Alex: Today we’re meeting a leading light from the world of chemistry. A woman who approaches life with a laugh and a whole lot of ambition. Not to mention::: someone who’s dedicated her career to opening science up to everyone.

Lesley: I'm Lesley Yellowlees. I'm 68. I live in Edinburgh.

Alex: Professor Lesley Yellowlees has spent most of her career at the University of Edinburgh.

Lesley: And I'm a chemist – an electro chemist!

Alex: Lesley has been into science for as long as she can remember. As a child, she would grab her chemistry kit and do all sorts of experiments.

Lesley: I loved science at school, I couldn't abide English. That was not my bag at all. I was good at science and who doesn't like what they're good at. I got science and science got me.

Alex: Lesley didn’t see the appeal of languages or poetry…..

Lesley: But I did see the point of going to chemistry or physics or sitting down with equations to solve or algebra and calculus to do. I enjoyed that hugely, because I liked doing the problem solving. Well I got much more immediate satisfaction from solving a scientific problem than I ever did from writing an essay.

Alex: But it wasn’t as if Lesley was a perfect student or anything – – especially in her least favourite classes.

Lesley: I mean, I wasn't a great pupil at school. I was always getting into trouble.

Alex: Lesley’s all-girls school had a full uniform, complete with a little beret. The girls were even required to wear it outside of school.

Lesley: And I would never wear that beret. So I was always getting in trouble for that. And of course, the punishment for not wearing your beret out of school was you had to wear it all the time in school. But I wasn't upset, I thought it was a bit of a laugh actually.

Alex: Thankfully, Lesley had great science teachers – all women, all PhDs.

Lesley: They were all inspirational. And they all believed in me. And they encouraged me hugely.

Alex: Because it was an all-girls school, wanting to study science was completely normalised -- and remember this would have been back in the 60s.

Lesley: There was nothing odd about liking science, about doing science. The people who did science all did it because they wanted to do it. And they were all girls, and my teachers were all women.

I never questioned, why couldn't I do science? If that was what I was good at and what I enjoyed, why couldn't I go on and study it? Why couldn't I have a career in it? I never came across any barriers to do to studying science, never did.

Alex: Lesley went on to study chemistry at the University of Edinburgh. There were a handful of other girls in the general chemistry classes – but Lesley was the only girl to graduate with an honours in chemical physics.

Lesley: I wanted to become top, I wanted to get the best marks. I like to do well, I like to succeed. If I set myself a goal, I like to achieve it. And that gives me personal satisfaction.

Alex: Lesley sat her end of Year 2 exams and when the time came, she went to find out her results. In those days, the university would post everyone’s names and their results up on a board.

Lesley: I think you're always nervous. A: you want to know that you’ve passed; and B you want to know that you've done well.

Alex: And Lesley had done well. Really well.

Lesley: I’d come top of the class. I’d come first. And when you were first you got a class medal.

Alex: Lesley was thrilled: the medal was hers. But a short while later, during a group tutorial, the lecturer made an announcement to the group.

Lesley: He said, ‘Lesley well done. I just want you to know, however, that there was a lot of discussion about whether you should get the class medal. Because you're a woman and felt that you'll – you'll not take science any further forward, and therefore it would be a waste of time giving you the class medal’ .

And I was absolutely horrified. I mean, I'd won that class medal fair and square. We’d all sat the same exams, we'd all done the same labs. We'd all handed in the same reports. We’d all got everything marked the same and my mark was the best. And yet, because I was female, they didn't want to give me the class medal.

Alex: Now this lecturer was a guy in his late 20s – not much older than Lesley at the time – she respected him. He was telling Lesley that some of the department had debated whether Lesley should be given the medal at all. That she almost didn’t get it. But that he had stood up for her.

Lesley: He obviously was horrified by the conversation. So much so that he felt he had to tell me because actually a lot of people would have just shut up and not said anything. But it obviously got to him that that wasn't fair. And I do believe in fairness. I think people should – you know things should be fair. And he obviously did as well.

But at the end of the day, they said no, no, she's got the marks she gets the class medal and I got the class medal.

Alex: Lesley also had the support of her classmates, the ones in the tutorial who heard what had happened.

Lesley: Because they were so outraged and supportive, I think it made it easier for me to hear so that it wasn't just me that was angry; other people were angry on my behalf.

Alex: She was disappointed with the university……

Lesley: But more than anything just angry. And it brought me up short and realise that perhaps I hadn't got the world quite right. You know, that there was other things going on.

Alex: This experience as an undergraduate was a rude awakening to the sexism that can exist in some scientific communities. In the end though, Lesley doesn’t dwell on the negative – that’s just the kind of person she is.

Lesley: I got the class medal; I've still got it in a box in the drawer in the dining room. It's fair. I've got what was mine. I earned this. I've got it. Good. Now let's go and get the next class medal.

Alex: After her first degree, Lesley travelled the world. She spent some time in Australia, researching solar energy – that would become the focus for much of her work.

She came back to Edinburgh in the early 80s, and began a Phd in inorganic electrochemistry.

Lesley: What I was doing was I was investigating dyes, very coloured materials that absorb the sun's energy and convert it into electricity. And that's what I was studying and thoroughly enjoying it.

Alex: Towards the end of her first year, she spent a long time designing a set of experiments – and then carrying them out.

Lesley: And the results I’d got weren't as we predicted. So I went back and repeated them, because maybe I've done them wrong. And I've got exactly the same set of results.

Alex: So Lesley came up with a theory, a reasoning, behind her results.

Lesley: But I was so excited about it. I was running up to people in the department that had no knowledge of what I was doing and saying, I've got this great discovery! I've discovered this thing and I've done some wonderful experiments and look at the results! I’ll explain it all to you. And seeing results that nobody had seen before and coming up with this theory that nobody had come up with before. It was… it was empowering. It was exciting. I loved it. And luckily people agreed with me that I had perhaps done something that nobody had seen before.

Alex: Up until that moment, Lesley hadn’t been sure exactly what she wanted to do with her career. But this convinced her: she had to pursue scientific research.

Lesley: That is what I want to do. I want to have this feeling again.

Alex: Indeed, Lesley became a pioneer in the field of solar energy research, investigating dye-sensitised solar cells – which have a lot of potential for cheap and flexible solar panels.

In 2012, Lesley was asked to become president of the Royal Society of Chemistry – making her the first female president in the organisation’s 175-year-old history.

Lesley: Which was a huge privilege and a great pleasure. It was the best job I ever did in the whole of my life was being president of the Royal Society of Chemistry. I enjoyed every minute of it. Just before I became president, they said to me, now, what do you want your platform to be? What is it you want to concentrate on in your two year presidency? And I said, Well, I'm your first female president, I think it's a great platform which I can use for equality, diversity, inclusion, and I think the Royal Society, chemistry can use it as well. And they agreed. And they said, Yes, that's fine. That's what we'll concentrate it on. We'll help you and you can help us.

Alex: Lesley has addressed everything from the school curriculum and skills shortages, through to the problem of women leaving STEM after graduation, and promoting more flexible working patterns.

Lesley says the Royal Society of Chemistry gave her a platform for the issues she cared about.

Lesley: The Royal Society of Chemistry were a wonderful organisation to work with, and incredibly supportive and really wanted to push the whole inclusion agenda. I think diversity and inclusion is about more than gender, and The Royal Society of Chemistry were keen that it was about more than gender, that, you know, was about all people that were underrepresented. It was trying to make a case for everybody – that chemistry was for everybody, chemistry was for all and that everybody should get an opportunity to do it, to study it, to appreciate it, to hopefully understand it.

Alex: She got plenty of support, and only remembers a very small amount of backlash over her being the first female president.

Lesley: One gentleman told me I should be back home in front of the kitchen sink which … well, you know, I just felt that I was never gonna get I was never going to get him on side was I? So move on.

Alex: In true Lesley style, she made a joke and then kindly but firmly turned away – so the man knew the conversation was over.

Lesley: I think he was rude to me. But I don't think it's necessary to be rude back to him.

Alex: Lesley was with a group of younger women at the time…..

Lesley: I felt a responsibility: I didn't want them to go away with a negative impression of the Royal Society of Chemistry. I wanted them to be able to understand that there was a diversity of opinion out there, that not everybody is supportive. But don't let that break you; don't let that bring you down, you know, rise above it, understand that that's their opinion, but you know differently.

Alex: Following Lesley’s diversity and inclusion work during her presidency, the society put her forward for a CBE in 2014 for her services to chemistry. That came after her 2005 MBE for services to science – not to mention a host of other awards for advancing both research as well as diversity in science.

Her advice to young women interested in pursuing science?

Lesley: Go for it. Go for it. And I'll back you and I'll help you as much as I can. I mean, I think I'm now in the fortunate position where I can give back, where I can pay back. And I think it's tremendously important that we do that. And that, you know, you put a hand down and help people up

Alex: For those professors who thought she wouldn’t take science forward … Lesley definitely got the last laugh.

Lesley has shown a wonderful ability to adapt to the circumstances around her. It wasn’t until she got to university that she saw the sexism that existed within the scientific world. But her strong sense of fairness and values saw her overcome these attitudes. I wonder how those who were arguing Lesley should not receive her class medal would feel now. Not only has Lesley contributed to science, she has sat as one its most prestigious presidents. She has contributed unique and valuable research. She has also been honoured with a CBE and MBE for her services to science and chemistry. Had those professor’s perceptions been allowed to bar Lesley’s path, imagine all of the benefits the scientific world would have lost. Lesley’s achievements are living proof of the value of expanded diversity and inclusion within science. I hope that more women are emboldened by her story to pursue their own scientific careers.