Exclusive | Donna Strickland on Why Physics Needs More Women and Less 'Trend-Chasing'

Over the past century, a female Nobel Prize winner in Physics has emerged roughly once every six decades. Since Marie Curie (1903) and Maria Goeppert-Mayer (1963), Donna Strickland became the first woman in 55 years — and only the third in 118 years — to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. When asked about the secret to her success, Strickland told The Storm Media in an exclusive interview: "I was very lucky. At the same time, hard work is a prerequisite — you have to be in the right place at the right time."

Strickland, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Waterloo in Canada, shared the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics with Arthur Ashkin and Gérard Mourou. In 1985, she and her doctoral supervisor Mourou co-published a landmark paper on the world's shortest and most powerful laser pulses. She was 26 years old at the time. It was her very first paper — and it became the foundation of her Nobel Prize.

Every year, millions of people undergo laser vision correction surgery. That technology traces back to the Chirped Pulse Amplification (CPA) technique co-developed by Strickland and her supervisor Gérard Mourou. The invention has since been widely applied in precision materials processing, semiconductor manufacturing, nanoscience, and medicine — making it one of the most consequential advances in modern photonics. 

Strickland, who has dedicated her career to ultrafast laser and nonlinear optics research, made her first visit to Taiwan on January 12 under the 'Taiwan Bridge Program.' She delivered a keynote lecture at National Taiwan University titled 'Why Trust in Science is Important.' Despite the university's winter break, the venue was packed — including a group of students from Jianguo Senior High School, who enthusiastically raised questions.

The 'Taiwan Bridge Program' is a joint initiative led by National Taiwan University's 'Mr. Kung-Yuan Sung Distinguished Research Chair,' the International Peace Foundation, Academia Sinica, and several other Taiwanese universities.

Strickland, now 66, is energetic, articulate, and a natural storyteller. In her exclusive interview with The Storm Media, she shared the story of her Nobel win, her passion for optics, and her advice for the next generation of scientists.

As the first female Nobel Physics laureate in 55 years and only the third in 118 years, Strickland recalls being genuinely surprised when she received an international call from the Nobel Foundation in Sweden. "I was very surprised by how few women have won," she said. "Many people often talk about me becoming the third female laureate in a century," she added. "But no one discusses that each of the first three female laureates was, at her time, the only living female Nobel laureate in Physics — that carries enormous pressure."

Following Strickland's award, women won the Nobel Prize in Physics again in 2020 and 2023. "In a very short time, I went from being the third to being 'one of three living female laureates,'" she said. "I haven't studied specifically why female laureates are so rare. What I want to emphasize is that things have improved — so I'd rather celebrate the progress than dwell on past failures."

Are there systemic social or cultural factors behind the scarcity of female Nobel Physics laureates? Strickland notes that conditions have improved somewhat. In medicine, she observes, women now outnumber men. At the University of Waterloo's School of Optometry and Vision Science, women account for 95% of students.

The underrepresentation of women in physics, she argues, is partly a reflection of how society values the discipline. Society does not value physics enough," she said.  "Most parents tell their children: if you're good at science, become a doctor; if you're good at the arts, become a lawyer — because doctors and lawyers earn more, and society sees that as more important," she said. "The day society decides physics is the most important field, women will come flooding in."

Has she ever experienced gender discrimination in her scientific career? Strickland says she has generally responded with humor. She has always been afraid of machinery. During her graduate studies, a machine once caught her sleeve — she feared she might lose her arm. Fortunately, that didn't happen.

During her postdoctoral research, Strickland recounts being denied access to a machine shop when a technician was absent. She later learned the refusal was directed at her specifically because she was a woman. Her response was strategic: she found a way to get the very people who had refused her to complete the work for her. "When people refuse you," she said, "figure out how to get them to do the work for you anyway."

"I don't know," Strickland says with characteristic modesty when asked about the key to winning the Nobel Prize. "My life has been quite fortunate — I think part of it is luck. Many people ask how to win a Nobel Prize, and I tell them: don't worry about winning one, because the number of people who actually do is so small. Science is built by many people. Without others building on and extending my work, my research could never have succeeded."

Strickland was the seventh student in her research group. She reflects that everyone was equally intelligent and equally hardworking — yet she was the one who ended up completing the research that led to the Nobel. "I was genuinely very lucky," she admits. Beyond luck, she says, dedication remains a non-negotiable: "You have to be in the right place at the right time." She adds that supervisors choose the students they want to collaborate with. "I had to demonstrate intelligence and the ability to get things done — I had to prove I was up to the job."

The paper she co-authored with her supervisor in her fourth year of graduate school — following numerous failed experiments — became the pivot on which her Nobel Prize turned. Her supervisor chose her despite the setbacks. "You have to maintain a positive attitude," she said. "That will take you further than almost anything else."

At the time of her landmark research, Strickland was the only member of her team working with high-intensity lasers. "I wasn't necessarily working on the coolest or most fashionable topic," she said. "I was doing what I wanted to do — the research I was genuinely interested in."

Her supervisor offered her a research topic and asked if she was interested. She said yes — because she found it genuinely fascinating. "Many voices will tell you: do this, do that, because it's important," she said. "But you only produce your best work when you do what you truly want to do. The most important thing is to figure out what that is, and then pursue it wholeheartedly."

Strickland says she loves working in the lab — the experiments bring her genuine joy. Failures are inevitable and frustrating; when things go wrong, she steps outside to clear her head. But she finds optics uniquely compelling precisely because you can directly observe the phenomena as they unfold.

Her current research in nonlinear optics involves constructing a spectrum of light ranging from ultraviolet to infrared — spanning at least 16 colors visible to the naked eye — in which one color of light transforms into another. "That is how I see science," she said. "Until we explain phenomena, they are like magic. And then we try to explain everything."

Strickland was born in Guelph, Ontario, a small Canadian town with a population of under 40,000 at the time. Her father was an electrical engineer; her mother, an English teacher. Looking back, she says the most formative influences in her life were her parents, followed by her husband, Doug Dykaar.

Her parents placed a high premium on education, regularly taking their children to museums and galleries, and traveling together within the constraints of a modest budget. They wanted their children to develop a broad outlook on life and to be exposed to as much of the world as possible — while leaving the choice of career entirely to the children themselves.

On one occasion, during a family visit to a science fair, Strickland's father guided her to a corner exhibit about lasers. "This is the future," he told her. Lasers would indeed become the central focus of her scientific career.

Strickland's mother had a deep interest in science and mathematics from a young age. But those around her suggested that women rarely pursued such fields, and she ultimately did not follow her strongest aptitude. She carried that regret for the rest of her life. That regret had a profound impact on Strickland — and steeled her resolve to pursue the path she had chosen for herself.

"My mother gave me two pieces of advice," Strickland said. "She always wished she had persevered and studied mathematics. She would have been a better math teacher than an English or history teacher. And second, she learned an important lesson: you have to live in the present and find joy in where you are, rather than wishing you were somewhere else."

Has she ever felt so discouraged during her research career that she wanted to quit? "There was a period when a colleague made my life very difficult," she said. "I don't think it was because I was a woman — he did the same to others. But my colleagues and friends told me: you can't let him win; you have to keep moving forward; you've worked too hard. So we have to learn to lean on our friends. Most people are good, but there will always be a few who aren't. You have to learn to rely on the good people and try to ignore the bad ones. That is a lesson I took from graduate school."

Viewing global challenges through the lens of physics, Strickland argues that science has a critical role to play in addressing climate change. "We not only need to understand the science of climate change," she said, "we also need to find more effective ways to communicate with society about it."

"People don't necessarily listen to scientists," she added. "Scientists are trained to do science, not to be communicators. But I believe we must collaborate with others. Scientists need to learn to work with people outside their field to get our message across."

In response to what she sees as an erosion of public trust in science in the West, the University of Waterloo — where Strickland teaches — has established a Trust Centre aimed at cultivating scientific literacy among the public and encouraging scientists to engage in open dialogue with ordinary citizens. "Science is the study of the unknown," she said. "We explore how many things work because we don't yet understand them. And because we don't know, it takes time."

Strickland delivers approximately 50 public lectures per year.The harder challenge, she acknowledges, is reaching those who are skeptical or hostile toward science — and that remains a major challenge with no easy answer.

She recounts a telling exchange at a public forum: an audience member said he had lost faith in science because researchers had established a quantum computing institute 20 years earlier and promised a working quantum computer within two decades — a promise that had not been fulfilled. "Why should we trust you?" he asked. Strickland — the only physicist present, despite not being a quantum computing researcher — stepped in to respond. "Science studies the unknown," she explained. "It is fundamentally difficult for scientists to predict timelines accurately. If scientists don't know why something works, they cannot tell you exactly when results will arrive. We may make mistakes — but we learn from them. That is how science advances." The episode, she says, serves as a reminder that scientists must choose their public statements with great care.

"Scientists must listen," Strickland emphasized. "We need to understand why people have lost trust in science. There must be dialogue between both sides."

Female Scientists Face Greater Challenges — Creativity Is Key to Balancing Work and Family

How does a female physicist balance the demands of research and teaching with family life? The challenges shift at every stage, Strickland says. When her daughter was five, she and her husband — both working full-time — hired a nanny. She also made a point of being home as much as possible when her children were young, and the family made a habit of sharing dinner together.

She recalls one bedtime moment when her daughter seemed upset. A classmate had told her daughter that her own mother must love her very much — because she didn't have to go out to work and could stay home all day. Strickland's daughter had taken this to mean that her mother must love her less. Strickland thought quickly. "You have a mom, a dad, and Mary — your nanny — and all three of us love you," she told her daughter. "That means you have more love than your classmate." Her daughter was immediately delighted. "When these situations arise," Strickland said with a laugh, "you have to respond creatively."

"Find what you genuinely want to do," Strickland advises young scientists. "Don't chase whatever is fashionable right now — whether that's quantum computing or AI. A decade from now, those topics may no longer be the hottest thing, and something else will have taken their place. Choose the science you truly want to study, because you want to study it. That is when you will do your best work." （Related： Exclusive | How Nobel Laureate Kurt Wüthrich Uses Exercise to Fuel Scientific Innovation ｜ Latest ）

She describes a former undergraduate student who wrote to her with regrets — having ignored her advice, he had rushed into quantum computing because it was the most talked-about field, only to discover it wasn't what genuinely interested him. The lesson, Strickland says, is clear: the most important task for young researchers is to identify what they truly want to pursue — and then commit to it fully.