Women in STEM: Dr Francesca Chadha-Day

Dr Fran Day is a theoretical physicist, a research fellow at Peterhouse, and a science comedian. Here, she tells us about her lifelong love of physics, her work on dark matter and particles called axions, and the high that comes with making a roomful of people laugh. I can't remember a time when I didn't want to be a physicist. That's always been my ambition, because it's the most fundamental thing in the universe, so that's what I wanted to study. I went through school knowing that I wanted to be a physicist, so I had a lot of drive. I read about quantum physics and bought books by Richard Feynman, which I found really beautiful and inspiring. I've never had a problem seeing a woman as a scientist.