4 minute read
Jane Endicott
Jane Endicott receives Louise johnson’s heiloom
As a child, Jane learnt to calmly observe the world around her from an artist, her father. He saw observation as an essential quality in a child and he inspired his children to appreciate their surroundings. Jane’s parents would take her on remote camping holidays in their VW campervan, when her “dad’s criterion for a suitable campsite was one that didn’t have a wash block because he didn’t like the idea of being with loads of people.” During these trips Jane would exercise a love of the natural world, collecting bugs and filling up her pressed flower book.
Advertisement
Through her father she also became aware of the importance of loving your job, a vocation that you live and breathe. “I never grew up with the view that work was something you didn’t want to do. I grew up in an environment where somebody could have a passion, like art or science, and do it as a job. When I come home in the evening, I like to read scientific papers. My fun crossword is devising cloning strategies, looking at structures, delving into patterns and having the fun of exploring proteins.”
It wasn’t unusual for a girl at her school in Boldon, a village outside of Newcastle, to go into science, though she was the first student from the school to go to Oxbridge. Now she researches the mechanisms controlling the eukaryotic cell cycle at Newcastle University. Her particular area of interest is in using X-ray crystallography to determine structures for the protein complexes that drive cell cycle progression. Jane received her heirloom jewellery from Neil Brockdorff from the University of Oxford on behalf of Louise Johnson, who died unexpectedly in 2012. “The one hundred per cent consensus is that Louise would have wanted her former colleague, Jane Endicott, to have the heirloom,” said Neil.
Historically, Jane’s field of crystallography has always been strongly represented by women. Jane thinks this is a result of having excellent mentors and role models, like Dorothy Hodgkin and Louise Johnson, in the field early on. “The scientists who have shaped the attitudes of the fields of protein crystallography and eukaryotic cell cycle were such that there was a very good spirit of sharing, openness and collaboration, she says.”
Is she concerned about the low proportion of women in leading positions in science? “Yes. That’s worrying. There’s a whole cohort of very talented scientists who are being trained and not
Jane Endicott
making it through the critical period between finishing their first post-docs and getting a junior faculty position. A lot of them want to stay in science but there are other demands on their time.”
Working for Longer
Jane thinks that, in order to address the issue of the leaky pipeline, we must bear in mind that the whole landscape of how people work has changed. Now that researchers are being asked to work until they are 67, five to ten years longer than was often the case for academics until recently, there’s time to have a career break and take it easy for a few years, she says. “People will just progress a little slower at a certain point in their career. In terms of the productivity of the scientist over their lifetime, why not allow somebody to go slow for five years and then be back in the fold and working?” Part of the problem, she says, is that the funding structure considers being a group leader as the culmination of a scientific career rather than considering other models for career progression. “This whole argument about how we do science can get bogged down in it being a woman’s issue, but it’s not.”
Mental Space
Jane believes that time away from the lab can be hugely beneficial to research. “A lot of positives can come out of not being with your nose to the grindstone all the time. If you have kids, you bring a whole new perspective to doing science. When I was on maternity leave, I was able to step back from the work and look at things globally, and I would say that was very useful for the group. I did an awful lot of creative thinking going on long walks in maternity leave trying to get my child to go to sleep.”
She says that stepping out of the normal routine is part of the idea behind sabbaticals. “Why is this so much part of our culture in science in one context, and yet, when we need to take leave for other reasons, it’s frowned upon?”
“I love running. I put my running shoes on and go off. And when I’m pounding the streets and looking at the world around me, that’s when I get my best ideas.”
