LARA TEMPLE

Sometimes while doing research I come across a historical figure I absolutely wish I could sit down with. Mary Somerville is very high on my list – not least because though she was a brilliant scientists, she also had lots of author friends, encouraged other female scientists (like Ada Lovelace) and was lucky enough to marry a man who thought she was smarter than she and was proud of it! Her story is illustrative and touching – she was born in 1780 to a well-established famil

My first week as a financial analyst at an investment bank, I sat in a large room with twenty young men and one woman. Amid all the information bombarding us (including the admonition to us two females not to wear pantsuits-and this was in the 90's!) I started thinking: What must it have been like two hundred years ago for women whose skills placed them in predominantly male environments? I had already spent two years in the military and here I was again-surrounded by confide