Dahlia Wilde and her Wonder Dog talk to brilliant Dr. Daniela Bortoletto - Head of Particle Physics Department at Oxford University and Dr. Mark Kruse from Duke. Both are researchers at CERN at the Large Hadron Collider. Daniela was Mark's mentor and Mark is my mentor! Mentors of Mentors! I attended both Duke University and Oxford University as a Truman Scholar.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome vin kommen yin venido, yin venu benvenutiaduti. Welcome one
and all, Thank you for joining me. I'm Gollia Wild
and this is the Oh my God Particle Show where
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(00:32):
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Speaker 2 (00:41):
First a joke.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
A listener from Pratt Bottom shared this. A passenger called
the airlines. I'm calling to find out if faster than
light flights are available. The ticket agent replied, yes, we
do have faster than light flights, but these monthly pritic
la streeks what's on Saturday night day is required.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I love jokes.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Hey, omgpsers, send us your best jokes and your questions
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Our email is omgpspod at gmail dot com. That's OMGPS
(01:26):
pod at gmail dot com. Remember there are no dumb
questions in particle physics. Hi, I'm Dahlia Wild and this
is my co host Higgs Boson Wonderdog. Welcome back to
the Oh My God Particle Show. Thank you for joining us.
On today's show, we have two very groovy brainyacs. We
(01:48):
have the returning cham from New Zealand, my excellent Kiwi
mentor from the Large Hadron Collider and Duke University doctor
Mark Cruz and her other guest today. She's originally from Italy.
Her name is doctor Daniella Bordolto. She's the head of
particle Physics at the University of Oxford and Miracle of Miracles.
(02:09):
When I was introduced to the Great Danielle, it turns
out that she was my mentor, Mar's mentor. Thanks for
listening to my podcast and please come see my play.
The Oh My God Particle Show running from August second
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(02:32):
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Stay tuned for more details about more OMGPS.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Live theater shows in London. Geneva, New York City, La
outer space, who knows. Thank you for all your support.
Mentors of mentors, mentors really rule. And they both were
co discovers the God particle at CERN where they are
again researching together at a large hadron collider looking at collisions.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And even higher energies. Hi, Daniella, it's so great to
meet you. Tell me all about running the whole particle
physics department at Oxford.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's a big responsibility. I have twenty six faculty working
in the subdepartment of particle physics, and we are in
a lot of experiment you know, from from Atlas to
you know, all of the neutrino experiment in Japan and
in the US and in Canada. So and then we
(03:37):
are on l Z and experiment that is looking you know,
to search searching for that matter directly, which is also
based in the US. So really, you know, it's it's
you know, it's a lot of people, it's a big
subdepartment and there's a very strong tradition for particle physics
here in Oxford. So if you look at almost all
(03:59):
of the profess so at the other universities in the UK,
they almost all graduated from Oxford University. It is quite amazing.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Actually, what is this an undergraduate conference for women in
physics that you are in charge of the UK arm
of that.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yes, so it started in the US and actually it
was started by a two graduate students at the University
of Southern California many years ago now, and this student
realize that there was a big imbalance in the number
of women in physics, and so they decided to do something.
(04:35):
And what they did they did realize this event in
which you know, you will have undergraduate students will be
invited for three days and they will interact with role models,
you know, mainly women at other stages of their career.
And also you know, they will have a lot of panels,
(04:56):
you know, to understand better of the possibility of what
you can do with a degree in physics, both in
industry or in academia. And this really was really aimed
to give confidence to women to continue in physics. And
the first conference at twenty six women. Now it's one thousand,
(05:18):
five hundred women going to the conference in the US
and Canada. And when I came in the UK in Oxford,
I met, by chance, of course, a woman who attended
the conference in southern California, and because of that, you know,
I decided that could be a good idea to start
(05:40):
it also in the UK. In the US it's done
in multiple locations so that people don't have to travel
a lot. But in the UK we had like one
location and we had it in Oxford. Source ideas. Because
I started it and now it's going around the UK
and Ireland. We invite one hundred women and it has
(06:01):
exactly the same effect in the UK that it had
actually in the US. Women after the conference belief that
they are physicists, have confidence to continue in physics. They
are energized. You know, there is a major step again,
I repeat again, in confidence.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
It was fantastic for me too, because I was coming
to a different country. I didn't know anybody in the UK. Well,
I knew some people in the UK, but I didn't
know the system very well. And by starting the conference,
you know, I got to know many many fantastic women's
scientists here, women physicists, and it was tablished for me.
(06:43):
I mean every time I enter a conference where we
have a lot of women or anybody who identified as
women in the conference, you really feel a boost. You know.
When I went to Purdue, you know, and I started
in a system professor that I was the first of
female professors since nineteen forty five. When I entered the room,
(07:08):
I think that the first class that I started was
that I toltal Purdue was actually I think it was
mechanics or not Electricity and Magnetism for engineers. I entered
the room and I was the only woman in the room.
I mean, you know, just like unbelievable things have changed.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
How did you get started? Because I'm really interested in
how being an extraordinary happening of a woman walking into
a classroom where the only one house is going to
become ordinary, you know, where we don't even have to
say that it's a woman. You know, a particle physicists
is a woman. So how did you start and how
(07:49):
did you have your confidence to use your imagination and
creativity for science? And where did you grow up? In
the Alps?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I grew up in the Alps. I come from a
small town in the Italian Alps called Domodosola. Yeah, I
think that the likely is that I would become a
physicist and the head of particle physics in Oxford is
in philities. I don't know, you know, it's it's really
difficult because you know, I'm the first person to get
(08:21):
an undergraduate education. You know, my mother and my father
didn't go to university. My father died when I was
nine years old, leaving my mother and I really in
a rather shake economical situation. And so I I really,
you know, honestly, I one step at the time, and
(08:43):
always being keen to learn from other people, to learn
from their experience. It was not even clear that I
could go, as you know, as I was growing up,
but to the school that was necessary to do a
degree in physics. But it was sort of an amazing
because in my hometown we had a very very famous
(09:03):
private lyceum to do that was the road to do
a degree in physics, but that would have been completely unaffordable.
And really the year that I was ready to go
to the lyceum, the open state school Lyssum State School
Lesseum in my hometown, and I went to that one.
(09:27):
I graduated with the top mark, and everybody was so
lovely and so excited because it was almost like the
kid from the wrong side of the truck that get
you know, the grade is called sixty over sixty because
you get you know, one hundred percent, and to have
the state school kids that got the sixty over sixty
(09:48):
was amazing and everybody was so excited. So I'm almost
like a hero in my m so and again my
it was really actually my physics teacher, a man, who
really told me that I should try it, you know,
And then I was. I went to school as an
(10:09):
undergraduate at the University of Pavia, and I was admitted
in a very prestigious college we called College o Gizieri,
which was standard in fifteen sixty seven by Pope Pius
fifth to accommodate very promising student men. You know, it
was really you know, it was only for men, and
women were admitted starting in nineteen sixty five. And so
(10:33):
it was really, you know, you can take this experience
and take it negatively, because honestly, I was coming from
the high school in a very small town and I
had to deal with a lot of classmates that were
better propelled than I was. But again I never find that,
you know, someone I always find this enormous appetite for learning,
(10:59):
you know, And and so for me it was just
very motivated. I just said, oh gosh, I have to
study more, you know, I just have to work more.
Then in my third year of university, I was admitted
to the CERN Summer Student Program and I spent you know,
the old summer at CERN, and I just loved it.
And there I really decided that I wanted to be
(11:19):
a particle physics.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I had like amazing lecturer. I think that one of
my lecturers was martineuz Beltman, the Nobel Prize of physics,
you know, teaching me the standard model. I mean, you know,
it was like it was unbelievable, it was and you know,
you were doing research and you were really in this
very international environment, which I love these ideas that, you know.
(11:47):
Part of the feelings that I have, you know, and
I always wanted to be at a university is that
really you know, is universal. It brings everybody together. You know.
I always felt like CERN was an as a place
that brought everybody together. And I just find this international
aspect of CERN, where everybody is working together to get
(12:10):
that experiment working completely, you know, amazing and completely you know,
very motivating for me.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I may I love it too. That's the best thing
in the entire universe health that we could all be
working together, and it's so exciting that you had all
these helping hands. I've always had that too, And like Mark,
he was just a delight when I called him with
my crazy question. So I have a theory that because
(12:39):
you were his mentor Purdue that I mean, Mark is
already awesome and so creative and talented and patient. But
how was he as a student?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah? Mark actually was my first student, so he deserved
a special a special place, I think, you know. And
it was not only my student, It was a share
student because I was starting up and you know, I
was learning. Until then, I mainly worked in any plus
minus machine at lower energy, and for me, it was
(13:10):
a very big step to go to CDF, which was
an amazing experiment at the Tavathrone, a proton anti proton
collider reaching the highest energy in the world. So so
I was learning with Mark actually, so it was a
fantastic experience. And I remember Mark, you know, as I said,
this is special. Your first student is always special. And
(13:31):
he spent also a lot of time also collaborating with
people at the University of Chicago, et cetera. Because you know,
in this big collaboration, we are always working together. You know,
it's not you know, it's not one person that does
the all analysis at times. There is always it's always
a collaborative work, you know. And so it was it
(13:53):
was amazing and I was learning at the time with
Mark in some sense.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, Mark, Danielle was how you were her first student.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
And that's right. Yeah, it's a long time ago now.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
But I mean you were a joint student with with
think or you remember, and you work. You worked a
lot also with the University of Chicago, was saying, you know,
so it was really amazing, Yeah, amazing times and it
was so it was so exciting. You know, we discovered
the top fork and Marquis is you know, it's one
(14:28):
of the elements that led, you know, to the discover
of the top quark. So it was really fantastic time.
And when it's very exciting.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Tell us a little bit about the top quark and
Mark about your thesis.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
Sure, so this was you know, it was it was
fortuitous in the timing sceense, because this was in the
early nineteen nineties and you know, we believe that the
top quark existed, so the top quark just to you know,
to step back a little bit. You know, everything that
we observe, you know, is made up of what's what
(15:04):
we call the first generation of fundamental particles, so up quarks,
down quarks, and electrons. But there are another two sort
of generations of fundamental particles. We don't we have no
idea why why there's three. Why aren't there seventeen or
two or whatever, So we have no idea why. But
the the top quark is the sort of third generation
(15:26):
partner to the upquark, which is one of the fundamental
constituents of protons and neutrons and things that you know,
we are made of, but it's it's something that you know,
lasts very ephemerally. I mean you you you create them
and then they decay almost instantaneously. So what we have
to detect is, you know, the remnants of their decay
(15:47):
products when when as soon as they decay. And so
the top quark was theorized it to exist, and so
we didn't know how heavy it would be, and so
that this is one of this is one of the
complications in finding it because we don't know, we didn't
know exactly where to look. We had some ideas and
so there's but there's a lot of different ways that
(16:08):
can actually decay, so it can decay into other particles
that we then detect, and so it can do that
in a number of different ways. And so my thesis
was on one of those possibilities, you know, one of
those ways it can decay. It wasn't considered at the
time a very fruitful sort of decay channel.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
But it worked.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
It worked, I mean, it was amazing that it worked,
and so it was actually it ended up being quite
an important contribution to the entire discovery. So that was
it was really exciting and a very stressful time because
as a graduate student, you know, we had to show
updates every week and it was really quite incredibly stressful
(16:47):
to get.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
All that time.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
I was quite quite glad when it was all over,
but that was extremely exciting time when we could have
actually announce that, Okay, we've now seen, you know, evidence
for the signals for these top quark decays.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
And it's an amazing particle in a sense. It's extremely heavy.
Its mass is like two hundred times the mass of
the proton, I mean, you know, and it decays instantaneously.
As Mark said, it's a very interesting particle because now
that we have discovered the Higgs bosone. For example, we
explain the mass of the particle in terms of its
(17:23):
interaction with the field of the Higgs boson and the
top quark as what we call these interactions, we call
it coupling, as a coupling that is equal to one.
But for example, the electron has a very small coupling
tends to the minor six something like that. Okay, So
it's really and as Mark said, you know, we don't
(17:45):
know why we have this different generation of particles, and
perhaps you know, understanding bat as these couplings and understanding
beat as the Higgs boson can solve help us solve
the mystery of We call it the mystery of flavor.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Yeah, and I think the top quike is still the
heaviest fundamental particle. We know it's heavier than the Higgs boson.
Even so, the fundamental particles couplings to this Higgs field
which give them their mass. We don't know why or
what fundamentally generates these different couplings, and so understanding the
(18:20):
Higgs boson more and so this is one of the
goals in the next you know, several years at the
LAC is to understand the Higgs boson better now that
we've discovered it, you know, there's still a lot we
need to measure about it and just understand. And so
it is one of our sort of big mysteries. And
it's always I always think that, you know, whenever we
discover something, it just opens up another whole set of,
(18:42):
you know, fundamental questions that we don't know. So the
more we discover, the less we know in some sense,
which is, you know, which makes the field extremely exciting.
I mean, we're really probing, you know, the fundamental nature
of the universe. And I think, you know, the more
questions we have, you know, I almost believe, you know,
the more questions you have, the closer you sort.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Of getting to it.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah, and it's almost like, you know, we say that
we understand mass, but in a sense now we just
translated the problem of why the masses of this particle
are so different in the problem of why is the
coupling of this particle with the Higgs fields are so different?
Speaker 1 (19:18):
What are your experiments now we.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Are on the same experiment, don't say Atlas experiment. Yes, yeah,
we are collaborators.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Colaborators again, that's right.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Collaboration is so important because a lot of times we
think science is solitary, and that is definitely so exciting
about international collaboration. Can you tell me what just so
we can add a little tiny glamor what was the
beauty experiment? Was that Ancern? Was that your mentor?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, My advisor, Sheldonstone, who passed the way actually recently,
is one of was one of the experts in in
the beauty in the physics of the Peak work, which
is also called the beauty work, and so it was
especially influential in LHCb. I worked with him in another
(20:10):
experiment which was called CLEO that was at Cornell University,
and again you know, it's he was fundamental in, uh,
in my development as a scientist. I mean, it was
so add nos. I mean, you know, it was really
uh phenomenal, you know, this kind of going back to
the basics, and you know, don't tell me something that
(20:32):
is not true. I mean, you know, very very amazing
scientists really, you know, and you know, so I really
worked very closely with him on B physics. So my
thesis was on B physics and and it's strange now
that you know I'm back doing in a sense, you know,
h T B. B. So the higgs that came into
(20:54):
two beauty works.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
So that's what the H two B B stands.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, yes, yes, yes, so it's going to beauty be
called the bee quark is a beauty.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Quark, And how do you come up with that name?
That's like a T shirt top quark and beauty cork.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
Yeah, but the top and bottom clocks are quite often
called the truth and beauty clerks, so they mean the
same thing. But truth and beauty I think a little
too poetic for physicists top and bottom unfortunately. I think
truth and beauty I think a much more descriptive names.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
We're gonna have to sell those T shirts along with
the pet God particle, which is basically a box of air.
You guys are just awesome, and I just hope we
can get the message out how wonderful and amazing and
supportive and collaborative you know this field is, and that
we can hope to build the confidence especially women and
(21:53):
girls and everyone in between. Well need Yeah, Well, so
they'll believe in their visions and to follow it through
the experimentation. Was that true that Cecilia paying Capushkin. She
took like maybe it's an exaggeration three million, you know,
recordings of stars, and just that persistence which is just
so important in persistence.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Is extremely important in science, and I think that it's
really one of the reasons that makes break a scientist,
you know.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
And any money in any field especially.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, but again it's the same things. Actually, you know
here in Oxford, we are justly in Belbono. And again
you know, she was able to see pulses, I mean
really by looking at meet us and meet us and
meet us of recording, and again she was extremely persistent.
And I do think that it's some also characteristic. You
(22:52):
know that women often have this impostor syndrome. Yes I
have it, yeah so, but and again not only when.
But I do think that sometimes having a little bit
of the impostor syndrome helps you to achieve almost this persistence.
I don't know to say, because you really want, you know,
to do everything to think that you have not left
(23:15):
any stone un termed, that you really have been systematic.
And I do think that a lot of women who
have done, you know, important contributions to science tend to
have that. You know, this persistence is the commitments is
so important.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
Yeah, I think I completely agree with that. I think
imposter syndrome is a real thing, and I think it
does motivate you to in some sense have a deeper
understanding of things. I mean, you sort of see it
if you don't feel that you belong or you feel
that someone else understands something better than you, although they
probably don't. They just better at you know, making you
(23:56):
believe they understand something better. Quite quite often they simply don't.
But in some sense it sort of motivates you to
have a deeper understanding. I mean it's a I completely
sort of empathize with, you know, where Danielle came from.
It's the same in my case. You know, neither of
my parents even graduated high school, so I never really
believe that, you know, I deserve to be you know
(24:17):
where I am. It's but I think that really is
a motivating factor. And if you've got a sense of
sort of competition that you want to, you know, learn
more than you know or know more than someone else,
it really does sort of motivate you to to do that.
So I think that is a really important component. It's
sort of interesting, as Danielle mentioned that quite a few
(24:37):
people in very high positions you know, in the in
the physics community, you know, did not come from very
privileged or you know, academic backgrounds. It's necessarily so you know,
they came from environments that I believe sort of allowed
them to sort of interact better with other people and
(24:58):
tell you know, you know, Danielle is extremely and interacting
with people, getting amazing people, you know, groups around her,
and I think that's that's almost you know, a very
key component as well.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
And also Florencia Connelly had said her father was a
car mechanic exactly. She said she never noticed she was
the only woman until your weddings.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
So it's really interesting. It's really yeah, if you look
at where where people actually came from, it's it's quite interesting.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
And the challenge though, so as Florencia was so clearly explained,
was it was in her post doc where she started
to feel a little bit uncomfortable and you Mark were
saying that it was because the structures of the universities
and the research teams were mostly men. But the it's
just going to take time, right, because doesn't it take
(25:48):
eight to twelve years to get through the physics.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
Yes, So I think the although there are you know,
more and more women, you know, becoming physicists. I think
the institution itself is still very male like, and so
you know, if you're in meetings, it's you know, the
person with the highest, you know, the loudest voice, or
the person who's you know, in some almost the ruders
who can interrupt someone and you know, give their own opinion.
(26:11):
Those are the ones whose voices are typically heard. So
it's still you know, male dominated in that sense. And
so I think there are sort of institutional changes I
think that you know, would also.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Be good for the field of general and what can
we do Danielle and make it, you know, more better
environment for women.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah, I think that, you know, you should always think
to make it a better environment for everyone born. Yes,
you know, I think that whenever you achieve something for women,
that is better for everybody. And again I think that
everybody has a different experience or for example, for me,
(26:52):
my post dark was the time of my life I was.
I stayed in Cleo. I had a lot of freedom,
you know, I felt like I was much in very fast,
but I was only a postoc for two and a
half year. I got to a faculty position in my
third year of a POSTOC, which is quite geniuses. No, no,
it was just a coincidence. Sometimes you're lucky also a
(27:14):
little bit, you know. So so I've had a very
quick POSTOC. For me, It's a difficult part was more
like when I was at Purdue, you know, because I
was really the only woman in the old faculty fifty men.
I had a daughter before getting tenure. That nobody does it,
you know, so I've not done things according to what
(27:35):
you should do. Perhaps you honestly. My daughter was born
December twenty. I was back at work January seventh, and
I if you ask me now, Daniella, why did you
do it? And Daniella, why how did you do it?
I probably will say that I don't know. I will
go with my you know, I will go in shift
(27:57):
with my daughter. We will will drive together, you know,
from Purdue to Fermila, but I will stay in the
Fermila village. My husband will ask, tell me, why don't
you ask to don't give you shifted because you're you know,
you have a small child. And I would say, well,
I feel like if if I ask, then I'm treated differently.
I was silly almost, you know, I don't know why
(28:19):
I did something, you know, But again, you know, I
did them, and sometimes I regret a little bit that
I've done them because I didn't spend as much time
with my daughter as maybe I should have done. But
in any case, I think that again, you know, don't
make women choose, you know, all men to have more
(28:39):
flexibility so that you know, you understand that you know,
if you have a child, you have to take some
time off and this shouldn't count against you. Making the
environment more open and make it more clear what as
a requirement for promotion for every step of the car
(29:00):
And I think that these steps are really important for everybody.
And again, you know, having classes for every body against
people who bully you, people who interrupt you, you know,
avoiding these things that Mark was saying that they happen
in faculty meetings. That is always like the man with
the loudest voice. That as the final world, you know,
(29:23):
and I think that you know, letting everybody knows that
it's okay to say stop it. You shouldn't do this,
you know, being being more able to talk and more
able to express our thoughts and when things are are
not right, when are wrong, and trying to give a
(29:43):
lot of encouragement and our knowledge the work that is
done by everybody at their career stage. You know, I
think that it's a long list of things that we
have to do.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
And the whole planet you have to fix. And what
a field did your daughter go into? Did you run
screaming from physics?
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yeah? She runs screaming from physics. Yes. She never wanted
to come to a physics department, you know, you know,
she doesn't even enter them, you know. And she studied
actually boys performance at Oberlin College, which is a fantastic
music school, a fantastic environment.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, that's wonderful. That's what I especially interested in the
arts at CERN, and that's why I'm so grateful to
Mark that he embraced my theater project and he never
made me feel I asked a dumb question. And look,
we've actually made progress here. Hopefully we're going to have
a lot of listeners who really excited about this. And
(30:43):
yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine, a
Fulbright scholar from a program that I am involved with,
Vital Voices, and I was telling her about you, Danielle
and Samantha Christopher ready up there at the space station,
and she said to me, why do I not know
about these women. I'm so in awe of you know
(31:03):
how the women who've done great work in science, and
the incredible men to like Mark, who are supporting us
and and also have their own discoveries. And I'm really
hoping that yes, since if we're all made of the
same God particles, we're gonna all get along, We're all
gonna collaborate, We're just gonna keep moving forward. And yeah,
(31:25):
this fact of the you know, flexibility and being allowed
to make a mistake, that's also really important. And that's
especially I appreciate Mark. He never, maybe not to my face,
laughed at me or I mean I would ask Mark
some real doozies because I used to be a lot
more interested in vibrations and spirituality and where art and
(31:46):
science meet. But what do you do when someone's condescending
or they laugh at your research, or they tell you, oh,
you must be nuts. I noticed a lot of these
women scientists they were told they were kind of nuts, right,
but they kept going. So I just wish for myself
also and to inspire other people when people are condescending
(32:08):
in a group setting, or disrespecting your discoveries or your intuitions,
your hunches, how do you keep going with them?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I don't know at the moment. I'm the head of
the subdepartment. So I put in as the grant and
I put together, you know, the big grant that pays everybody.
Everybody is niceear, Yes, it's okay, Yeah, we did well,
and you know, so in the thanks, I don't feel
that at the moment, but I feel it a lot
(32:38):
for the students. Actually, you know, it's very competitive to
enter in Oxford. And I hear that a lot of
the student male students tell to the female students that
they are there only because they are women. And yeah,
so I do think that you know, what you're saying
(32:59):
is you're spot on in some respect. You still have
to fight against that. And again, the only thing that
you can do is is to train people. You know,
we are planning, for example, to have classes that the
students who are in you know, like in the practicals,
and they are sort of teaching and interacting with the
(33:22):
undergrad with students. We are trying to teach them and
to explain that actually the way that we select women
and men to enter in Oxford is exactly the same.
There is no bias and again, so we try as
much as possible to go over and to teach people
to talk about it and to you know, dispel this
(33:43):
kind of preposterous ideas. Again, but you're right, you know,
in some when I'm not in Oxford and when I
go somewhere else, you know, obviously you know, there might
be somebody that you know that listen what I find
strange sometimes, but it happens to me more in social situation.
(34:03):
Like my husband is also a physicist, and you know,
if my husband and I go together, you know, to
another college where for example, they might not know us,
et cetera, they will tend to listen more to hymn
than to me. So I do notice when the two
of us are together. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Wow, Okay, we're gonna keep moving forward. It's gonna take
time to write what was I reading Cecilia capushkin Chi.
They didn't even give her a degree right at Cambridge,
not until nineteen forty eight. I don't know the year
that Oxford started giving women degrees. But this is going
to all take time until we all figure it out
and dismantle the old structure.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
So yeah, but I can tell you that you know,
in the last faculty search that we had around a
year ago, not two years ago. Now, of the six
candidate far by women that we hired, you know, in
different subdepartments, there is lots of fantastic women coming along.
You know, there are more women entering the fields. There
are more women and you know postal more women applying
(35:08):
for faculty position and their quality is tablis.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, I'm gonna have to come back to school and
have you and Mark as my teachers. We're gonna have
to go have a party at CERN. I thank you
both for all your enthusiasm and patience and creativity, and
thank you for all your time and brilliant thoughts.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Fantastic talking to you Danielle.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Was so nice. I can't believe it.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Hopefully, Well I'll see you this Yes, very good, very
good job job. Bye bye, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Truth and beauty quarks. Wow and God particles. I mean
it's so poetic and so elegant. Thank you, doctor Mark
and doctor Danielle.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
You guys really rock.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I'm truly inspired. Monumental mentors and mentors of mentors and
mentors of mentors of mentors, mentors really rule. Join us
next week when we have doctor Mark Cruz, our amazing
mentor from CERN and his colleague, the amazing Florencia Canelli
from the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Remember
(36:18):
keep looking up, stay positively charged. We are the stars.
Goodbye for now. Adios arimaderci Afeedersen aabiento Disclaimer. The OPPS
and not responsible for laws of this podcast, its subsidiary
or listeners disappear into a warhole. The Oh My God
Particle Show is part of Seneca Women Podcast Network and
is produced by Dahlia Wilde and iHeartRadio, with sound designed
(36:41):
by Paul Mercier,
Welcome vin kommen yin venido, yin venu benvenutiaduti. Welcome one
and all, Thank you for joining me. I'm Gollia Wild
and this is the Oh my God Particle Show where
we talk about science and art and music and good
good good vibrations and all matters near and far. So
(00:32):
ready or not, unpack your imaginations and get ready to
rumble through the universe that we are so so lucky
to live in. We are the stars.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
First a joke.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
A listener from Pratt Bottom shared this. A passenger called
the airlines. I'm calling to find out if faster than
light flights are available. The ticket agent replied, yes, we
do have faster than light flights, but these monthly pritic
la streeks what's on Saturday night day is required.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
I love jokes.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Hey, omgpsers, send us your best jokes and your questions
and wonderings about particle physics, the universe, the Big Bang,
whatever the heck ins fires you. We love it and
we'll try to get answers for you from our certain geniuses.
Our email is omgpspod at gmail dot com. That's OMGPS
(01:26):
pod at gmail dot com. Remember there are no dumb
questions in particle physics. Hi, I'm Dahlia Wild and this
is my co host Higgs Boson Wonderdog. Welcome back to
the Oh My God Particle Show. Thank you for joining us.
On today's show, we have two very groovy brainyacs. We
(01:48):
have the returning cham from New Zealand, my excellent Kiwi
mentor from the Large Hadron Collider and Duke University doctor
Mark Cruz and her other guest today. She's originally from Italy.
Her name is doctor Daniella Bordolto. She's the head of
particle Physics at the University of Oxford and Miracle of Miracles.
(02:09):
When I was introduced to the Great Danielle, it turns
out that she was my mentor, Mar's mentor. Thanks for
listening to my podcast and please come see my play.
The Oh My God Particle Show running from August second
to twenty seventh, except August fifteenth at Gilded Balloons at
the Edinburgh Fringe Festivals twenty twenty three. I'm gonna be
(02:32):
posting all the information on my Instagram at dluild Official.
Stay tuned for more details about more OMGPS.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Live theater shows in London. Geneva, New York City, La
outer space, who knows. Thank you for all your support.
Mentors of mentors, mentors really rule. And they both were
co discovers the God particle at CERN where they are
again researching together at a large hadron collider looking at collisions.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And even higher energies. Hi, Daniella, it's so great to
meet you. Tell me all about running the whole particle
physics department at Oxford.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
It's a big responsibility. I have twenty six faculty working
in the subdepartment of particle physics, and we are in
a lot of experiment you know, from from Atlas to
you know, all of the neutrino experiment in Japan and
in the US and in Canada. So and then we
(03:37):
are on l Z and experiment that is looking you know,
to search searching for that matter directly, which is also
based in the US. So really, you know, it's it's
you know, it's a lot of people, it's a big
subdepartment and there's a very strong tradition for particle physics
here in Oxford. So if you look at almost all
(03:59):
of the profess so at the other universities in the UK,
they almost all graduated from Oxford University. It is quite amazing.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Actually, what is this an undergraduate conference for women in
physics that you are in charge of the UK arm
of that.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yes, so it started in the US and actually it
was started by a two graduate students at the University
of Southern California many years ago now, and this student
realize that there was a big imbalance in the number
of women in physics, and so they decided to do something.
(04:35):
And what they did they did realize this event in
which you know, you will have undergraduate students will be
invited for three days and they will interact with role models,
you know, mainly women at other stages of their career.
And also you know, they will have a lot of panels,
(04:56):
you know, to understand better of the possibility of what
you can do with a degree in physics, both in
industry or in academia. And this really was really aimed
to give confidence to women to continue in physics. And
the first conference at twenty six women. Now it's one thousand,
(05:18):
five hundred women going to the conference in the US
and Canada. And when I came in the UK in Oxford,
I met, by chance, of course, a woman who attended
the conference in southern California, and because of that, you know,
I decided that could be a good idea to start
(05:40):
it also in the UK. In the US it's done
in multiple locations so that people don't have to travel
a lot. But in the UK we had like one
location and we had it in Oxford. Source ideas. Because
I started it and now it's going around the UK
and Ireland. We invite one hundred women and it has
(06:01):
exactly the same effect in the UK that it had
actually in the US. Women after the conference belief that
they are physicists, have confidence to continue in physics. They
are energized. You know, there is a major step again,
I repeat again, in confidence.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
It was fantastic for me too, because I was coming
to a different country. I didn't know anybody in the UK. Well,
I knew some people in the UK, but I didn't
know the system very well. And by starting the conference,
you know, I got to know many many fantastic women's
scientists here, women physicists, and it was tablished for me.
(06:43):
I mean every time I enter a conference where we
have a lot of women or anybody who identified as
women in the conference, you really feel a boost. You know.
When I went to Purdue, you know, and I started
in a system professor that I was the first of
female professors since nineteen forty five. When I entered the room,
(07:08):
I think that the first class that I started was
that I toltal Purdue was actually I think it was
mechanics or not Electricity and Magnetism for engineers. I entered
the room and I was the only woman in the room.
I mean, you know, just like unbelievable things have changed.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
How did you get started? Because I'm really interested in
how being an extraordinary happening of a woman walking into
a classroom where the only one house is going to
become ordinary, you know, where we don't even have to
say that it's a woman. You know, a particle physicists
is a woman. So how did you start and how
(07:49):
did you have your confidence to use your imagination and
creativity for science? And where did you grow up? In
the Alps?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I grew up in the Alps. I come from a
small town in the Italian Alps called Domodosola. Yeah, I
think that the likely is that I would become a
physicist and the head of particle physics in Oxford is
in philities. I don't know, you know, it's it's really
difficult because you know, I'm the first person to get
(08:21):
an undergraduate education. You know, my mother and my father
didn't go to university. My father died when I was
nine years old, leaving my mother and I really in
a rather shake economical situation. And so I I really,
you know, honestly, I one step at the time, and
(08:43):
always being keen to learn from other people, to learn
from their experience. It was not even clear that I
could go, as you know, as I was growing up,
but to the school that was necessary to do a
degree in physics. But it was sort of an amazing
because in my hometown we had a very very famous
(09:03):
private lyceum to do that was the road to do
a degree in physics, but that would have been completely unaffordable.
And really the year that I was ready to go
to the lyceum, the open state school Lyssum State School
Lesseum in my hometown, and I went to that one.
(09:27):
I graduated with the top mark, and everybody was so
lovely and so excited because it was almost like the
kid from the wrong side of the truck that get
you know, the grade is called sixty over sixty because
you get you know, one hundred percent, and to have
the state school kids that got the sixty over sixty
(09:48):
was amazing and everybody was so excited. So I'm almost
like a hero in my m so and again my
it was really actually my physics teacher, a man, who
really told me that I should try it, you know,
And then I was. I went to school as an
(10:09):
undergraduate at the University of Pavia, and I was admitted
in a very prestigious college we called College o Gizieri,
which was standard in fifteen sixty seven by Pope Pius
fifth to accommodate very promising student men. You know, it
was really you know, it was only for men, and
women were admitted starting in nineteen sixty five. And so
(10:33):
it was really, you know, you can take this experience
and take it negatively, because honestly, I was coming from
the high school in a very small town and I
had to deal with a lot of classmates that were
better propelled than I was. But again I never find that,
you know, someone I always find this enormous appetite for learning,
(10:59):
you know, And and so for me it was just
very motivated. I just said, oh gosh, I have to
study more, you know, I just have to work more.
Then in my third year of university, I was admitted
to the CERN Summer Student Program and I spent you know,
the old summer at CERN, and I just loved it.
And there I really decided that I wanted to be
(11:19):
a particle physics.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I had like amazing lecturer. I think that one of
my lecturers was martineuz Beltman, the Nobel Prize of physics,
you know, teaching me the standard model. I mean, you know,
it was like it was unbelievable, it was and you know,
you were doing research and you were really in this
very international environment, which I love these ideas that, you know.
(11:47):
Part of the feelings that I have, you know, and
I always wanted to be at a university is that
really you know, is universal. It brings everybody together. You know.
I always felt like CERN was an as a place
that brought everybody together. And I just find this international
aspect of CERN, where everybody is working together to get
(12:10):
that experiment working completely, you know, amazing and completely you know,
very motivating for me.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
I may I love it too. That's the best thing
in the entire universe health that we could all be
working together, and it's so exciting that you had all
these helping hands. I've always had that too, And like Mark,
he was just a delight when I called him with
my crazy question. So I have a theory that because
(12:39):
you were his mentor Purdue that I mean, Mark is
already awesome and so creative and talented and patient. But
how was he as a student?
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Yeah? Mark actually was my first student, so he deserved
a special a special place, I think, you know. And
it was not only my student, It was a share
student because I was starting up and you know, I
was learning. Until then, I mainly worked in any plus
minus machine at lower energy, and for me, it was
(13:10):
a very big step to go to CDF, which was
an amazing experiment at the Tavathrone, a proton anti proton
collider reaching the highest energy in the world. So so
I was learning with Mark actually, so it was a
fantastic experience. And I remember Mark, you know, as I said,
this is special. Your first student is always special. And
(13:31):
he spent also a lot of time also collaborating with
people at the University of Chicago, et cetera. Because you know,
in this big collaboration, we are always working together. You know,
it's not you know, it's not one person that does
the all analysis at times. There is always it's always
a collaborative work, you know. And so it was it
(13:53):
was amazing and I was learning at the time with
Mark in some sense.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Yeah, Mark, Danielle was how you were her first student.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
And that's right. Yeah, it's a long time ago now.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
But I mean you were a joint student with with
think or you remember, and you work. You worked a
lot also with the University of Chicago, was saying, you know,
so it was really amazing, Yeah, amazing times and it
was so it was so exciting. You know, we discovered
the top fork and Marquis is you know, it's one
(14:28):
of the elements that led, you know, to the discover
of the top quark. So it was really fantastic time.
And when it's very exciting.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Tell us a little bit about the top quark and
Mark about your thesis.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (14:41):
Sure, so this was you know, it was it was
fortuitous in the timing sceense, because this was in the
early nineteen nineties and you know, we believe that the
top quark existed, so the top quark just to you know,
to step back a little bit. You know, everything that
we observe, you know, is made up of what's what
(15:04):
we call the first generation of fundamental particles, so up quarks,
down quarks, and electrons. But there are another two sort
of generations of fundamental particles. We don't we have no
idea why why there's three. Why aren't there seventeen or
two or whatever, So we have no idea why. But
the the top quark is the sort of third generation
(15:26):
partner to the upquark, which is one of the fundamental
constituents of protons and neutrons and things that you know,
we are made of, but it's it's something that you know,
lasts very ephemerally. I mean you you you create them
and then they decay almost instantaneously. So what we have
to detect is, you know, the remnants of their decay
(15:47):
products when when as soon as they decay. And so
the top quark was theorized it to exist, and so
we didn't know how heavy it would be, and so
that this is one of this is one of the
complications in finding it because we don't know, we didn't
know exactly where to look. We had some ideas and
so there's but there's a lot of different ways that
(16:08):
can actually decay, so it can decay into other particles
that we then detect, and so it can do that
in a number of different ways. And so my thesis
was on one of those possibilities, you know, one of
those ways it can decay. It wasn't considered at the
time a very fruitful sort of decay channel.
Speaker 4 (16:25):
But it worked.
Speaker 5 (16:27):
It worked, I mean, it was amazing that it worked,
and so it was actually it ended up being quite
an important contribution to the entire discovery. So that was
it was really exciting and a very stressful time because
as a graduate student, you know, we had to show
updates every week and it was really quite incredibly stressful
(16:47):
to get.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
All that time.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
I was quite quite glad when it was all over,
but that was extremely exciting time when we could have
actually announce that, Okay, we've now seen, you know, evidence
for the signals for these top quark decays.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
And it's an amazing particle in a sense. It's extremely heavy.
Its mass is like two hundred times the mass of
the proton, I mean, you know, and it decays instantaneously.
As Mark said, it's a very interesting particle because now
that we have discovered the Higgs bosone. For example, we
explain the mass of the particle in terms of its
(17:23):
interaction with the field of the Higgs boson and the
top quark as what we call these interactions, we call
it coupling, as a coupling that is equal to one.
But for example, the electron has a very small coupling
tends to the minor six something like that. Okay, So
it's really and as Mark said, you know, we don't
(17:45):
know why we have this different generation of particles, and
perhaps you know, understanding bat as these couplings and understanding
beat as the Higgs boson can solve help us solve
the mystery of We call it the mystery of flavor.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
Yeah, and I think the top quike is still the
heaviest fundamental particle. We know it's heavier than the Higgs boson.
Even so, the fundamental particles couplings to this Higgs field
which give them their mass. We don't know why or
what fundamentally generates these different couplings, and so understanding the
(18:20):
Higgs boson more and so this is one of the
goals in the next you know, several years at the
LAC is to understand the Higgs boson better now that
we've discovered it, you know, there's still a lot we
need to measure about it and just understand. And so
it is one of our sort of big mysteries. And
it's always I always think that, you know, whenever we
discover something, it just opens up another whole set of,
(18:42):
you know, fundamental questions that we don't know. So the
more we discover, the less we know in some sense,
which is, you know, which makes the field extremely exciting.
I mean, we're really probing, you know, the fundamental nature
of the universe. And I think, you know, the more
questions we have, you know, I almost believe, you know,
the more questions you have, the closer you sort.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
Of getting to it.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah, and it's almost like, you know, we say that
we understand mass, but in a sense now we just
translated the problem of why the masses of this particle
are so different in the problem of why is the
coupling of this particle with the Higgs fields are so different?
Speaker 1 (19:18):
What are your experiments now we.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Are on the same experiment, don't say Atlas experiment. Yes, yeah,
we are collaborators.
Speaker 4 (19:27):
Colaborators again, that's right.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Collaboration is so important because a lot of times we
think science is solitary, and that is definitely so exciting
about international collaboration. Can you tell me what just so
we can add a little tiny glamor what was the
beauty experiment? Was that Ancern? Was that your mentor?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, My advisor, Sheldonstone, who passed the way actually recently,
is one of was one of the experts in in
the beauty in the physics of the Peak work, which
is also called the beauty work, and so it was
especially influential in LHCb. I worked with him in another
(20:10):
experiment which was called CLEO that was at Cornell University,
and again you know, it's he was fundamental in, uh,
in my development as a scientist. I mean, it was
so add nos. I mean, you know, it was really
uh phenomenal, you know, this kind of going back to
the basics, and you know, don't tell me something that
(20:32):
is not true. I mean, you know, very very amazing
scientists really, you know, and you know, so I really
worked very closely with him on B physics. So my
thesis was on B physics and and it's strange now
that you know I'm back doing in a sense, you know,
h T B. B. So the higgs that came into
(20:54):
two beauty works.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
So that's what the H two B B stands.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah, yes, yes, yes, so it's going to beauty be
called the bee quark is a beauty.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Quark, And how do you come up with that name?
That's like a T shirt top quark and beauty cork.
Speaker 5 (21:14):
Yeah, but the top and bottom clocks are quite often
called the truth and beauty clerks, so they mean the
same thing. But truth and beauty I think a little
too poetic for physicists top and bottom unfortunately. I think
truth and beauty I think a much more descriptive names.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
We're gonna have to sell those T shirts along with
the pet God particle, which is basically a box of air.
You guys are just awesome, and I just hope we
can get the message out how wonderful and amazing and
supportive and collaborative you know this field is, and that
we can hope to build the confidence especially women and
(21:53):
girls and everyone in between. Well need Yeah, Well, so
they'll believe in their visions and to follow it through
the experimentation. Was that true that Cecilia paying Capushkin. She
took like maybe it's an exaggeration three million, you know,
recordings of stars, and just that persistence which is just
so important in persistence.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Is extremely important in science, and I think that it's
really one of the reasons that makes break a scientist,
you know.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
And any money in any field especially.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, but again it's the same things. Actually, you know
here in Oxford, we are justly in Belbono. And again
you know, she was able to see pulses, I mean
really by looking at meet us and meet us and
meet us of recording, and again she was extremely persistent.
And I do think that it's some also characteristic. You
(22:52):
know that women often have this impostor syndrome. Yes I
have it, yeah so, but and again not only when.
But I do think that sometimes having a little bit
of the impostor syndrome helps you to achieve almost this persistence.
I don't know to say, because you really want, you know,
to do everything to think that you have not left
(23:15):
any stone un termed, that you really have been systematic.
And I do think that a lot of women who
have done, you know, important contributions to science tend to
have that. You know, this persistence is the commitments is
so important.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
Yeah, I think I completely agree with that. I think
imposter syndrome is a real thing, and I think it
does motivate you to in some sense have a deeper
understanding of things. I mean, you sort of see it
if you don't feel that you belong or you feel
that someone else understands something better than you, although they
probably don't. They just better at you know, making you
(23:56):
believe they understand something better. Quite quite often they simply don't.
But in some sense it sort of motivates you to
have a deeper understanding. I mean it's a I completely
sort of empathize with, you know, where Danielle came from.
It's the same in my case. You know, neither of
my parents even graduated high school, so I never really
believe that, you know, I deserve to be you know
(24:17):
where I am. It's but I think that really is
a motivating factor. And if you've got a sense of
sort of competition that you want to, you know, learn
more than you know or know more than someone else,
it really does sort of motivate you to to do that.
So I think that is a really important component. It's
sort of interesting, as Danielle mentioned that quite a few
(24:37):
people in very high positions you know, in the in
the physics community, you know, did not come from very
privileged or you know, academic backgrounds. It's necessarily so you know,
they came from environments that I believe sort of allowed
them to sort of interact better with other people and
(24:58):
tell you know, you know, Danielle is extremely and interacting
with people, getting amazing people, you know, groups around her,
and I think that's that's almost you know, a very
key component as well.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
And also Florencia Connelly had said her father was a
car mechanic exactly. She said she never noticed she was
the only woman until your weddings.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
So it's really interesting. It's really yeah, if you look
at where where people actually came from, it's it's quite interesting.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
And the challenge though, so as Florencia was so clearly explained,
was it was in her post doc where she started
to feel a little bit uncomfortable and you Mark were
saying that it was because the structures of the universities
and the research teams were mostly men. But the it's
just going to take time, right, because doesn't it take
(25:48):
eight to twelve years to get through the physics.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
Yes, So I think the although there are you know,
more and more women, you know, becoming physicists. I think
the institution itself is still very male like, and so
you know, if you're in meetings, it's you know, the
person with the highest, you know, the loudest voice, or
the person who's you know, in some almost the ruders
who can interrupt someone and you know, give their own opinion.
(26:11):
Those are the ones whose voices are typically heard. So
it's still you know, male dominated in that sense. And
so I think there are sort of institutional changes I
think that you know, would also.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Be good for the field of general and what can
we do Danielle and make it, you know, more better
environment for women.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Yeah, I think that, you know, you should always think
to make it a better environment for everyone born. Yes,
you know, I think that whenever you achieve something for women,
that is better for everybody. And again I think that
everybody has a different experience or for example, for me,
(26:52):
my post dark was the time of my life I was.
I stayed in Cleo. I had a lot of freedom,
you know, I felt like I was much in very fast,
but I was only a postoc for two and a
half year. I got to a faculty position in my
third year of a POSTOC, which is quite geniuses. No, no,
it was just a coincidence. Sometimes you're lucky also a
(27:14):
little bit, you know. So so I've had a very
quick POSTOC. For me, It's a difficult part was more
like when I was at Purdue, you know, because I
was really the only woman in the old faculty fifty men.
I had a daughter before getting tenure. That nobody does it,
you know, so I've not done things according to what
(27:35):
you should do. Perhaps you honestly. My daughter was born
December twenty. I was back at work January seventh, and
I if you ask me now, Daniella, why did you
do it? And Daniella, why how did you do it?
I probably will say that I don't know. I will
go with my you know, I will go in shift
(27:57):
with my daughter. We will will drive together, you know,
from Purdue to Fermila, but I will stay in the
Fermila village. My husband will ask, tell me, why don't
you ask to don't give you shifted because you're you know,
you have a small child. And I would say, well,
I feel like if if I ask, then I'm treated differently.
I was silly almost, you know, I don't know why
(28:19):
I did something, you know, But again, you know, I
did them, and sometimes I regret a little bit that
I've done them because I didn't spend as much time
with my daughter as maybe I should have done. But
in any case, I think that again, you know, don't
make women choose, you know, all men to have more
(28:39):
flexibility so that you know, you understand that you know,
if you have a child, you have to take some
time off and this shouldn't count against you. Making the
environment more open and make it more clear what as
a requirement for promotion for every step of the car
(29:00):
And I think that these steps are really important for everybody.
And again, you know, having classes for every body against
people who bully you, people who interrupt you, you know,
avoiding these things that Mark was saying that they happen
in faculty meetings. That is always like the man with
the loudest voice. That as the final world, you know,
(29:23):
and I think that you know, letting everybody knows that
it's okay to say stop it. You shouldn't do this,
you know, being being more able to talk and more
able to express our thoughts and when things are are
not right, when are wrong, and trying to give a
(29:43):
lot of encouragement and our knowledge the work that is
done by everybody at their career stage. You know, I
think that it's a long list of things that we
have to do.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
And the whole planet you have to fix. And what
a field did your daughter go into? Did you run
screaming from physics?
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yeah? She runs screaming from physics. Yes. She never wanted
to come to a physics department, you know, you know,
she doesn't even enter them, you know. And she studied
actually boys performance at Oberlin College, which is a fantastic
music school, a fantastic environment.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, that's wonderful. That's what I especially interested in the
arts at CERN, and that's why I'm so grateful to
Mark that he embraced my theater project and he never
made me feel I asked a dumb question. And look,
we've actually made progress here. Hopefully we're going to have
a lot of listeners who really excited about this. And
(30:43):
yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine, a
Fulbright scholar from a program that I am involved with,
Vital Voices, and I was telling her about you, Danielle
and Samantha Christopher ready up there at the space station,
and she said to me, why do I not know
about these women. I'm so in awe of you know
(31:03):
how the women who've done great work in science, and
the incredible men to like Mark, who are supporting us
and and also have their own discoveries. And I'm really
hoping that yes, since if we're all made of the
same God particles, we're gonna all get along, We're all
gonna collaborate, We're just gonna keep moving forward. And yeah,
(31:25):
this fact of the you know, flexibility and being allowed
to make a mistake, that's also really important. And that's
especially I appreciate Mark. He never, maybe not to my face,
laughed at me or I mean I would ask Mark
some real doozies because I used to be a lot
more interested in vibrations and spirituality and where art and
(31:46):
science meet. But what do you do when someone's condescending
or they laugh at your research, or they tell you, oh,
you must be nuts. I noticed a lot of these
women scientists they were told they were kind of nuts, right,
but they kept going. So I just wish for myself
also and to inspire other people when people are condescending
(32:08):
in a group setting, or disrespecting your discoveries or your intuitions,
your hunches, how do you keep going with them?
Speaker 2 (32:17):
I don't know at the moment. I'm the head of
the subdepartment. So I put in as the grant and
I put together, you know, the big grant that pays everybody.
Everybody is niceear, Yes, it's okay, Yeah, we did well,
and you know, so in the thanks, I don't feel
that at the moment, but I feel it a lot
(32:38):
for the students. Actually, you know, it's very competitive to
enter in Oxford. And I hear that a lot of
the student male students tell to the female students that
they are there only because they are women. And yeah,
so I do think that you know, what you're saying
(32:59):
is you're spot on in some respect. You still have
to fight against that. And again, the only thing that
you can do is is to train people. You know,
we are planning, for example, to have classes that the
students who are in you know, like in the practicals,
and they are sort of teaching and interacting with the
(33:22):
undergrad with students. We are trying to teach them and
to explain that actually the way that we select women
and men to enter in Oxford is exactly the same.
There is no bias and again, so we try as
much as possible to go over and to teach people
to talk about it and to you know, dispel this
(33:43):
kind of preposterous ideas. Again, but you're right, you know,
in some when I'm not in Oxford and when I
go somewhere else, you know, obviously you know, there might
be somebody that you know that listen what I find
strange sometimes, but it happens to me more in social situation.
(34:03):
Like my husband is also a physicist, and you know,
if my husband and I go together, you know, to
another college where for example, they might not know us,
et cetera, they will tend to listen more to hymn
than to me. So I do notice when the two
of us are together. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Wow, Okay, we're gonna keep moving forward. It's gonna take
time to write what was I reading Cecilia capushkin Chi.
They didn't even give her a degree right at Cambridge,
not until nineteen forty eight. I don't know the year
that Oxford started giving women degrees. But this is going
to all take time until we all figure it out
and dismantle the old structure.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
So yeah, but I can tell you that you know,
in the last faculty search that we had around a
year ago, not two years ago. Now, of the six
candidate far by women that we hired, you know, in
different subdepartments, there is lots of fantastic women coming along.
You know, there are more women entering the fields. There
are more women and you know postal more women applying
(35:08):
for faculty position and their quality is tablis.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Yeah, I'm gonna have to come back to school and
have you and Mark as my teachers. We're gonna have
to go have a party at CERN. I thank you
both for all your enthusiasm and patience and creativity, and
thank you for all your time and brilliant thoughts.
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Fantastic talking to you Danielle.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Was so nice. I can't believe it.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Hopefully, Well I'll see you this Yes, very good, very
good job job. Bye bye, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Truth and beauty quarks. Wow and God particles. I mean
it's so poetic and so elegant. Thank you, doctor Mark
and doctor Danielle.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
You guys really rock.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I'm truly inspired. Monumental mentors and mentors of mentors and
mentors of mentors of mentors, mentors really rule. Join us
next week when we have doctor Mark Cruz, our amazing
mentor from CERN and his colleague, the amazing Florencia Canelli
from the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Remember
(36:18):
keep looking up, stay positively charged. We are the stars.
Goodbye for now. Adios arimaderci Afeedersen aabiento Disclaimer. The OPPS
and not responsible for laws of this podcast, its subsidiary
or listeners disappear into a warhole. The Oh My God
Particle Show is part of Seneca Women Podcast Network and
is produced by Dahlia Wilde and iHeartRadio, with sound designed
(36:41):
by Paul Mercier,
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