Women can go in nanoforskers footsteps

The former handball player Anja Andersen has been a myriad of young Danish girls to dream of a career as a professional athlete. In the same way, the 33-year-old nanoforsker Kirsten Marie Ørnsbjerg Jensen, who has just received an international talent prize for scientists, a few young Danish women to throw themselves at the forskergerningen.

the Researcher from the Chemical Institute at the Natural and Life sciences Faculty at Copenhagen University, receiving the award L'oreal-UNESCO International Rising Talent. It is awarded to the 15 most promising female science researchers worldwide.

Kirsten Marie Ørnsbjerg Jensen has, by his own admission, 'never thought much of' that she is a woman in a male-dominated subjects.

- It is quite true that there are many more men than women in the research, but I've really just seen myself as a researcher, she says.

in return, she has great optimism on his own gender when it's about to get to the top in the world of research.

- When I look at the younger generation of students, is that within my field, which is chemistry, pretty much fifty percent of each sex. There are some very strong female research talents on the road, she says.

Karen Sjørup is an expert in gender equality and the researcher on a daily basis at the Department of Social sciences and Profession at Roskilde University. She sees a great need for more female role models in the field of research. This is due, not least, that women constitute between 55 to 60 percent of the students at universities in Denmark, but only 20 percent of the professors.

- It means a lot to women, that there are some young and smart, no tracks mysterious or geeky women, who is interested in game for astrophysics, or something else. It means a lot that you can see themselves in it, says Karen Sjørup.

According to the ligestillingseksperten it has gone slowly with gender equality in the Danish research, since the inspector of south greenland Nielsen in 1885 was graduated as a doctor. She was the first woman in Denmark, who had been granted exemption from the law that only men had access to university. It was only in the 1980’s and 1990’s, which really came more female researchers at the Danish universitetsgange, explains Karen Sjørup.

- You have previously been regarded as gammeljomfruelig, if you, as a woman interested for more than to have children. The conception disappears, when there is a completely ordinary women, as they get here, the positions and nominations, she says.

the Price of 15,000 euro, equivalent to 112.000 dkk. to be distributed on Thursday 14. march at UNESCO's headquarters in Paris.