make
Lesley Yellowlees and Molly Stevens review successes in science while raising families
Scottish chemist Lesley Yellowlees has a favourite their high heels and the men all dressed up in their kilts for gradation is such a happy day.” She wants to encourage others to succeed in return has achieved her dream of
presiding over the
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and heading the faculty of science and engineering at the them both at the same time,” she laughs.
Lesley Yellowlees
Suffrage Science brings Lesley together with Molly Stevens, research director for biomedical materials sciences at the Institute of Biomedical
Juggling Jobs
Engineering, Imperial College London. They have a lot in common. Molly also loves seeing people in her group succeed and go on to set up their own
Molly takes time out from maternity leave to talk to
research groups.
Lesley, her two-month-old son asleep on her lap. She is working throughout her leave whenever her baby sleeps and visits her forty-strong research
emotional for me. I get very attached, and have
group twice a week. The multidisciplinary Stevens
a tear in my eye when they leave,” she admits.
group works at the interface between materials,
Lesley says the attachment can go surprisingly
cell biology, chemistry and engineering – exploiting this interface for human health. Their recent, high-
sometimes because so many of the students call me ‘Mum’: my children protested, ‘but you’re our
detecting diseases in their earliest stages, and an
mother, not theirs!’” is currently progressing to the clinic.
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