Dr Jean Laby - Infinite Women

Born: 4 November 1915, Australia
Died: 31 May 2008
Country most active: Australia
Also known as: NA

The following is republished with permission from the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.

In 1959 Dr Jean Laby became the first woman to receive the Doctor of Philosophy degree in physics at the University of Melbourne.

“Being the first female PhD in physics showed it could be done. She pushed on the doors that were locked to women and burst through them” – Professor David Jamieson, Head of School of Physics, University of Melbourne.

Jean was one of Australia’s pioneer atmospherics physicists and the sole female atmospherics physicist of her generation, and her work gained international recognition. She had several papers published in ‘Nature’, the most prestigious scientific journal.

As a role model she opened the way for women to participate equally with men within the scientific and academic world at a time when it involved obstinate gender hurdles. Professor David Jamieson from the University of Melbourne described Jean as a “trailblazer”: “There is a legion of female PhD students who have followed on from Jean’s legacy.”

Jean and her sister, Betty, spent much of their childhood at the University, accompanying their father, Professor Thomas Laby, who was head of what is now called the physics department. Not only did Jean inherit her father’s love of physics, but also the desire to teach. According to Professor Jamieson: “the two don’t always go together. Scientists aren’t always the best communicators.”

In 1961 Jean took up the position of senior lecturer at the Royal Australian Air Force Academy at Point Cook and remained the only woman on staff until 1980. In 1975 she obtained a $US25,000 grant for a global study of climatic impact and developed lightweight micro-electric control systems to automate the collection of high altitude atmospheric data. Jean and her colleagues can claim to be the pioneers in an experimental technique that continues to be of critical importance today to our understanding of, and the interaction with, the earth’s climate. She laid the foundations for climate change and pollution studies with the techniques they developed.

Jean also travelled to South Africa and South America to undertake atmospheric research with high-altitude balloons. They camped out in fields in difficult conditions and she just put up with it, along with the discrimination.

This biography has been shared from The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, published by the Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology, under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Jean Laby was a senior lecturer, RAAF Academy, Point Cook, c.1961-1982. She undertook research on cosmic rays and wind studies. For most of the 1970s she was involved in a collaborative project with the Climate Impact Assessment Program through the University of Wyoming to measure atmospheric aerosols, ozone and water vapour in the stratosphere. In 2009 Dr. Laby was inducted to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.

Chronology
1939: Education – Bachelor of Science (BSc), University of Melbourne
c. 1940 – c. 1944: Career position – Demonstrator in Physics, Department of Natural Philosophy, University of Melbourne, later assisted with departmental accounting
c. 1945 – 1959: Career position – Senior Demonstrator, School of Physics, University of Melbourne
1951: Education – Master of Science (MSc), University of Melbourne
1959: Education – Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Melbourne
1959 – c. 1961: Career position – Lecturer, University of Melbourne
c. 1961 – c. 1982: Career position – Senior Lecturer at the RAAF Academy in Point Cook