Acclaimed novelist, essayist and scientist Professor Sunetra Gupta will give the 2011 Women in Science Engineering and Technology Initiative (WiSETI) annual lecture at Robinson College, Cambridge tonight.

Professor Gupta will consider some of the challenges that women in science face in balancing different strands of their lives in the workplace, drawing on her own diverse experiences as a scientist, writer and mother.

A Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at Oxford University’s Department of Zoology, Professor Gupta has also published five novels, including her fifth and most recent ‘So Good in Black’. She was also the 2009 winner of the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award for her scientific achievements.

Professor Gupta said: “Many of the problems faced by women in science today are created by the expectation that a single individual cannot live and think in more than one dimension.

“By illustrating how I have lived my life in negotiation between science and literature, Bengali and English, my devotion to these and to my children, I hope to raise questions about how we can accommodate the various strands of people’s lives within an academic and societal framework that allows each one of them to realise their full potential.”

Hosted by Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, and sponsored by Schlumberger Cambridge Research, the lecture starts at the Auditorium, Robinson College at 5pm, with doors opening at 4.30pm.

WiSETI is a positive action initiative at the University of Cambridge that promotes and supports women from undergraduate level to Professor in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics subject areas. It was established in 1999 and aims to improve representation of women in employment and career progression in these disciplines.


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