Julie Gould 00:09
Hello, and welcome to Working Scientist, a Nature Careers podcast. I’m Julie Gould.
This is the sixth episode in a series on female scientists in Latin America.
I’ve had my eyes opened in this series. It’s been such a pleasure to speak with so many interesting and inspiring women in science from Latin America - to learn how they’re facing their challenges and finding ways around barriers.
In this episode I want you to meet someone who has made such an impact in their field that they’ve opened doors for thousands of people.
María Teresa Dova is a professor of physics at the University of la Plata in Argentina. She was also there for her PhD in condensed matter physics, which she finished in 1988.
After that she faced a decision: to continue on her chosen path as a postdoc in France, or to pivot to a high energy particle physics position at CERN in Switzerland, which three of her professors were encouraging her to do.
In the end she applied for both and trusted to fate. But one day she arrived at work to find two envelopes on her desk, with each one offering her a postdoc position.
Julie Gould: 01:35
First you said I’m going to leave it to fate to decide which one comes first, but in the end, you had to make the decision. How did you make that decision? How did you process that?
María Teresa Dova 01:45
It was a huge challenge, because it was not my area, particle physics.
I got a lot of support from these professors. They said “No, no, we can, we can prepare you. You can do this and then think about the future.”
Because you know we have here in Argentina, we have a long tradition of particle physics, but from the theoretical point of view. So we didn’t have the experimental part.
So he said you could then, after, you know having this experience, you could create your own group in experimental high energy physics, and of course, we will be always supporting you and so on.
So I thought, “Okay, why not?” I started looking at all the experiments at CERN. And in particular, the experiment, L3. That was where I work (one of the four experiments in the accelerator, the Large Electron Positron Collider). And then I said, this is what I want.
Julie Gould: 02:52
So you were looking to travel abroad anyway, whether it was to Lyon or to Switzerland, to Geneva, but you also had a family, am I right?
María Teresa Dova 03:01
Yes, yes. When I was between my, let’s say, 20, and 30, I was like a storm, I wanted to do everything.
And I had this idea, “No, no not at 30, you are already old. You have to do everything before!”
You know, this kind of crazy ideas. And then well, I met this wonderful guy who helped me a lot and supported me a lot.
And really, he knew what I wanted for my career. And he helped me also to do what I wanted to achieve.
So yes, we went, the whole family, with these two kids to Geneva. So I was working at CERN, and he was doing the things at home, taking the kids to school, and so on.
Juile Gould: 03:55
Okay, that can’t have been easy to uproot your entire family, from, from Latin America to Europe.
Because you’re, not just the fact that you’re moving a whole family, but the language is different, the cultures are different, you know?
María Teresa Dova 04:07
It was more difficult for us and for the kids. You know, I think that two months after we arrived, my son was already speaking French as if he had done that for an entire life.
Because kids are amazing in that sense. They have this facility to accommodate to new situations.
Julie Gould: 04:31
Absolutely, kids are very adaptable.
María Teresa Dova 04:34
It was a challenge for the whole family. And it was a challenge for me because I was new in the field. And really, I wanted to show that even though I was a woman from Latin America, I was able to do any kind of analysis and that my production would be the same as a man from the Global North, you know?
So I work a lot. Because at the beginning, you know, I was a woman from Latin America, from Argentina. But then, you know, my colleagues, I think they realized that my education was really at the highest level.
So I think that after two-three months, that were very, very difficult, because I was trying to accommodate everything, you know?
Family, work, a new subject, and very demanding. But after three months, I was part of the team and I was contributing at the same level as anyone else.
Julie Gould: 05:46
And did you feel any pressure for the fact that you were the first Latin American woman on the team?
María Teresa Dova 05:54
You know, I was the only Latin American person in the whole collaboration.
So I was really a singularity there.
No, I think, I think that, you know, I met great people there. Still I have some of my best friends in the world are from, from that time?
Julie Gould: 06:16
And what about the subject matter itself? Did you fall in love with high energy particle physics?
María Teresa Dova: 06:21
Yeah, of course. Yeah, immediately, you know. I think that the first time I went to the bit where the detector was installed, “Oh my God, what is this? I mean, I’m so lucky to be here!”
Because, you know, I was born in a very small town in province of Buenos Aires, so I couldn't imagine that coming from this small town I was there in the best laboratory in high energy physics in the world. And that I was part of that. So it was really a dream come true.
Julie Gould: 07:04
That’s wonderful. So how long did you stay there for?
María Teresa Dova: 07:09
More or less, two and a half years or so. So after that, well I returned to Argentina. and well I wanted to be a professor here, because it was a way also to give back to my university - the education, that was, you know, at the highest level in the world,
I realized when I was with people from Harvard from Oxford, and from the best universities in the world.
So I got a position as a professor here at the University of La Plata. And I started the experimental high energy group. That was all according to the plan.
Yeah, the thing is that, you know, it’s not easy to start from scratch, because you need to encourage students to start with you, to get funds.
Always this is the most difficult part in my country: to convince the authorities in science and technology that what you are doing is really, it’s very good for the country, and that you deserve those funds because it’s a good idea. It’s a good project.
And also, at that time, there was in the community, this idea that we could build a cosmic ray observatory here in Argentina.
And then I thought, “Okay, I change already once from condensed matter to high energy physics. And this is more or less in the interface between high energy physics and natural particle physics. Why not?”
So well, I, I received the visit of Jim Cronin, a Nobel Prize and one one of the founders of Pierre Auger observatory, here in La Planta.
And he put forward a proposal for for us to join in the project, this new collaboration. And also he offered me to lead the, one of the groups, a very important group in charge of the simulations. And that was very important because with that group, somehow, we have the challenge to define this new instrument to detect cosmic ray particles.
So I thought, “Oh, my God, so many new things.” And again, challenge. But who would say no to Jim Cronin?
You know, I mean, his enthusiasm was really contagious. So it was impossible to say no to him. So I started again a new subject.
And it was also great, because then my group join the Pierre Auger observatory. And I also helped define all the, the scientific analysis on the scientific part of all the groups in Argentina.
And after a while, I was elected Chair of the collaboration board, at the Pierre Auger Observatory, and then re-elected for a second term.
So I contributed a lot, and I enjoyed a lot. I think that also working Jim Cronin was one of the highest honours in my professional career.
Julie Gould 10:29
From there María Teresa got involved in conversations about CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, and the ATLAS Collaboration, one of the largest collaborative efforts ever attempted in science. And with a particular focus on putting an Argentinian stamp on things, but to do that she needed to get financial support from Argentina.
María Teresa Dova 10:47
And at that time, I was really lucky, because the president of the founding nations was a scientist who understand my idea He, he understood immediately how important it would be for Argentina to be part of this, because, you know, we could have many returns.
This would give the opportunity to young students, young researchers to work at the frontier of knowledge, you know, with the possibility of extraordinary discoveries, but also developing new technologies. So he understood and he said, “I think we have to do this.”
But if you are in Argentina, in this southern town, in the collaboration, at the moment, it’s very difficult. You need a huge amount of money for mobility and to send the students.
And for the students to be there. It is very important because of the visibility. Because I always have great students, but it’s important if people know them. So it’s important for them to have visibility, to be there.
So that was really a problem. But then something happened again. And that was that the European Union opened a call for a project for mobility between Latin America and Europe.
Fantastic really fantastic. So Luciana Maiani, former director of CERN laboratory, he said, we have to do this. And he called me and people from Chile and from Brazil and from Mexico.
And we wrote a proposal and we got the money. So that was wonderful. That was fantastic. Because without that, I’m not sure that we could have had such an impact in the collaboration.
So this project, it was called Helen project. And then we got a second project that was called iPlanet. I think that not only for Argentinians, but also for people from Chile, from Brazil and Mexico. This was so important.
Julie Gould: 13:03
And how did it feel for you, you know, after first being, you know, the first Latin American person, as well as female to be working at CERN. And then, you know, years later to come back with the first Argentinian team to be working at Atlas. Like how did that feel for you, when when it finally all got accepted? And you were there with your team?
María Teresa Dova: 13:27
Yeah. Oh, no, that was incredible. I mean, they they I still remember very well that they you know, you apply, you send a letter of intent, this is discuss among the collaboration.
And then the collaboration board will vote if you are accepted as a new country as a new group in the experiment, or not.
So you have to wait outside while they are discussing. And so the meeting, the collaboration board meeting was In the main auditorium at CERN.
And I was outside in the corridor. You know, I thought okay, everything will go well and we will be accepted. But like you are outside and they are discussing, you know, inside.
And at certain moment, Peter Jenni opened the door and he called me and and now I will cry, you know, because that was incredible because everybody was rounds of applause and welcome to the collaboration. It was one of those moments, a very important moment.
So, you know, I thought, Argentina is in. Now, I’m sure we will play a very important role. And then cause we have great students, and I love this physics and the whole idea of this international collaborations. You know, or something. Argentina because of this is part of the largest collaboration, international collaboration in the world. It’s so Wow, fantastic.
Julie Gould: 15:17
I know, you were just talking about the moment when you found out that you you were accepted onto the Atlas collaboration, as a team from Argentina. Reflecting on that part of your career, how does that feel for you to have to have started something like this?
María Teresa Dova: 15:33
I don’t know why, how to say. It was like a train, you know, going, hurtling forward to the finish line, even without tracks sometimes.
So I knew I wanted to give these possibilities to the new generations, because I think this is the most important part. You know, one day I will not be here, but they will be around, they will be also working in these huge collaborations.
And then, I don’t know, FCC, you know, we have a future, amazing future in high energy physics.
And I feel like I opened the doors, and they will do the rest.
So this is my legacy somehow, to the younger generations.
And I never thought much about that. It was a project and then a new project.
And then some idea, something that was in the atmosphere like this cosmic ray observatory that would be building my country. And then you know, this possibility to join Atlas. And then, you know, I'm always thinking, Okay, what could be next?
Julie Gould: 17:01
I want to ask you, you’ve mentioned already in our conversation that in your other challenges, and, you know, roads, to the dreams that have come true, that you spent a lot of time knocking on doors and trying to find ways to make them happen. And you said, Yeah, I think you said the phrase was, you know, I might have had some successes, but there are also a lot of things that didn’t work. And that didn’t happen. But you continued. Anyway, despite, despite the fact that those didn’t happen.
María Teresa Dova 17:35
Yes. Yes. Because you know, when you want something, you don’t have time to start crying, okay, this was not possible, let’s try a different path,
You know, the amount of things that I’ve done to get money, to send my students to CERN, you know, I have the bilateral agreements with Slovenia, with Spain, with France, because they could pay my students to go to Madrid or to go to Lubjliana. And then for me, it was easier to send them to CERN.
So I have to write all those proposals. And of course, we have to do something for this common project. So I have colleagues all over the world.
Julie Gould: 18:22
I know that as you’ve mentioned, as well, that the political challenges in Argentina are making it very difficult for scientists, not just in physics, but you know, across the board, to continue with their work to continue with their research.
But I believe that there’s something in you, something in your spirit and the way that you continue no matter what, and you continue knocking on doors no matter what, that I think is so wonderful.
So I wondered if you could share some advice for other scientists across Latin America and in Argentina, who are maybe facing challenges, barriers, closed doors, anything like that, like how do you advise them to, to keep going and to keep trying, no matter what?
María Teresa Dova: 19:05
You need a dream. You need to be determined to achieve that and then try, just try and explain that what you want to do is important for future generations, it’s important for the country, because as Bernardo Houssay, (Bernardo Houssay was the first president of the National Research Council, CONICET).
He created CONICET, and he got the Nobel Prize in Medicine in, I think, 1947. And he said “science is not expensive, expensive is ignorance.”
And I use that. And we use that. Because it's really what you have to say to the people in the government. That’s what you have to say, you have to convince them that your project is very important for the country.
Julie Gould: 20:10
I have no more questions for you. But is there anything else that you would like to say about either your career or being a female scientist in Latin America, or any other pieces of advice that you would like to offer?
María Teresa Dova: 20:24
As you said, being female in STEM is difficult. I think that… well, at the moment, the situation is difficult in Argentina, for, for science, for the whole community, not only for females.
But let's think that in a future, maybe a near future, we are in a better position. Then what I think is necessary is to help the young researchers when they want to also form a family. So I think that we have to push for parental leave. And this kind of things that will make an impact.
Julie Gould: 21:11
It’s been absolutely amazing listening to your story, and I, I am in awe of the doors that you have opened for scientists and physicists in Argentina and Latin America.
Maria Teresa, thank you so much for spending the time talking to me and sharing your stuff.
María Teresa Dova: 21:28
Thank you because really, you know, to put all the things together sometimes this is also important for my soul.
Julie Gould: 21:41
Thanks for listening. I’m Julie Gould.