When I was 17 and wrestling with A-levels, my school careers advisor had a suggestion. “You like science,” she said. “Have you considered nursing?”
Nursing is an admirable career choice. But the presumption that a working-class girl from Reading who liked biology should aim for a caring profession rather than a research career has stayed with me for 30 years. I stuck with science, found my way to Harvard and I now help UCL’s brilliant researchers bring their ideas to life, and to market.
This week marks International Women’s Day. It is also the start of UCL’s bicentenary year. The university was founded in 1826 as a radical alternative to Oxford and Cambridge, admitting students regardless of religion or background, and became the first university in Britain to admit women on equal terms with men in 1878. Two centuries later, that spirit of breaking barriers is alive and thriving, and I see it every day in my role leading UCL Business….
