▲ Photos of the award ceremony
On June 23, local time, the World Outstanding Female Scientists Achievement Award award ceremony was held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France.
This is the first award since the outbreak of the global new crown epidemic in 2019. For the first time since then, the offline awards ceremony has been restarted, commending a total of 15 "outstanding female scientists" (2020, 2021, 2022) and 30 "most promising female scientists" (2020, 2022) in the world for three sessions. Among them, Chinese scientists Hu Hailan won the "World Outstanding Female Scientist Achievement Award" in 2022.
▲ Jean-Paul Agon (first from right), Chairman of the Board of Directors of L'Oreal and Chairman of the L'Oreal Corporate Foundation, Audrey Agon, Director-General of UNESCO Audrey Azoulay (first from left) awards Professor Hu Hailan (middle) the 2022 "World Outstanding Female Scientist Achievement Award"
Hu Hailan: Scientific research is like a marathon with an unknown end point
Because of major discoveries in social and emotional neuroscience, Hu Hailan, Dean of the School of Brain Science and Brain Medicine at Zhejiang University, was awarded the 2022 "World Outstanding Female Scientist Achievement Award".
She has long been committed to studying the neural coding and regulatory mechanisms of social behavior and emotion, especially on the basis of depression He has made creative and systematic results in translational research; revealed that acquired experience can change innate weaknesses by reshaping neural circuits; and faced the challenges of depression, a major disease, from multiple levels such as molecules, cells and systems. It provides a new explanation of the cause and provides new ideas for the development of better and safer antidepressant drugs.
Hu Hailan is the seventh Chinese winner since the establishment of the award. The first six are electron microscopyist Li Fanghua , neurobiologist Ye Yuru , inorganic chemist Ren Yonghua , inorganic chemistry home Xie Yi , animal infectious disease and preventive veterinary medicine expert Chen Hualan , vertebrate paleontologist Zhang Miman .
▲Professor Hu Hailan gave a special report at the French Academy of Sciences on June 21, local time
After winning the award, she said that this is also an honor for Chinese female scientists. She hopes that more young women will understand science, love science, and become One of the female scientists. She believes that more Chinese female scientists will win awards in the near future.
Hu Hailan also mentioned that in the face of science, gender is equal. “The hypotheses we propose, the experiments we design, and the conclusions we draw will not have a higher or lower accuracy or success rate just because we are women. Rate".
"If one day the proportion of female scientists reaches 50% or higher, and people no longer subconsciously think that this is special and rare, I believe that this gender label will disappear naturally." Hu Hailan said, "Definitely To emphasize or isolate such a gender characteristic is itself an act of labeling."
At the same time, she believes that the label of "younger" should not be overemphasized. "The media likes to report on young people becoming famous, but when it comes to scientific work, we should especially avoid the mentality of being eager for quick success and quick success. Scientific research has its own laws and time."
In her eyes, scientific research is like a marathon with an unknown end point. "Sometimes it's fast, sometimes it's slow, sometimes I have a companion, sometimes I have to persevere alone, but the charm of not knowing where the end point is always makes you full of hope."
▲Hu Hailan
The world needs science, Science Needs Women
The World's Outstanding Female Scientists Award is co-organized by the L'Oréal Corporate Foundation and UNESCO. The award was established in 1998. Every year, five female scientists from different regions around the world are selected to commend their contributions to solving important scientific problems through their pioneering work and to provide support for their scientific research careers.
Previously, due to the impact of the epidemic, the award was forced to cancel two awards ceremonies.This award ceremony was held grandly, on the one hand, to show the world the extraordinary contributions and achievements of these outstanding women; on the other hand, it also reminded the public that in the scientific world, the "glass ceiling " for women still exists.
L'Oréal-UNESCO "World Outstanding Female Scientists Achievement Award" hopes to give outstanding scientific research women around the world a stage of honor, let the world see their light, and let them inspire more women to understand and fall in love with science. Release potential, pursue the ultimate, overcome more problems for human health and the world, create more possibilities, and promote world progress.
▲ Group photo of award-winning female scientists
At this award ceremony, 30 winners of the "Most Promising Female Scientist Award" were commended. They represent the younger generation of scientists tackling important global challenges and calling for change. Among them, Bai Rui, a post-90s scientific rising star from West Lake University, won the 2020 "Most Promising Female Scientist Award" for her breakthrough research on the molecular mechanism of the RNA spliceosome.
"In top scientific fields, women are still a minority. This phenomenon deserves our attention and efforts to improve it." As an award representative, Professor Edith Heard, winner of the 2020 "World Female Scientists Achievement Award", The speech emphasized that science needs more women to join.
"The world of science needs diversity and inclusion. The door of science is open to everyone - regardless of gender, nationality, race or culture. Diversity can bring continuous power to innovation and performance. There are more women participating in the team , will help create better results, richer creativity and more possibilities,” she said.
