The last few months have been a whirlwind for Guelph’s Donna Strickland after receiving the Nobel Prize in physics, but she made time on Friday to visit her former high school, Guelph Collegiate Vocational Institute.
Students packed into the auditorium to hear about the physicist’s work with pulsed lasers, her time at GCVI and her December trip to Sweden filled with pomp and circumstance to collect one of science’s highest honours.
Strickland is a native of Guelph and, along with GCVI, she attended Willow Road Public School. She is currently an associate professor at the University of Waterloo.
It was announced in October that she had won the Nobel Prize in physics. The award ceremonies were two months later, spread out over several days in Stockholm. Strickland attended dinners, banquets and concerts with King of Sweden and the royal family.
The award ceremony itself was held on Dec. 10 — the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896.
“Somehow I worked hard to get a PhD, but somehow I landed in the middle of a fairy tale,” Strickland told students.
Strickland said that on the morning of the ceremony, she had to practice how to take the Nobel Prize medal and a leather-bound book from the king’s hands.
“The medal itself is solid gold and it’s a pretty heavy thing, and it comes in its own box,” she said.
Strickland also joked about how she tripped three times walking up a staircase with King Carl XVI Gustaf.
“I thought I was taking the king down with me three times, but that man held me firm,” she said.
Strickland is the third woman ever to be awarded the prestigious award in physics and the first Canadian female scientist to do so.
BELOW: Canadian winner quotes Cyndi Lauper in Nobel Prize speech
Strickland and French scientist Gerard Mourou discovered Chirped Pulse Amplification, a technique that underpins today’s short-pulse, high-intensity lasers, which have become a key part of corrective eye surgeries.
During a Q&A period with students, Strickland admitted things weren’t always easy during her career.
“I had failures my whole career,” she said. “I broke things and I had to live with that, and the fact it that would kill the project because once the piece was broken, there was no money to buy another one.
“But mostly I would just keeping moving forward.”
Strickland said she continues to study and work with ultra-intense pulse lasers at the University of Waterloo.
As part of the ceremony at GCVI, Strickland received an updated alumni plaque.
A mural dedicated to Strickland was also unveiled and will hang in the school near the physics room.
Comments