CONTENTS - L'Oréal

My life as a young scientist
L’ORÉAL-UNESCO FOR WOMEN IN SCIENCE 2005
L’ORÉAL-UNESCO AWARDS 2005: The Laureates
“France has always favoured mathematics in school
studies. As a child, I liked the subject a lot, but after
entering the Ecole Normale de Paris I came to prefer
physics because at that level mathematics seemed too
abstract, too far removed from reality. This was the time
of the great structural abstractions of the Bourbaki
style. Actually, my father wanted me to become an
engineer, but he was very proud when I was admitted to
the Ecole Normale and supported me in my desire to do
research in physics. The subject of my thesis - light
scattering by liquid surfaces - was given to me by my
adviser, M.A. Bouchiat, and I greatly enjoyed working in
the field. I am now using the knowledge I have built up
about these types of surfaces over the years. I am
applying it to systems such as foams and emulsions
which have many applications even though their
properties are still not clearly understood and there is a
dearth of ideas about how to formulate them effectively.
My research seeks to understand, from a fundamental
point of view, how to stabilize the interfaces of these
systems.”
The impenetrable ways of science
“There are happy and unexpected surprises in research.
I had not imagined that my work would be important in
the context of space exploration. It is vital to know how
foam would behave in the absence of gravity - how
fire-fighting foams would operate in the International
Space Station, for example. Also, on Mars there would
be no materials, so they would have to be brought from
Earth and, since weight would be a factor, the idea would
be that instead of using pure materials you would foam
them, make materials like the polymer foams with which
everyone is familiar and which you have in seats and to
insulate bottles against heat or cold. The idea is to use
our knowledge about the behaviour of foams in reduced
gravity to make foamy material on Mars.”
Don’t wait for inspiration or a stroke of genius
When she is asked to describe her moments of
enlightenment, Dominique Langevin gives an
experimentalist perspective. “Problems untangle only
after you have done and redone many, many
experiments under different conditions. It is a
continuous process of collecting data, comparing them
with theory, improving the theory or finding another one,
doing more experiments, and so on. In some cases it can
be having an idea about a new material, a way to process
it, transposing one scientific field into another domain,
or an intuition. All these elements are generally mixed
up together. Only in a very few cases has the solution
come quickly. My record, I think, is one day for the idea,
the set-up and the recording of data: this was for the
investigation of the orientation of liquid crystal
molecules at the surface.
“So I would recommend that a young woman who wants
to succeed should choose a suitable research project
and a good group, work hard and get to know a large
number of people in her discipline so as to establish
collaborations, since science is no longer a subject for
isolated individuals. And she should never forget that
family and children are important too - if not more
important. She will also need a bit of luck. But, as
Pasteur said, ‘Chance favours the prepared mind.’ I was
lucky to have been inspired and influenced by Pierre
Gilles de Gennes, who introduced me to my beloved field
of research - soft matter.”