Women in radio science

摘要

In 1984, Florence, Italy, I attended my first URSI General Assembly. I had recently changed over from particle physics for a PhD with the brand new EISCAT radar in northern Scandinavia. At the get-together event, I felt totally lost. The other participants looked like my father's generation, serious Humphrey Bogart-type gentlemen from the black-and-white movie era. There was no resemblance to the junior scientists of both sexes bathing in the conference-venue fountains, or even to the colorful middle-aged senior scientists at particle-physics meetings. I soon understood that many topics at URSI represented the mature technological revolution that had already accelerated in the late 1800s. A more serious generation and selection of people represented radio science, while particle physics was still in its thriving youth, collecting Nobel prizes and attracting many young people.