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How Nancy Hopkins and her tape measure revealed the extent of sexism in science | Nature

By Alexandra Witze, March 27, 2023

Nancy Hopkins showed how the Masschusetts Institute of Technology systematically awarded more lab space to men.Credit: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

Nancy Hopkins’s professional career has been partly defined by the ‘great men of biology’ she has worked with. Hopkins, a molecular biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), recounts being mentored by James Watson, yelled at by Eric Lander, slighted by David Baltimore and groped by Francis Crick.

But her actual legacy rests in her scientific achievements in cancer biology and zebrafish genetics — and in the attention she drew to discrimination against women in science.

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