It is important that the Lise Meitner professors work in LTH’s environments

Last week I had the pleasure of listening to three of LTH’s Lise Meitner professors at a seminar where they talked about their research and inspired me and other researchers, students and staff from LTH.

The day after the seminar I also had the pleasure of joining four of them on a panel to talk about our careers in academia at the Lise Meitner pub session arranged by and for LTH’s students.

Both these events highlighted in many ways how important role models are, but also how important diversity is at our faculty, where different perspectives can interact and be made visible.

What is the Lise Meitner professorship at LTH? Well, it is an initiative that goes back to 1999 and one example of the work being conducted to enable LTH to attract the best talents and be a place for gender equality and diversity. Through the guest professorship, leading researchers are invited to devote a period of time to conducting research and teaching at the faculty.

During the events, the professors talked about their research and their experiences and lessons learned as researchers in academia. Their experiences from different parts of the world and from different parts of the research community impressed me greatly.

With humility and humour, they shared their experiences and advice on being stubborn, being yourself, standing up for your expertise and finding your place. Wise and important!

Many aspects were brought up in the panel discussions, for example that a more even gender balance in academia depends to a great extent on attractive forms of employment and competent mentors, and that, among other things, we can make it more attractive to return to LTH as a member of the teaching staff after time spent doing enriching work and gaining experience in industry.

Who was Lise Meitner? Some people would claim that she is the most “potential” Nobel Prize winner of all time, and the most forgotten and hidden, among those who would have probably been worthy recipients of the prize.

Lise Meitner was a physicist who in 1938 succeeded in explaining the nuclear fission process, and she was a pioneer in a male-dominated field when she began her research in the 1910s. Lise Meitner was at Lund University for a time during the war years when she was forced to leave Austria.

After a very rewarding collaboration with the German chemist Otto Hahn, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1944 (!) – which she deserved at least to share.

In view of this, at LTH we want to back professors of the underrepresented gender and recruit talented visiting professors in Lise Meitner’s name.

As dean, I feel proud to be able to recruit leading, external researchers to our faculty, so that we can contribute to diversity and strengthen our gender equality. Ultimately, it is about us wanting to create an open and creative environment that attracts both students and researchers – where everyone can make the most of their potential.