Pulsars and prizes: In conversation with Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell

In the late 1960s Cambridge PhD student Jocelyn Bell Burnell was studying quasars (very luminous active galactic nuclei) when she reported anomalous data which was later identified as pulsars (‘pulsating stars’).

While she was controversially missed off the list for the Nobel Prize awarded in 1974 for this discovery, Bell Burnell continued to be a pioneer in the field.

Now nearing the end of her career, Dame Jocelyn tells Research Features what it was like to grow up in Northern Ireland, be the only woman in a male-dominated environment, and what space research looks like in the era of AI technology.

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Transcript

Hello, I'm Todd. Welcome to Research Pod.

In the late 1960s, then-Cambridge PhD student Jocelyn Bell Burnell was studying quasars when she reported anomalous data—later identified as pulsars, or pulsating stars.

While she was controversially left off the list for the Nobel Prize awarded in 1974 for this discovery, Bell Burnell continued as a lifelong pioneer in the field.

Years later, she became only the second woman in history to receive the Royal Society's Copley Medal in 2021. In 2018, she was awarded the staggering £2.3 million Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, which she donated to advance opportunities for women and other underrepresented groups in science.

Now, nearing the end of her career, Bell Burnell tells our sister publication Research Outreach what it was like to grow up in Northern Ireland as the only woman in a male-dominated world—and what space research looks like in today's era of AI technology.

I know you grew up in Northern Ireland. I was wondering, what sort of environment was that like when you were first getting into science?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
Northern Ireland was a tricky place—particularly when I was of school age, and actually continuing until very recently. There was considerable friction between Protestant and Catholic communities. They lived separately, went to different schools and churches, and didn’t really mix. There was quite a bit of slander circulating in both communities about the other.

My family was Quaker, which wasn't considered proper Protestant, but wasn't Catholic either. So to some extent, Quakers could act as a bridge between communities. I think they’ve done that quite well, particularly in big cities like Belfast. It was harder in rural communities because the numbers were smaller. So yes, it was a tense place because of that friction.

It also wasn’t the most liberated part of the UK. The tacit assumption was that girls would get married, stay at home, and be wives and mothers. They weren’t expected to be part of the workforce.

For example, we all had to sit an exam at age 11 or 12, and there was a higher pass mark for girls. Partly because girls at that age are often a bit brighter than boys, too many girls were passing—so the standard was raised for them to make space for the boys to get into good secondary schools. The assumption was that girls wouldn’t actually use that education anyway. They were only going to be stay-at-home wives and mothers.

That kind of discrimination wouldn’t have happened elsewhere in the UK, but it did in Northern Ireland. And it lasted well past the year 2000.

Todd Beanlands:
So you had to face that firsthand growing up in Northern Ireland, and then again—as I know has been covered quite a lot—at Cambridge too. You've spoken about imposter syndrome and feeling a bit out of place as a woman in a male-dominated environment like radio astronomy.

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
Yes, Cambridge was very male-dominated. There were three women’s colleges and about thirty for men—so that gives you an idea of the imbalance. And in the sciences, it was even more stark. Women were very few and far between.

Todd Beanlands:
Did your experiences in Northern Ireland—the kind of institutional conflict—prepare you in any way for Cambridge? Did they help build resilience for those kinds of male-dominated environments?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
I think my resilience developed gradually over a number of years.

It wasn’t fashionable for girls to study physics anywhere in the UK, but I wanted to do it. At school, people would ask, “How can you bear to do physics?” As an undergraduate, I was the only female in a class of 50 doing honours physics.

It was the tradition—note the inverted commas—that when a woman entered the lecture hall, all the guys would whistle, stamp, catcall, and bang their desks. So you had to be very clear on why you were doing physics to stand up to that.

Todd Beanlands:
And that was during your undergraduate in Cambridge?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
No, I did my undergraduate degree in Glasgow. I only went to Cambridge for my PhD.

Todd Beanlands:
Right, got it. I think when I first contacted you, it was around the time Galactica was honouring women past and present as role models in science. How does it feel to be seen as the “go-to” woman in science?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
You have to behave impeccably. That’s the biggest issue. Mind your P’s and Q’s, as we say.

Todd Beanlands:
Does that put pressure on you?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
Oh yes, definitely. You have to be careful all the time. If you do something really stupid, there’s a risk someone might say, “See, trust a woman—no more women!” I’m exaggerating a little, but it’s the kind of reaction you can trigger.

Todd Beanlands:
Has that changed at all?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
Yes, it’s getting a lot better—particularly in astrophysics. There are a lot of women in that field now. Less so in the rest of physics, but astrophysics has a strong presence of women.

Todd Beanlands:
Would you be able to share any experiences where that pressure became evident?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
My mind immediately goes blank.

Todd Beanlands:
One classic example is the Nobel Prize controversy in the early 1970s. Do you still reflect on that?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
I think awarding bodies are much more careful now, so it happens less. But I suspect there’s still some bias, even if it’s unconscious. Committees are often predominantly male—men tend to think of men, women tend to think of women. If women are underrepresented on the awarding committees, they’re likely to be underrepresented among the awardees too.

Todd Beanlands:
Would you be able to briefly explain the research you were doing in 1967 before the Nobel Prize awards?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
I was a PhD student at Cambridge, having done my undergraduate degree in Scotland. I joined a project aimed at finding more quasars—at the time, only about 20 had been identified. By the end of my research, I’d brought that number up to about 200.

I spent two years helping build the equipment and was the first person to use it. In the UK, PhD students are usually funded for three years—so it was two years of construction, six months of operating the equipment, and six months of data analysis, thesis writing, and wrapping up.

I wasn’t alone in building the equipment—there were about six of us—but I did a fair amount of the physical work. I could swing a sledgehammer! By the end, I was playing field hockey and could hit the ball from one end of the pitch to the other. The forwards never learned—they’d just watch it go by and say, “Jocelyn, how are we meant to get that?”

Working outdoors made me very fit and tanned. People would ask, “Where have you been skiing?” which didn’t amuse me, because working in the cold, wet Cambridge winter was anything but glamorous.

As the sole user of the equipment, I was extremely thorough—partly due to imposter syndrome and partly to ensure the system worked as designed. There was one anomaly—a tiny quarter-inch blip on 24 feet of paper recording a day’s data. That anomaly turned out to be the first evidence of pulsars.

Todd Beanlands:
Was that physical intensity at Cambridge something you were consciously aware of? Did it help build resilience?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
No, I wasn’t thinking about resilience at the time—it was more about survival. Working outdoors in the cold and wet was tough. It was all about getting through the day and warming up indoors again.

Todd Beanlands:
Do you see that environment now as both mentally and physically demanding?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
Yes, definitely. Very physical—probably more so than most other graduate students in radio astronomy at the time. Science has become more miniaturised now, so there’s less heavy lifting involved.

Todd Beanlands:
I was listening to your interview with Jim Al-Khalili from around 2011, where you said equipment for detecting pulsars was limited at the time. You also mentioned following the field closely. That was nearly 15 years ago—what developments have you noticed since?

Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell:
Things have definitely quieted down a bit, and I follow the field less closely now. But one big development is the discovery of Fast Radio Bursts—single, powerful pulses from distant galaxies. Some of them repeat, and they’re now a very dynamic area of research. A lot of the same equipment and techniques used in pulsar research are used for this, so there's a natural crossover.

Pulsar research itself has become more routine, but we’re using pulsars in new and interesting ways—like studying the early universe. So the field has evolved.