Women prize winners share the passion behind their science

Professor Barbara Finlayson-Pitts’ world revolves around chemistry. And she wouldn’t change that for anything.

Founder and co-director of the Atmospheric Integrated Research Institute at the University of California, Irvine in the United States, she said in an online interview: “If people were to ask me: ‘If you were a multi-billionaire, would you do anything else in life?’ I would reply: ‘No. I would do what I’m doing now because it's challenging, fun and exciting.’”

Those words were shared with University World News mere hours before Finlayson-Pitts received one of the five 2025 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards on 12 June in Paris, France.

The awards were launched 27 years ago to recognise the contributions of women scientists and celebrate their excellence on an international scale against a background of disparities that stem from deeply entrenched barriers, such as unequal access to quality education, exclusionary workplace cultures and a lack of mentorship. Each winner, selected from a pool of 466 researchers, received €100,000 (US$116,007).

The award to Finlayson-Pitts (for the North America region) was in recognition of her groundbreaking research revealing new processes in the formation of air pollution as photochemical smog.

Finlayson-Pitts moved to the US from Canada to do her PhD in 1970 – at a time when studies in atmospheric chemistry were just being introduced.

As an undergraduate student in Canada in the 1960s, her physical chemistry professor sparked her interest in atmospheric chemistry, but at that time the field of atmospheric chemistry did not exist.

However, there were a number of people studying air pollution, for example, in the United States, she added.

“My field is understanding the chemistry that goes on in the air. I'm so immersed in this world; it’s the way I interpret everything,” she said.

Finlayson-Pitts said the only part of her job that she does not enjoy is when she is not undertaking science.

“The least enjoyable part of the job, however, is that you need to be not only a scientist, but an accountant, an administrator, a writer. There are just lots of different aspects of the job. And my least enjoyable part is the bureaucratic part of it. Trying to look after the budget, trying to do all the checks; we have many roles now,” she said.

Despite that, her core work has not gone unnoticed.

Finlayson-Pitts was one of the five leading women scientists, each from the five regions of the world, honoured with the 2025 L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards for their groundbreaking work in the sciences and mathematics.

A statement released by Foundation L’Oréal and UNESCO
named the other four award winners as Professor Priscilla Baker (Africa and Arab States region), an analytical chemistry professor at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa; Professor Xiaoyun Wang (Asia and the Pacific region) of Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, a mathematician who holds the Chen-Ning Yang Professorship at Tsinghua’s Institute for Advanced Study; Professor María Teresa Dova (Latin America and the Caribbean region), a particle physics professor at the National University of La Plata in Argentina; and Professor Claudia Felser (Europe region), the Condensed Matter Physics Director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids in Dresden, Germany.

Interdisciplinary science

Felser, like Finlayson-Pitts, told University World News that science is the centre of her life.

“I am the luckiest person on Earth because I can do science every day. I can do interdisciplinary science and I invent something new every day,” she said.

Felser was rewarded for her work fusing physics, mathematics and chemistry that led to the discovery and creation of new magnetic materials with great promise for future green energy technologies, paving the way for the new field of "topological quantum chemistry" and sparking a revolution in the field of relativistic matter.

“I was always working in an interdisciplinary way between physics and chemistry. And then in 2008, I met a theoretical physicist from Stanford [University] and I gave a talk about my materials, and we recognised that we can merge the field of topological physics and my ideas in making new materials and invent probably new applications for material science by applying this concept of topology, which is a simple concept for mathematics, describing the electronic structure of materials in a new way. So we recognised this can revolutionise materials science,” she said.

Felser said there must be collaborations between nations to bridge the emerging quantum divide so that there is greater inclusivity.

She said one way of doing so is by undertaking joint projects.

South African scientist Baker told University World News that science stories in the media in the 1960s and 1970s played a part in her induction into the sciences.

Baker, who received the award for her outstanding contributions in the field of highly sensitive electrochemical microsensors that detect contaminants in the environment, said the media coverage included the Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk on 20 July 1969.

She said her career highlights include being commissioned by the South African government to evaluate the quality of sea water at the country's ports in support of policy making to establish the extent to which vessels that enter the local harbour contaminate the sea water.

Mentoring the new generation

Dova, the award-winning professor from Argentina, told University World News that one of the legacies she hoped to leave was related to her commitment to mentorship of young scientists from Argentina who are playing a major role in experimental physics worldwide. Her legacy, she hoped, would entail opening doors for the younger generation.

Dova said to assist in her career progression, her husband shouldered his share of home duties and chores.

“We wanted both of us to develop in our careers so we decided to share all the responsibilities at home and around the upkeep of the kids. I was lucky because my husband has been very supportive. What I wish is that in the future this must not be an exception. This should be the norm. This is my message somehow,” said Dova.

Her award was given in recognition of her contributions, among others, to the characterisation of the Higgs boson, a particle associated with a new kind of field that fills the entire universe and gives mass to all elementary particles.

Professor Caroline Dean, a biological scientist who won the 2018 prize for the Europe region, said the awards, which have been made to women in the areas of physical science, mathematics and computer science since 1998, provide inspiration to women scientists and will remain valued as long as there is not full equality in our society.

Dean said she also believes that sharing parenting responsibilities is important for researchers.

“Research is an all-consuming profession, so it is extremely hard to combine it with family life. These days it is getting better and there is more equality of effort between parents, but there is still a disproportionately small number of women at the top,” said Dean, a biological sciences professor at John Innes Centre, Norwich Research Park in the United Kingdom, who was honoured for her ground-breaking research on how plants adapt to their surroundings and climate change, leading to new methods of crop improvement.

Winning what she described as a “financially generous prize” felt to her like “the tables were turning” and her peer group endorsed all her efforts. “It was a wonderful feeling,” she noted.