L'Oréal and UNESCO Award Women Physicists $500 000
Not just cosmetic: L'Oréal and UNESCO are rewarding five women from around the globe for their scientific contributions in crystallography, disordered materials, scaling laws of fluids and complex systems, and electron microscopy of crystals and quasicrystals.
This year's "for women in science" awards by cosmetics giant L'Oréal and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognize lifetime achievements by women in condensed matter sciences. The awards are in their fifth year, but this is the first time they've rewarded work in the physical sciences. The awards were also increased fivefold this year, with five women from five continents each receiving $100 000.
"It seems to me that giving due recognition to women scientists can create a useful psychological shock," Nobel laureate Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, who served as president of the awards committee, said in a statement when the winners were selected. Women are "often more perceptive" than men and they "know how to stand by" someone whose morale is flagging, de Gennes said of women in their capacity as research group leaders. "Men are not so good at this." He added that "women know better than men how to preserve the freedom of student researchers. The result is that their students are more mature."
The awards were bestowed at UNESCO's Paris headquarters on 27 February.