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Zhen Xu, Ellen Roche and Xiwen Gong (left to proper) are this 12 months’s recipients of the Sony Women in Technology Award with Nature.Credit: Sony
On International Women’s Day (8 March), researchers round the world will honour women’s contributions to research. At Nature, we have now launched a special collection of articles recognizing remarkable individuals. We additionally report on a few of the challenges that stand in the approach of true gender equality, and function research developments that might make a distinction, particularly to women’s well being.
International Women’s Day
All women in research deserve recognition for the useful and different contributions they make — and not simply on International Women’s Day. In this Editorial, we spotlight three excellent researchers. They are the recipients of the 2026 Sony Women in Technology Award with Nature, introduced final month at a ceremony in Tokyo. The three prizes recognize outstanding research that benefits society and the planet.
Xiwen Gong, a chemical engineer at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, was awarded the early-career prize for her research in supplies with makes use of from renewable power to well being care. One of Gong’s pursuits is photo voltaic cells produced from a sort of crystalline materials referred to as a perovskite. These photo voltaic cells work equally to silicon-based ones: they produce electrons after absorbing mild. A key distinction, nonetheless, is that the essential light-absorbing layer is the hybrid natural–inorganic perovskites, somewhat than silicon.
These perovskites have potential benefits over silicon, as a result of they produce electrons extra effectively and the layers of light-absorbing materials may be thinner. This means that they need to require much less power to fabricate and, in the end, might be cheaper to provide. But they’re much less secure: their construction can change after publicity to elements similar to mild, warmth and moisture, making them much less dependable than silicon photo voltaic cells.
Women in science are not a ‘problem to be fixed’
Gong and her colleagues have been working to enhance perovskite-cell stability in real-world circumstances, as an example, by incorporating components of assorted shapes and sizes and measuring their results. In 2024, they discovered that cumbersome components result in fewer structural defects than much less cumbersome ones do1.
In the mid-career class, the judges acknowledged biomedical engineer Ellen Roche at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge for her research in advancing implantable and wearable medical gadgets. One such gadget is designed to help the coronary heart muscle in individuals with coronary heart failure by mimicking the organ’s physiological contractions2. Another is a proof of idea for a tool meant to switch or complement mechanical air flow in individuals who have misplaced the operate of their diaphragm on account of progressive neuromuscular illnesses3.
Our second mid-career winner is Zhen Xu, a biomedical engineer and surgeon at the University of Michigan. She has been acknowledged for co-inventing a know-how referred to as histotripsy. It includes utilizing ultrasound to carry out non-invasive surgical procedure concentrating on tumour tissues in organs similar to the liver. The know-how works by producing managed clouds of oscillating microbubbles by means of a course of often known as cavitation. These microbubbles pulverize cells in a focused approach, with out producing warmth or ionizing radiation. In 2023, greater than ten years after Xu’s discovery4, histotripsy was permitted by the US Food and Drug Administration for the remedy of liver tumours.
On the shoulders of giants
Although they’re engaged on various issues, these three scientists share a dedication to collaboration and working throughout disciplines. The truth that as we speak’s pioneers stand on the shoulders of giants can also be highlighted in a Nature Careers Feature. In it, we requested feminine researchers who had beforehand gained the Sony award, or different Nature prizes, to appoint colleagues who convey out the greatest in them.
‘No one quite like her’: meet the female colleagues who inspire these award-winning women in science
Epidemiologist Chelsea Polis at the Guttmacher Institute in New York City, winner of the 2023 John Maddox Prize, which acknowledges science in the face of adversity, writes of her mentor Onikepe Owolabi, the institute’s vice-president of research: “What truly sets Oni apart is how she lifts others up. She is a deep listener who champions other people’s ideas, encourages colleagues to believe in themselves and inspires them with her own bold ideas and encyclopedic knowledge. Oni has changed the course of my life and career in multiple ways.”
Yating Wan — {an electrical} and pc engineer at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, and one in every of the winners of final 12 months’s Sony awards — writes of her doctoral supervisor Kei May Lau at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology: “She truly cares about her students’ growth. She often says that her proudest achievement is her students and postdocs, and she has always pushed us to aim higher than we thought we could.”
All of our winners, and those that have mentored and supported them, have superior cutting-edge science and are working to enhance the lives of others. On this International Women’s Day, we have fun them and acknowledge that good science comes from beneficiant mentorship, collaboration and mutual assist. Without that recognition, we danger failing not solely these inspirational researchers, but additionally science itself.