2018 Elizabeth Laird Memorial Lecture: Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell
On Tuesday, October 23, 2018 the Department of Physics and Astronomy hosted the annual Elizabeth Laird Memorial Prize Lecture.
The Prize Lecture commemorates Prof. Elizabeth Laird, an extraordinary individual who was a member of the Department of Physics at the University of Western Ontario in the 1940s, and is awarded to an individual who has made a significant contribution to physics or applied physics and overcome a significant personal or professional obstacle during the course of their career.
This year's host was Dame Professor jocelyn Bell Burnell, Mansfield Fellow and Professional Fellow in Physics at the University of Oxford, the topic was "Bursts, Bangs & Things That Go Bump In the Night".
Dame Bell Burnell is noted for her discovery of pulsars during her graduate work at Cambridge, which was recognised with the awarding of the Nobel prize in Physics to her supervisor. She is also the recent recipient of a Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, worth $3 Million, the largest Scientific award in the world, recognizing not only her discovery of pulsars but also her scientific leadership in the 50 years since.
Dame Bell Burnell choose not to accept the prize money for herself and has instead invested it in a scholarship to help women and visible minorities interested in Science.
Video of the talk can be viewed on YouTube
