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Oxford Science Essay Writing Competition
A number of Lower Sixth students entered the Michaelmas Term 2020 Schools Science Writing Competition on the theme of ‘An inspirational scientist, alive now, whose work is helping us to advance into the future’.
Lower Sixth student Eleanor was one of the runners up for her essay on Rabia Salihu Sa’id: Saving the Environment Four Hours at a Time.
The Oxford Schools Science Writing Competition for Hilary Term 2021 is now open! The question for this term’s competition is: “How is creativity important in science?”. For example, you could write about a scientific discovery that required creativity, a scientist who takes a creative approach to their work, or how creativity is important for science in general. The word limit for the article is 700 words and you must be a school, college or sixth form student in Year 13, 12, 11 or 10 (or equivalent) in the UK. The deadline for submitting your article is midnight on Monday 1st February. For more information visit http://oxsci.org/schools/.
Rabia Salihu Sa’id
An inspirational scientist, alive now, whose work is helping us to advance into the future.
Imagine attempting to conduct research with a 4-hour time bomb counting down in your subconscious each day. For Rabia Salihu Sa'id, a Nigerian physicist and professor of atmospheric and space-weather physics, this is a reality. Bayero University in Nigeria, where Sa’id does her research, provides her with just four hours of electricity and thus only four hours per day to conduct her studies. “Think! You are concentrating, and the power goes off!” she said, in an interview with the National Public Radio. “The ideas are gone by the time you come back. It’s difficult —you have to start all over again.” Despite facing great adversity and limitations on a daily basis, Sa’id has established herself as an inspiration to young women and scientists everywhere. Rabia Sa'id was born in Wangara in Northern Nigeria, where girls have few education opportunities and women are expected to stay at home. However, her father wanted her to become a doctor. Sa'id attended Army school, graduating top of her class. She chose to marry when she was 18, once she left school, and is now a mother of six. Two of her children require medical care, which added to her personal challenge to obtain higher education degrees. She began her academic studies at the age of 29 with four children, having to sell dowry jewellery and run a nursery to pay for university. She is now a role model for young Nigerian female scientists and is treated like a celebrity when she visits girls’ schools in the North.
Sa’id holds B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from Bayero University, and commenced work there as a Graduate Assistant in September 1999. In 2002, on the International Fellowships Program (IFP) of the Ford Foundation, she studied for an MSc
degree in Environment and Development from the University of Reading.
She is now a professor at Bayero University and, by 2015, became Deputy Dean at the Student Affairs Division of the university. She received a research post there, where she conducts research in atmospheric and spaceweather physics, particle physics, and electronics. Her research is conducted to solve Nigerian environmental challenges. For example, to reduce the number of trees cut down for firewood, one study involved the use of scraps of wood from carpentry projects for briquettes that could be used as a fuel, thereby reducing the rate at which the country's forests are diminished. She also gathers atmospheric data and studies the effects of deforestation and dust aerosols on climate temperatures. Her goal is to encourage greater reliance in Nigeria on renewable energy sources—like wind power, solar energy, and hydropower—that are less harmful to the environment than fossil fuels.
Sa'id is an advocate and mentor for young women in science and is active in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) outreach. She co-founded Nigeria's Association of Women Physicists in 2011, which encourages women to become physicists, seeks to improve physics education in schools, and gives prizes to young women. Sa'id also encourages the participation of young people by mentoring them in local and national science projects, and volunteers for the Peace Corps Nigeria Alumni Foundation and Visiola Foundation. She says she is active in STEM outreach because there is pressure and obstacles that girls, particularly in northern Nigeria, must overcome to pursue degrees and careers in these fields. In addition, "more girls in science will mean that the solutions that science provides are not just tailored to the needs of a single gender." Sai'd has received fellowships from the Institute of Applied Physics in Bern and the Ford Foundation and was made a fellow in physics of the African Scientific Institute. In 2015 she received an Elsevier Foundation Award for Women Scientists in the Developing World in the field of atmospheric physics for her work on Nigerian environmental challenges. She was one of nine people honoured as "women advocates and champions" in Nigeria in March 2015 as part of International Women's Day by the British Council. She was also recognised by the BBC as part of their 100 Women series in 2015. These awards are a testament to her inspirational character and her great scientific contributions, which we can all aspire to.
By L6 student, Eleanor.
Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green
“My goal is to change the way cancer is treated”.
A study, published by the American Cancer Society, said an estimated 606,520 people will die from cancer in 2020 while the World Health Organization (WHO) has projected that one in five men and one in six women worldwide will develop cancer during their lifetime, with one in eight men and one in eleven women predicted to die from the disease. Consequently, with the demand for an effective way of beating cancer only increasing, researchers and scientists are constantly facing the daunting task of coming up with new technologies that will speed up the development of affordable and operational cancer treatment. At the forefront of such indispensable research is Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green, founder of Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation, and winner of numerous international science awards. Not only has Dr Green distinguished herself academically, becoming only the second African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), but also in her approach to cancer treatment using Nanotechnology, a ground-breaking method of treatment that does not require chemotherapy, radiation or surgery. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, and orphaned at a young age, Dr Hadiyah-Nicole Green is one of only 66 black women to earn a Ph.D. in Physics in the United States, and is the fourth black person ever to earn a doctoral degree in Physics from The University of Alabama at Birmingham. Often recognised as the forefront of modern cancer research, Green developed a strong interest in cancer treatment following the harrowing personal experiences of cancer she endured at the beginning of her life.
Shortly after graduating from Alabama A&M, Green learned that Ora Lee Smith, the aunt who'd raised her, had been diagnosed with female reproductive cancer. Fearing the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation, her aunt chose to forgo treatment, leaving Green
to care for her in the last three months of her life. Following her aunt's death in 2005, Green’s uncle General Lee Smith, was also diagnosed with cancer. While tending to her uncle, Green watched him suffer from the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation, sparking her pursuit of a painless and effective cancer treatment. After the passing of her aunt, Green interned at NASA, where she realised the potential use for lasers in cancer research. Wanting to use her background in lasers to target cancerous cells without hurting healthy cells, Green developed a revolutionary method that uses lasers to "illuminate" the nanoparticles within the cancerous cells, decreasing the amount of time it takes to target the tumours by creating a detailed image of the malignant cells.
After completing her vital internship with NASA, Green returned to graduate school, where it was there while conducting her doctoral research, Green’s team developed a laboratory method to insert nanoparticles into cancer cells while avoiding the surrounding healthy cells. The warming effect of the directed laser radiation was then used to heat up the tissue incorporating the nanoparticles, which in turn destroyed the cancer cells without harming any of the healthy cells within the specimen. Green first tested her revolutionary ideas on cancer cells in a petri dish, and after these trials were extremely successful, she moved on to small animal models using specially kept mice. Although not currently able to be used commercially, Green dedicates much of her current research efforts to extending this nanoparticle treatment to humans, with the view to it being an accessible and affordable cancer treatment for all. Aiding this innovative future of cancer treatment was the instigation of the Ora Lee Smith Cancer Research Foundation, which Green initiated in 2016 in memory of her aunt. The goal of the non-profit organisation is to advance cancer treatment so that it is effective with minimal side effects, whilst being available for millions of cancer patients across the globe for the lowest price possible.
For her ground-breaking work, Green was recently presented the Key to the City and the Historic Icon Award by her hometown the City of Selma, Alabama, where her outstanding scientific career began. But undoubtedly her most noticeable honour is the pioneering effect she has had on young female African American scientists across America, with more prominence now being placed on the past and present achievements of her fellow black scientists. “If there was something that I was born to do, then this was it” (Dr Green in an interview with Roland Martin, TVOne March 2017). By L6 student, Lucia.
