Donna Strickland Quotes

Donna Strickland

Profession : Physicist

Birth : May 27, 1959

Gérard Mourou, who was my PhD supervisor, dreamed up the idea of increasing laser intensity by orders of magnitude. He did it while he was on a ski trip with his family. He probably shouldn't have been thinking about lasers.

Donna Strickland

I've always been treated as an equal.

Donna Strickland

The most fun part of my day is when I get to play with my lasers.

Donna Strickland

I got paid the same as my male counterpart grad students and onward.

Donna Strickland

I was a very shy kid and both my best friend and my sister went to Waterloo, and I just thought no I can't, I can't go there because I'll just hang on to them and no one will even know who the heck I am and that's no way to go through life.

Donna Strickland

McMaster had an engineering physics program and... one of the parts of it was lasers and electro-optics and I just said, 'Now doesn't that sound cool. I just got to do that.'

Donna Strickland

I still try to make different types of lasers that other people don't have.

Donna Strickland

I've now been encouraged by many people to apply and so I did apply and I have now been made, full professor. I'm happy about that.

Donna Strickland

If somebody else thinks something that you don't believe in, just think they're wrong and you're right and keep going. That's pretty much the way I always think.

Donna Strickland

I feel that women should start to get to be recognized more because for some reason not all men want to recognize us or not all people, but I think that's a minority. I think the majority of people are ready.

Donna Strickland

We must give scientists the opportunity through funding and time to pursue curiosity-based, long-term, basic-science research.

Donna Strickland

We proved that we could increase laser intensity by orders of magnitude. In fact, CPA led to the most intense laser pulses ever recorded. Our findings changed the world's understanding of how atoms interact with high-intensity light.

Donna Strickland

Because the high-intensity pulses are short, the laser only damages the area where it's applied. The result is precise, clean cuts that are ideal for transparent materials.

Donna Strickland

It is understandable that people want to know how it affects them. But as a scientist, I would hope society would be equally interested in fundamental science.

Donna Strickland

My PhD was not fast out of the gate.

Donna Strickland

My parents were definitely the biggest influence in my life.

Donna Strickland

We read to our kids at bedtime because we want to have literacy, but what are we doing to make sure kids are equally fascinated by science?

Donna Strickland