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It's still hard for women in science

In 1963, Radcliffe undergraduate Nancy Hopkins ’64, PhD ’71, was struck by the elegance of the double helix. In one clarifying instant, almost like a moment of conversion, Hopkins decided to devote her life to science. Twenty years later Hopkins was a professor at MIT, a leading cancer researcher, and a pioneer in the use of zebrafish in the study of genetics—but she had to spend much of her time haggling with the MIT administration for enough lab space.