It’s now possible to make it as a female physicist, says Dr Rachel Edwards of Warwick University. With roughly the same number of women as men at all levels from undergraduate to professor level, there are role models to look up to, knowing there’s a fair chance of success.

Dr Edwards is Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at Warwick University. Her main research interests are in non-contact generation and detection of ultrasound using lasers and electromagnatic acoustic transducers, with applications in non-destructive testing and in low temperature measurements of phase changes in single crystals; this is under the Condensed Matter Physics group. She was a NESTA:Crucible awardee in 2007, and holds an ERC Starting Independent Researcher Grant.