Daphne Jackson graduated in Physics from Imperial College in 1958. She then moved to Battersea College of Technology (later the University of Surrey), where she began her research in Theoretical Nuclear Physics and was awarded a PhD in 1962.
Daphne was appointed Professor of Physics at Surrey in 1971, and was the first (for many years the only) woman professor of physics in Britain.
She felt strongly about the great waste of talent and resources resulting when women scientists and engineers laid aside their careers for a time because of family commitments and found themselves unable to return.
With this in mind, she devised the Women Returners Scheme that after her death became the Daphne Jackson Memorial Fellowships Trust in 1992. To date 178 Fellowships have been awarded.
The trust are acknowledged as the foremost returners’ scheme in the country and the only charitable Trust in the UK dedicated to retraining scientists and returning them to their careers.
Fellowship sponsors from the oil and gas industry in the past have been : BP (1.5), Shell (1) and BG (3). Currently the cost of a two year fellowship is ~£50,000.
For further details email;
heuristic.support@googlemail.com
or go to http://www.daphnejackson.org/