Important women in science: Anneke Levelt-Sengers & Marileen Dogterom

The NNV celebrates its 100th anniversary by putting two female Physicists in the spotlight every other month: one from the past and one who is active today. In doing so, they bring attention to how women fared in Dutch physics over the past 100 years. This issue revolves around Anneke Levelt and Marileen Dogterom.

Anneke Levelt - Sengers (1929-): formidable physicist who also helped others advance

"Sociologists have provided convincing evidence of the prejudices against women that exist even in the natural sciences which nevertheless pride themselves on their objectivity."

After a PhD with A.F.J.M. Michels in Amsterdam, Anneke Levelt Sengers and her husband Jan Sengers left for the United States where she was allowed to work. There she became the 'most thermodynamic woman of the world'.

Marileen Dogterom (1967-): inequality in the profession reflects that in society

"An ambitious student who was sensitive to the opinions of others would have been crazy to choose biophysics in those years."

Some thirty years later, Marjolein Dogterom also left for the United States. But unlike Levelt Sengers, Dogterom was subsequently able to work in the Netherlands: she now leads a research group in Delft and is, among other things, vice president of the KNAW.

Read the full issue of the NNV here.