It's very hard for women to get promoted. It's very hard for them to get seen. And I think most of us can tell stories that men will ask you, could you propose me for this award? Really very few women do that. I only know about two women who actually ask me for a letter to actually promote them for a prize. Whereas men do that all the time. I'm absolutely flabbergasted that that happens, but it is a big difference. And maybe we should encourage women to actually do that. I mean, they've got nothing to lose. Why not?

Yeah, probably. We have here it's called WiSE, Woman in Science and Engineering.

Yes, Susan Solomon was one of the first people who said that. I was on that committee with Fiona Walter and all those people and it was very, very enlightening. She was very, very good at that.

Dr. Christine Mummery is a professor of developmental biology at Leiden University and head of the Department of Anatomy and Embryology at the Leiden University Medical Center. Her work specializes in stem cell biology, cardiovascular development, and developmental biology.

In 1974, she received her Bachelor of Science degree in physics, electronics, and mathematics from the University of Nottingham, UK and in 1978 received her PhD in biophysics from the University of London, UK for her research at King’s College London. She received a post-doctoral fellowship at the Royal Society, UK from 1978 to 1980, and in 1981 continued her fellowship at the Hubrecht Institute working with carcinoma cells. In 1985, she was appointed to a tenured staff scientist working on developmental biology and differentiation.

In 2011, Dr. Mummery founded the iPSC&OoC Hotel facility in the Leiden University Medical Center. From 2009 to 20019, she was the head of the department of Anatomy and Embryology at Leiden University and guest professor at the University of Twente from 2015 to 2023. She was president of the ISSCR from 2020 to 2021 and is the founding editor of its journal, Stem Cell Reports.

Dr. Mummery has received several awards for her work in developmental biology, including the 2014 Hugo van de Poelgeest Prize for Animal Alternatives, the 2014 Hans Biomendaal Medal for innovative interdisciplinary research, being an elected member of the Academia Europaea in 2015 and Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010, the 2021 Fondation Lefoulon Delalande-Institut de France prize for cardiovascular physiology, and the ISSCR Public Service Award in 2023.