Guyanese researchers pushing against the tide

Sophia King in her Lab at the University of California, Los Angeles

With more than eight hours of daily laboratory work, Sophia King describes her life as a research scientist as “long and dreary with pockets of great excitement,” which for most people may be pretty ordinary.

A University of California, Los Angeles student pursuing a Masters in Materials Chemistry, King is anything but ordinary as she is part of the less than 30% of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) researchers in the world who are women.

In fact, according to the 2017 report ‘Cracking the Code: Women and Girls in STEM,”  which was published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), only 17 women have won a Nobel Prize in physics, chemistry or medicine since Marie Curie in 1903, compared to 572 men.