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OpenTalk STEM: Jocelyn Bell-Burnell
This event took place on 23rd October 2019 at 5:30pm (16:30 GMT)
Berrill Lecture Theatre, The Open University, Walton Hall Campus, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
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About the time The Open University (OU) was starting, and long before she became the OU's first female Professor of Physics, Jocelyn Bell Burnell was a graduate student working in radio astronomy. Her research revealed a curious pulsing signal.
Hear the story of how pulsars (pulsating radio stars) were accidentally discovered, and what we now know (and don't know) about them.
Jocelyn discovered pulsars whilst a phD student at Cambridge, a discovery for which her supervisor received a nobel prize. Jocelyn was awarded the breakthrough prize in 2018 for the discovery and she chose to donate the 2.3m prize money to a fund to help women,under-represented ethnic minority and refugee students to undertake postgraduate study.
In her words, she explains her decision, " A lot of the pulsar story happened because I was a minority person and a phD student....Increasing the diversity in Physics could lead to all sorts of good things." |
The webcast was open to 3000 users
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