The L'ORéAL-UNESCO programme 'For Women In Science' today celebrated its 5th anniversary at a ceremony honouring twenty women scientists from all corners of the globe.
The Awards, presented by the chairman and CEO of L'ORéAL, Lindsay Owen-Jones, and Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, recognised for the first time women working in the field of the Material Sciences.
Five Laureates in the Material Sciences, in addition to fifteen Fellows in the Life Sciences, were honoured at the event held at UNESCO's Paris Headquarters.
The programme aims to improve the position of women in science by recognising outstanding women researchers who have contributed to scientific progress - L'ORéAL-UNESCO Awards of $100,000 each - and young women scientists engaged in promising projects - UNESCO- L'ORéAL Fellowships of $20,000 each.
The 2003 qward laureates went to Karimat EL-Sayed of Egypt, Professor of Solid State Physics, Ain Shams university, Cairo, who has specialised in the detection of impurities in materials relevant to industrial metallurgy and semi-conducting materials. Also to professor Fang-Hua LI at the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, a specialist of electron microscopy.
In addition, Ayse Erzan in Turkey, Professor of Physics, Istanbul Technical university, who has used the concepts of fractal geometry to study the collective phenomena of percolation, in which the interactions of simple constituents translate to behaviour at large scale or over long periods.
Mariana Weissmann from Argentina, a senior researcher at the Argentine National Research Council, Buenos Aires, has helped to move the understanding of quantum solids from a qualitative view to quantitative predictions. She has also been a pioneer in the use of computers to study the properties of solids. And finally, Johanna M. H. Levelt Sengers in the USA, Scientist Emeritus at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Maryland. She has contributed to a better definition of water and steam properties for scientific applications. Her work has aided industry in its search for cleaner and safer ways to dispose of hazardous and toxic waste.