Welcome to our listeners to what is our very first podcast here from the University of Oxford.
My name is Professor Irene Tracy and I have the good fortune of being the vice chancellor
at this fabulous university where we've got amazing researchers and fabulous staff.
And what we thought we'd do is experiment.
I'm an experimentalist and try something a little new and different and start to bring some of that amazing content that we have here
in university from our researchers and our teaching staff and our staff supporting our great mission of teaching and research to you.
And so again, welcome to this podcast.
And I'm absolutely thrilled that just coming out of the back of International Women's Day last week,
being a woman myself from STEM, I wanted to highlight are women in STEM.
And so today I have our very first podcast, Professor Sonya Kontagora, who is from the Department of Physics.
Welcome, Sonya. And we have a Dphil student, Nisha Patel, who is from the engineering department.
So two fantastic departments here in the division of Maths and Physical Sciences and
two fabulous women who I know we're going to have a terrific conversation with.
So welcome both of you to the podcast and thank you for giving up your time this morning.
Can I start with you, Sonia? I think it'll be really helpful for the listeners just to hear a little bit about your area of
research and maybe if you want to touch on a little bit your journey to this place as well.
Tell us about what your research is. I am a physicist and I work in biological systems as a physicist.
I have physics questions like why the universe created matter that was soft and that matter became a life,
but also have an experimental physics interest in the matter and also understanding and
supporting other research that is going in biological and medical sciences with my technique.
So I like to create techniques such as the best, usually based in the atomic force microscope,
to allows us to understand how biological systems are constructed from the
nanometre scale up mechanically and how that system that is dissipating energy,
using energy becomes able to be alive and try to use this knowledge to create maybe new therapeutics or support people.
As a person that's worked in your imaging my whole career, you know,
I value the contribution that people coming from your discipline and strength and background brings to the biological, the medical sciences.
Without really physicists, we wouldn't have all the technologies and the ways that we can, again, better understand life on earth.
So you have very, very, very interesting. Well, let me turn to Misha.
That's in a very different sort of space. Tell us about your work. Yeah, so I'm an engineer.
My background is in mechanical engineering, and I've always been interested in using engineering to make the world more sustainable place.
I've had a keen interest in sustainability throughout my studies and at the moment I'm doing my PhD in offshore renewable energy,
specifically in tidal stream energy. I'm focusing on the UK,
mainly on a case of the north coast of Scotland and trying to quantify the resource so that we can kind of know how much tidal
stream energy we can actually get in the UK and how we can use that with other forms of renewable energy like wind or solar,
and to really support renewable energies and drive the whole green technology.
I mean, there's been a little talk about the tidal, you know, opportunities.
How optimistic are you that this is really going to be something that we could deliver as an alternative energy source for us?
Yeah, you're not wrong at all. Tidal energy, I suppose when you compare it to something like offshore wind, it's very young.
It's you know, you're dealing with turbines under water, that's always going to be much more difficult.
You know, you got bigger forces because of the density of the water and things like that.
But I think there's a significant potential for tidal.
She manages.
Something I particularly look at is what are the constraints, limiting it and trying to work out what actually is a viable energy at the end of that.
But I mean, hopefully I'd have to be quite positive about it.
But the UK, I mean, we're in a really fortunate position with the resource that we have in the UK.
And going back to to use on your you've written this book Nano Comes to Life.
Why did you do that? What was I mean it's not easy to in the day job find time to to write a book.
No the public had a story to tell. I wanted to I also part of the frustration of of entering a new world, the world of biology as a physicist.
On being so difficult to do multidisciplinary research that is so difficult to actually
be able to combine the disciplines that you think you need to combine to make progress.
So I, I was interested in how and why historically physicists enter the nanoscale with techniques such as mine or nanoparticles.
We all arrive to nanotechnology at the same time and how that progressively led us to biology,
both to develop tools to understand the basic mechanisms of biology, of the nanometre scale proteins, etcetera, but also to develop nano medicines.
And that how that is transforming the way we're doing biology.
And I also think the way we we're doing part of physics, that interface between physics and biology,
which is now everywhere from computer science to understanding intelligence, to create new materials, to create new robots.
All sorts of technologies depend on this convergence of physics and biology.
So I wanted to explore that in that book. And what does it mean for the future of what we understand?
I think about biology and also the physics we will do in the future and share the excitement of it.
Yes, So that is nano comes to life. For those looking for a stocking filler, maybe for next Christmas or earlier.
Indeed. Well, let's let's change tack a little bit and we'll come back to sort of at the end maybe just
where your science is going and what you see as the next exciting step for yourselves.
But let's go back to sort of where it all began and maybe I can turn to Misha just to say so.
We were always interested in science at school. Was this something that you knew from Young you wanted to do?
Were you inspired by anybody in particular at school, a school teacher or somebody else?
Yeah. So I think I mean, definitely have a lot to thank my teachers for.
I was really lucky that the school I went to was encouraged to pursue STEM.
I always knew. Aftermaths. I can't say I love it.
Maybe all the silences as much as I love maths, but I definitely love maths and I did enjoy physics as well.
And I would say that there's 2 to 3 teachers that really come to mind when I think
about who inspired me and kind of shaped me to kind of be in engineering now,
two of whom were actually my math teachers, and they really fostered my love for the subject, and I don't suppose I probably realised it at the time.
But looking back now, I think it was really powerful to actually see to both women who are actually also South Asian as really brilliant,
talented mathematicians. And so now when I look back at that, I think I would have had a really big impact on me and the teacher was my form tutor.
So he never taught me a subject. He actually taught French and he just really instilled confidence in myself and my classmates.
He really encouraged us to stand up, speak up, question things he'd come in with, you know,
a topic each day, each week, and get us to, you know, tell us our opinions about it.
So, yeah, I think all of those sort of factors have kind of played into where I am now and today.
Yeah, no, it just I mean, it speaks I mean, you spoke so well there about just the importance of teachers,
but also the visibility issue, which often and that's been my experience too.
You don't recognise actually how important it is, as you say, to have that visibility at the time.
But on reflection, you realise actually that really did unlock the belief,
you know, that you can go into that subject and, and you know, pursue your dream.
And, and again, I think, you know, I'm a big obviously as an educator myself, I'm a passionate believer in the importance of teachers, you know,
in our society and just the amazing role that they play and how much more we
should value them and show our value of them in this in this country and beyond.
So, Sonia, your journey was sort of hit. You know, you've come to us from outside of our shores.
So tell us a little bit about sort of where you were inspired and your journey to Oxford had a complicated journey to science and to Oxford.
I grew up in the Canary Islands in for the winter, just after the dictatorship of Franco ended.
So it was a hopeful time in Spain. But I was in an island where there was no much resources.
We didn't even have very regular school.
We had lots of holidays.
So I was great because I just spent a childhood running wild in between volcanoes and and see my parents were not educated either.
So I never occurred to me I was going to study.
Then we moved to Madrid and I had an I, I think from my missing nature, I think got me interested in physics, missing my life in the island.
And I was quite I was again, a teacher, a female teacher of physics.
And I always remember the day where we were, I think we were doing gravitation.
And the first time I realised that I could use my intuition to express how I think things will happen in the future,
in the natural world with mathematics, that that magical moment where you can express an intuition in math.
It was this act of magic that I have to be a physicist is a lightning bolt, and there was no going back.
So then I studied physics in Madrid. I didn't like it.
I didn't like the middle class environment. I didn't fit. I was good at languages and I started travelling.
I went to Russia, then I went to China for scholarships.
I did my period in Japan. Yeah. Interested in in, in, in how Japan became a technological country.
And a bit by chance, I ended up in Oxford.
Yeah. And I must say in Oxford I found there was a place for my love of physics that I hadn't found anywhere else.
Oh, I'm pleased to hear that I found colleagues with when I shared this deep love of the subject.
And I think that kept me here. Yeah, the passion for it. Yeah.
I mean, we do have that here. Yeah. That we were so fortunate to have colleagues that are so passionate about their subjects areas and,
you know, that naturally is spilling into the teaching element as well, you know,
and that's why I think, you know,
all our USP is about having those frontline researchers do the teaching because that can be really inspiring then for the next generation.
But, you know, we spoke a little bit about sort of women invisibility. I mean, you're obviously a senior professor in the department.
And, you know, I'm interested to explore, you know, what you see as some of the, you know, the opportunities,
but also the challenges as a woman in STEM in terms of other women following in your path.
Could you just maybe describe a little bit, you know, what you've observed and you know what you see as some of the the ways we can
do things better that you could share with with both me as vice chancellor,
but also with, you know, maybe some of the younger career women. I just, you know, listening to you, I never had any career.
I was I didn't fit in any of the stages of of my my career that I didn't fit where I was.
It was not just because of I was a woman, I think was class as well It was is many things is very intersectional that.
The way your career progresses.
I think that the challenges where very few women in physics and in engineering and many of the stereotypes of steel are very strong,
women are struggle to to handle both the personal career, the career and the personal life.
And there's no going away from this. We live in a society that has not valued women in our subject, particularly in physics.
Physics has a history of misogyny.
Many of the biggest myths of physics have publicly expressed very misogynistic views such and this is still in the subject.
So I think we need is very hard to understand on this.
When you're a young woman, why you feel so bad, why you don't fit.
And I think the key to all this is to start deconstructing this identities of science,
which is we're doing we're doing now in MPLS through some of the programs where we are doing of of,
I should say, MPLS is the physical Life sciences division.
So the construct what is the identity of a science and help women to understand why
they don't feel okay that other women are feeling the same as them creating networks,
trying to create a collective understanding of of of how we can support people to change their local environments so they are accepted.
I think having, as you say, more, more visible role models and having those conversations,
I mean, how do you see that improving and what more could we could we be doing?
We need to be honest. We need to explain the good part and the bad part of our careers, need role models, need to be real.
I think we need to be authentic.
Also, we need to. So there are role models. Maybe there are no so high up in the hierarchy about people that have very fruitful and
interesting and careers that they help a lot of people that the students do very well,
that they have collaborations with the local communities, and these are very valuable careers.
We also need to and we should be celebrating this. There's not a single there's not a single career for women in STEM.
We have to run away from the stereotype of women in STEM, I think,
because as one thing you discover in science is that you only become a good sciences when you are absolutely yourself.
Yeah, you can only do good science when you are very authentic.
Yeah. And this is what we should promote and explore more.
We need to communicate. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, when I was a head of department, you know, one of the things I observed when we would,
you know, celebrating our women from our research staff and clinical staff and,
and support staff and talking about, you know, the career trajectories was,
was actually expressing to the younger generation that there wasn't this magic template of one model that you suddenly had to find.
And that was the secret to success.
Every single person who had progressed their career had taken a different journey and a different route there that was,
you know, difficult or was less difficult. It was a range, but they found their way through it, their own personal journey.
And again, as you say, that means that it's it's authentic for them.
And I think that was quite eye opening, actually, for some of the younger researchers that,
you know, there wasn't this mystery thing that we somehow were hiding from them.
It genuinely is difficult. And but there are people there that can help you and support you and never to not ask for help.
I think that's one of the things I often say to young researchers is, you know, really, honestly,
very few people are not going to help you if you ask them for help and give you advice and and support you.
And so really inculcating that sense of, as you said, getting them to talk together,
to create networks, to create mentorship and to champion each other, to really behind the scenes,
be championing that person, making it visible, you know, doing things like this, you know,
getting getting people to come and have a platform to be able to talk about their work.
You know, this is the way that we can, again, highlight and and support, you know, particularly our women, I think, instead.
Misha, let's turn to you and hear a little bit from your perspective at the sort of early stage of a career,
how you have found, you know, particularly Oxford in terms of, you know,
as a woman in STEM and in engineering, what you see is, you know, some of the things that have been,
you know, good and not so good and that we could we could improve them.
Absolutely. So I think you mean and Sonia and yourself mentioned networks,
and that's been a huge part of my time here at Oxford and it's been a huge part of my support group as well.
They support community.
So when I joined Oxford, I first one of the first things I looked for was a sort of a women in STEM women and engineering network.
And not long after the engineering department were relaunching that Women in Engineering Network.
So within my first year I joined the steering committee group for that as vice president and I was on that committee for.
Yes. And vice president for the majority of that time. And it was it had a huge impact on my experience here.
The colleagues I had throughout the network were fantastic.
And it also really gave us a chance to discuss with the department, you know,
senior levels what we can be implementing and how we can be, you know, supporting women.
And the second network is the black Indigenous people of colour and STEM networks,
or the Bipoc STEM network, which I think was founded maybe shortly before I joined Oxford.
And I joined that as a member and then recently became co-convenor.
And Sonia has also mentioned intersectionality, which I feel extremely passionate about.
I think it's absolutely key to keep intersectionality at the forefront of the conversation regarding equality,
diversity, inclusion, because I don't really think you can achieve any aims without considering that.
So that's been a huge part. And I have to mention the professional services staff who have been absolutely
instrumental in supporting us as and as networks through women engineering.
So the coordinators and MPLS, the events team and access and outreach team engineering.
And then obviously as a student, my there's lots of people within the department and my college that have been absolutely fantastic and supportive.
I've got a great supervision team. U.S.
Katz Yeah, I think and they've been absolutely fantastic and my supervision team within the engineering department.
So Professor Tom Adcock, Dr. Amanda Smith and I have another supervisor and Edinburgh have been incredibly supportive,
not only in terms of my research, which absolutely, yeah,
they're fantastic supervisors,
but also really supportive of the work that I do with these networks internally with the university and also all the things I do externally.
So I think that's a huge part. And in terms of what we can do better, I think where I've been so involved in that work,
something I've really realised is how important it is to recognise the contribution that these networks make.
Yeah, I think it's so important something is to actually value the time and effort that's
being put into it and giving appropriate compensation for that time and effort,
because I don't think it only shows it does show appreciation for the value and benefits that it's providing the university.
But I also think it's the only way to make these efforts sustainable. Yeah.
Now you've touched on so many important things that you're absolutely right, and I think that sort of reward system, for want of a better expression,
is something that, again, you know, I'm very interested in looking at in terms of how we can, you know, better again,
put that value system and explicitly say compensate, as you put it, for the effort that's gone in,
because we have to sort of put real meaning behind it and make sure that there's traction
so that what's coming out of those networks actually bites and carries through.
And I have to say, I've been, you know, like like you commented, you know, the division and place has been really terrific with it.
And it's really, you know, an example of how they've done it.
And, you know, and I do congratulate somehow a sudden, you know, is as the head of the division that's,
you know, really taken this on and championed it right from the very top. And that's sort of what we need.
We need the leaders and the men to really take ownership as well of of the challenges and to meet it.
So let's round off just sort of hearing about where next then for your science, I'm interested to hear sort of Sonia,
what's your big exciting project at the moment as well, and where do you hope to take things?
Yes, I am putting together a collaboration between a neuroscientists,
engineers and physicist to try to understand how neurones communicate with each other so that the neural networks that we're hearing in computing,
but actually in life, I'm trying to understand the physics of how they communicate to each other and to each other.
And actually, even more recently, we're trying to think if if we can try to explore if neurones exploit quantum resources,
and if this can be an interesting avenue not only for understanding biology,
but also for developing new technologies such as quantum sensors for biological purposes.
So cool was music to my ears. As a neuroscientist,
I applaud you for that and that'll be good to follow up with you and keep keep the conversation alive so I can find out how that's going.
And Misha, how about you sort of when do you hope to wrap up and what do you hope to do after you get your doctorate?
Yeah, so obviously the main focus at the moment is completing his doctorate.
So I'm looking forward to kind of I'm working on my final couple of chapters of work.
At the moment, I'm looking at deploying different types of turbines in one site and how much we can
actually work out what the sacrifice of energy is when we're only 2.1 type of turbine,
which has been really exciting.
And I think beyond the Ph.D., once I've finished, I'm really looking forward to kind of I'd like to really bridge a gap between industry and academia.
So we've discussed the private sector.
And yeah, I'd love to sort of really work on tidal energy and how we can actually get, get, get the energy connected to the grid and things like that.
I mean, I don't work on the energy storage side. I very much work on quantifying the resource.
But for us actually develop this size, we need to have a number on the resource to make sure that we're effectively extracting it.
So I'd like to really work on that side of things and especially the policy as well.
Well, the world will be awesome. Absolutely sure of it. You know, with the training and the background you got and the energy and the commitment.
Sonja, Misha, thank you so much for spending this time this morning.
I've really enjoyed meeting you both. And and I know that the listeners will be absolutely captivated by what you've been able to share.
So thank you to the listeners for listening.
We hope to do another podcast next term to be decided yet what the subject area will be, but it'll be another stellar line up.
I'm absolutely confident. I wish you both all the best going forwards and thank you once again for joining us.
Thank you very much.