Guardian Unlimited: Athene Donald was never the kind of child who liked taking radios to pieces. But she did like to know how things worked ― "a more intellectual making sense". And she was only a couple of years into secondary school when she found something that offered the answers. "As soon as I was taught physics I thought, 'this is wonderful'," she says.

Now professor of experimental physics in Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory, she has just become a laureate in the For Women in Science awards, set up by L'Oreal, the cosmetics company, and Unesco on the premise that "the world needs science and science needs women." One laureate is chosen per continent each year, and Donald is only the second British scientist to be chosen in the program's 10-year history.