Athene Donald

Dame Athene Donald
Born	Athene Margaret Griffith (1953-05-15) 15 May 1953[1]
Nationality	British
Fields	Soft matter Biophysics
Institutions	University of Cambridge Cornell University Robinson College, Cambridge Cavendish Laboratory Churchill College, Cambridge
Alma mater	Girton College, Cambridge
Thesis	Electron microscopy of grain boundary embrittled systems (1977)
Notable awards	FRS (1999)[2] OBE L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science Award (2009) DBE (2010)
Spouse	Matthew J. Donald[1]
Website www.bss.phy.cam.ac.uk/~amd3 royalsociety.org/people/athene-donald www.occamstypewriter.org/athenedonald www.guardian.co.uk/profile/athene-donald
Athene Donald's voice from the BBC programme The Life Scientific, 2013-06-04[3]

Dame Athene Margaret Donald DBE FRS (born 15 May 1953)^[1] is a British physicist.^[4][5] She is Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Cambridge, a member of the Cambridge University Council and Master of Churchill College, Cambridge.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]}

Education

Donald was educated at Camden School for Girls^[1] and Girton College, Cambridge. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Science (Theoretical Physics) followed by a PhD in 1977.^[14]

Research

Donald worked at Cornell University as a postdoctoral associate, before returning to Cambridge in 1981 and to the Cavendish Laboratory in 1983. She became Professor of Experimental Physics in 1998. Her major domain of study is soft matter physics, particularly its applications to living organisms and the relationship between structure and other properties.^[15][16] Her research has applied microscopy, and in particular Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy to the study of both synthetic and biological systems, notably protein aggregation.^{[17][18][19][20][21][22]}

Donald was a fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge, director of WiSETI, the University's Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Initiative, and the University's Gender Equality Champion.^[23] Outside the university, she chairs the Athena forum,^[24] an organisation which aims to provide a strategic oversight of developments that seek to, or have proven to, advance the career progression and representation of women in science, technology, mathematics, and medicine (STEM) in UK higher education. She is also a member of the ESPCI ParisTech Scientific Committee^[25] and was the first director of the Physics of Medicine Initiative. She is a member of the Advisory Council of the Campaign for Science and Engineering,^[26] and was appointed a Trustee of the National Museum of Science in Industry in 2011.^[27]

Awards and honours

In 1999 Donald was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Her nomination reads

Athene Donald is distinguished for her work relating mechanical properties to the structure of polymers. She showed that polymer crazing could not be understood without reference to the entanglement network, and showed that two processes are involved, chain scission and chain disentanglement, depending differently on temperature and molecular weight. This work underpins the understanding of brittleness and ductility in solid polymers. She pioneered studies of thermotropic liquid crystalline polymers via transmission electron microscopy, revealing the ubiquity of banded textures after shear flow in these materials. More recently, she has developed X-ray methods for characterising starch, thereby opening up the field to novel physical methods which enhance those of the plant biologists and food scientists.^[2]

Donald has also been awarded the following:

• 2009: L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science award.^[28]
• 2010: Appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours.^[29]
• 2011: UKRC Women of Outstanding Achievement's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.^[30]
• 2012: Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of East Anglia.^[31]
• 2012: Honorary Doctorate of Science from University of Exeter.^[32]
• 2013: Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Sheffield.^[33]
• 2015: Honorary Doctorate of Science from Heriot Watt University.^[34]

Personal life

Donald is married to the mathematician Matthew J. Donald;^[1][35] the couple have two children.^[4]

References