By Miriam Boon

Persis Drell, Director of Research (Photo by Diana Rogers)

Discover Magazine, in their November 2002 issue, has named Persis Drell, SLAC Director of Research one of the 50 most important women in science.

Kathy Svitil, an Associate Editor for Discover Magazine, began her search for innovative and influential women over three years ago. "We wanted women who were groundbreakers," she said, "whose work was making a difference, who were, or had, crashed through barriers."

Svitil collected names of women who might fit the bill by looking through journals, newspaper and magazine articles, awards lists and more. She sent out a call for academic, scientific and industrial sources to put forward candidates from their ranks. "In the end I must have had over 500 names," she said. Svitil and Gay Daly, Senior Editor for Discover Magazine, then winnowed the group down to 50 exceptional women. Drell was among those chosen.

For Svitil and Daly, Drell was an easy and immediate choice. "She fit every criteria we had: powerful, influential, important." As Svitil describes, SLAC is one of the two great particle physics labs in the country, and Drell runs the research program here. Because of this, Drell has a "responsibility for shaping a large part of the high-energy research in the entire field."

Being a woman in physics has not been easy. Among SLAC’s 500-plus physicists, less than 50 are female. Drell reminisces that in her first-year graduate school courses, she was scared to ask questions because if they turned out to be "dumb," everyone would remember it was she who asked—she was the only woman in a class of 45. "I got over that feeling!" she said.

Later in her career, Drell struggled with issues caused by the possibility that she received opportunities because she was a woman. "I was never very comfortable with that, but after a while I just felt that if someone offered me an opportunity it was up to me to make the most of it and I shouldn’t worry what their motives were."