Dame Julia Higgins. Image credit: Genevieve Martin, ORNL
Dame Julia Higgins doesn’t mind being a pioneer, but only if it means she’s truly paving the way for the next generation.
An expert in neutron scattering for polymer research, Higgins’s work has earned her titles including Dame of the British Empire, Fellow of the Royal Society and President of the United Kingdom’s Institute of Physics. During a September 2019 visit to ORNL, she walked audiences through her key research and landmark initiatives promoting diversity in STEM.
“When I came into polymer science, there were a number of questions that couldn’t be answered with the techniques of the time,” Higgins said. Researchers wanted to know how a polymer’s unique, chainlike molecules behaved when melted or stretched.
Higgins had attended Oxford University’s Somerville College in the 1960s, one of only 10 women studying physics in a class of around 200.
She was recruited to Oxford’s chemistry department for her doctorate by an enthusiastic young researcher who wanted to use neutrons, a subject that capitalized on Higgins’s physics background. Newly developed neutron scattering tools pioneered at ORNL’s Graphite Reactor had given researchers a new analytical capability to complement more widely available tools like light and X-ray scattering.
At the University of Manchester, France’s Institut Laue-Langevin and later at Imperial College London, Higgins sought fundamental answers about polymer behavior through neutron scattering techniques. She was fortunate, she said, that whenever a new technique was developed, she was frequently among the first to use it.
But that wasn’t the only way she broke barriers.
When she became a professor of chemical engineering at Imperial College in 1989, she joined only one other female professor. As her own career advanced, she became increasingly involved in management and science policy. She noticed a lack of senior women within Imperial College, especially in STEM departments.
“I thought it’s all very well being a pioneer, but where are the people behind you?” she said.
To ensure others could follow in her footsteps, Higgins helped start two initiatives for women: at Imperial, the Academic Opportunities Committee, and, nationally, the Athena Project.
The committee’s internal activities included educating female academics on promotion opportunities and providing funding for those returning from maternity leave to spend a full year on research before resuming lecturing and administrative duties.
The Athena Project gave accreditation, awards and grants to departments working to increase the number of women in senior roles. The project’s success came from involving top leaders and demanding accountability, Higgins said. To receive Athena accreditation, departments and institutions had to demonstrate their progress with data rather than merely recording the problem, a requirement that increased the number of women in leadership.
For women in STEM, she said, “The leaky pipeline is changing, but very slowly.”—Abby Bower