The School of Physics organised a stall and display to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day 2014.  The foyer of the Physics building became the focus of the celebration of the role of women in science past, present and future.  Examples from history showed that many female scientists have had to struggle for their ideas to be accepted.  These were juxtaposed with examples of current female science superstars, as well as thought-provoking questions like ‘how many women take Physics at University?’

Student volunteers and academic staff challenged those who entered the building to name a female scientist (and encouraged them to do so with chocolate). Names were written on post-it notes and displayed in the foyer.

Overall, 230 people took part in the exercise, and there were 89 unique answers. Here are the most popular – to find out more, download the detailed Ada Lovelace Day report (PDF, 57kB) by Dr Annela Seddon.

Undergraduate student Mahi Hardalupas commented ‘Ada Lovelace Day was the perfect opportunity to get people talking about women in science and it was great to see people interested in learning more about Ada Lovelace and female scientists in general. What was most impressive was the variety of names we got on post-it notes, even if most of them were Marie Curie!’