Geneviève Almouzni - Science without borders: Sharing a passion for discovery

Geneviève Almouzni, Director of Research at CNRS and Head of a team at the Institut Curie, discusses why it is vital to share a passion for science.

About Geneviève Almouzni

"I am a Director of Research from The National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) at the Curie Institute, France where I lead the Chromatin Dynamics team. I am a laureate of the 2024 L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Awards.

I’m particularly passionate about understanding how our genome is organised and how this is important during development — normal, and in the context of disease, such as cancer."

Key Points

• There are many women in science, but there are fewer women in roles with higher responsibility. Although the situation is improving, we need to pay attention to unconscious bias. • Mentorship and networking are key for scientists to learn from each other and make progress. • Conveying a passion for science is about sharing the excitement, pleasure, curiosity and potential you see. Women in science How can one convey and transmit passion for science? I think it’s because you have it in the first place. It has to be natural, and it happens through sharing. It’s sharing the pleasure, sharing the excitement, sharing the potential that you can see and sharing your curiosity. It’s beautiful.

In terms of the role of women, there are many women in science, but it depends at which level. If you look in particular at life science, there’s a number of PhD students. But when it comes to higher levels of responsibility, the higher you go, the fewer women you find.

My hope is that it’s a matter of generations, because this is improving. We do see more young principal investigators, so young group leaders are becoming more engaged with more women at these levels. And I hope that will increase. But we live in a society with history, and we need to think about that. There are images that are still anchored in the minds of people that do not necessarily see women as being able to take on certain roles. And this is more in terms of unconscious bias.

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