves particular responsibilities for teaching, which is one of the things I really really love doing. One…

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Phoenix rising : Dr Clara Rodriguez

By Dr Heather Williams / January 8, 2018

“I was born into an academic family. My father was a co-founder for the first University in my hometown, in Venezuela, and when I was just a baby my parents were both lecturers there. I spent the first years of my childhood playing in the hallways of Universidad Romulo Gallegos in San Juan de los…

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Don’t shoot the messenger: the deeper problem behind the all-male Commons STC

By Dr Heather Williams / September 17, 2017

In this piece we look at the reasons behind the all-male STC – and call for the Committee to take the opportunity to show leadership on equality, diversity & inclusion. On Monday 11th September, the House approved a motion to appoint an entirely male and predominantly white Science and Technology Select Committee (STC). This has…

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“Well behaved women seldom make history” – Jess Wade reports back on #ICWIP2017

By Dr Heather Williams / August 5, 2017

The International Conference on Women in Physics (ICWIP) is a triennial meeting that looks to “understand the severe under-representation of women worldwide and to develop strategies to increase their participation in physics”. The first was held in Paris in 2002 and 2017 marked its first return to Europe (while we’re still in Europe, I’m going…

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A stellar Starmus? Tanya Urrutia reports

By Dr Heather Williams / June 25, 2017

I am Tanya Urrutia, an astronomer at the Leibniz Institut fuer Astrophysik, in Potsdam, Germany. I work on the role of black holes and quasars in galaxy evolution. This week I attended Starmus IV in Trondheim, Norway. It is a festival celebrating astrophysical science and music and the role both of them play in society.…

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ScienceGrrl reviews: Inferior by Angela Saini

By Dr Heather Williams / June 14, 2017

When the Observer wanted a story on the origins of the menopause; it wasn’t exactly surprising that they asked a woman to research it.  What they may not have been anticipating was that instead, the author would become so fascinated by her findings that she would turn it into a book. Angela Saini is an…

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Emma Schierbaum welcomes you to Baylab

By Dr Heather Williams / May 29, 2017

New research finds that introverted students suffer disproportionately when it comes to practical science lessons in schools. Almost half of teachers consulted confirmed that introverted students were more likely to hold themselves back from taking part, rather than engage with hands-on experimentation, due to lack of equipment. Teachers said such students would continue to be…

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