Canada’s newest Nobel laureate discusses the challenges of explaining her work, dealing with the attention, and what to wear to a Nobel ball.
Winning a Nobel Prize is the pinnacle of a scientific career, but the unexpected early morning phone call brings with it a whole new set of challenges. For Donna Strickland, who won a share of the 2018 Nobel Prize for Physics for her work on generating high-intensity, ultra-short laser pulses, it is a “life upside-down changing event.” But the University of Waterloo physicist can still joke about how surreal it is to suddenly become a research rock star for her very first scientific publication, in 1985, while she was still a doctoral student at the University of Rochester.
“It’s been downhill ever since. I can’t top this one,” she said with a laugh. Read more in University Affairs.