By Larissa Fong, Research Team Member
Dr. Donna Strickland Photo Credit: Discovery West
Donna Strickland is the third woman to win The Nobel Prize for Physics. Born in Guelph (ON, Canada), she studied engineering physics at McMaster University (ON, Canada) and optics at the University of Rochester (NY, United States). Her career includes positions at the National Research Council of Canada, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Princeton University. Strickland is now married with two children.
In her autobiography on the Nobel Prize website, Strickland recounts her childhood love for school and her early proficiency in reading. As she grew older, her favourite subjects became math and science. One day, when her teacher asked about course preferences, Strickland expressed a desire to study math and physics, only to be told those subjects were meant for boys. However, inspired by the 1970’s women’s liberation movement, Strickland embraced the belief that girls could pursue any field they chose.
Strickland’s father, an electrical engineer, was diagnosed with terminal spinal cancer when she was in high school. He was told that he only had a year to live. Her father researched his own disease and asked his doctor about a new radiation treatment he had read about. In the end, the radiation therapy worked. During this period, Strickland's mother became the family's primary breadwinner and taught at the high school that Donna attended.
Strickland's mother significantly influenced her pursuit of STEM. Although she trained as a teacher, she was a homemaker during Strickland's childhood. In Strickland’s autobiography, she recalled that her mother preserved a newspaper piece on the first female engineering graduate from the University of Toronto, depicted among 450 male classmates. This moment, among others, shaped Donna's aspirations. Throughout her life, Strickland heard her mother express regret over not pursuing sciences or mathematics, as societal beliefs discouraged women from these fields during her mother’s youth.
Education held significant importance in Donna’s family. Donna’s father had no formal education and learned to read and do math after he retired. Her parents expected their children to pursue university degrees, emphasizing the value of a strong education. From a young age, Strickland recognized her place in academia and aspired to earn a PhD, believing it represented the pinnacle of educational achievement.
During road trips to see family, Strickland’s mother would bring a large binder to share facts and history about the places they would see. They went to museums, historical sites, and toured mines. On one of their many educational outings, the family visited a science center an hour from home. Strickland’s father was looking at one of the displays when he called Donna over to show her a laser, which eventually became her life’s work.
Finally, Strickland and Gérard Mourou developed chirped-pulse amplification (CPA), enabling the most intense laser pulses to date. Their research has produced tools with applications in medicine, industry, science, military, and security. For their groundbreaking work in generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses, they were jointly awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics alongside Arthur Ashkin.
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