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takyon writes:

Bell Burnell: Physics star gives away £2.3m prize

One of the UK's leading female astronomers is to donate her £2.3m winnings from a major science prize she was awarded. The sum will go to fund women, under-represented ethnic minority and refugee students to become physics researchers.

Prof Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell has been awarded a Breakthrough Prize for the discovery of radio pulsars. This was also the subject of the physics Nobel in 1974, but her male collaborators received the award. The Breakthrough award also recognises her scientific leadership.

Prof Bell Burnell believes that under-represented groups - who will benefit from the donation - will bring new ideas to the field. "I don't want or need the money myself and it seemed to me that this was perhaps the best use I could put to it," she told BBC News. Prof Bell Burnell's story has been both an inspiration and motivation for many female scientists. As a research student when pulsars were discovered, she was not included in the Nobel prize citation - despite having been the first to observe and analyse the astronomical objects (a type of neutron star that emits a beam of radiation).

Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

Also at NPR and Live Science.

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