Donna Strickland

The laser physicist who revolutionized surgery and manufacturing—and became the third woman ever to win the Nobel Prize in Physics

When Donna Strickland won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, Wikipedia editors scrambled to create her page—she was so focused on her research that she'd never been considered notable enough for an entry. The woman who helped create the technology behind LASIK eye surgery, precision manufacturing, and countless medical procedures had been quietly revolutionizing the world from her lab at the University of Waterloo, content to let her lasers do the talking.

Timeline

1959 - Born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada
1981 - Graduates with B.Eng. in Engineering Physics from McMaster University
1985 - Completes PhD at University of Rochester, co-inventing chirped pulse amplification (CPA) technique
1988-1991 - Works as research associate at National Research Council Canada
1991 - Joins University of Waterloo as assistant professor
1997 - Promoted to associate professor at Waterloo
2007 - Becomes full professor
2018 - Wins Nobel Prize in Physics (shared with Arthur Ashkin and Gérard Mourou)
2019 - Appointed Companion of the Order of Canada
Present - Continues research in ultrafast laser science and nonlinear optics

The story of Donna Strickland's Nobel Prize begins not with decades of recognition, but with a graduate student's determination to solve what seemed like an impossible problem. In the early 1980s, lasers faced a fundamental limitation: make them too powerful, and they would destroy themselves. The very amplifiers meant to boost their intensity would be damaged by the energy they were trying to create. It was like trying to build a fire hose that wouldn't burst under the pressure of the water flowing through it.

Strickland arrived at the University of Rochester in 1981, drawn by the opportunity to work with Gérard Mourou, a French physicist known for pushing the boundaries of laser technology. She was a practical engineer at heart, someone who loved taking things apart to understand how they worked. As a child in Guelph, she'd been the kid who dismantled radios and reassembled them, driven by an insatiable curiosity about the mechanics of the world around her.

The breakthrough came through an elegant insight that would define her career. Instead of trying to amplify intense laser pulses directly, Strickland and Mourou developed a technique called chirped pulse amplification (CPA). They would stretch a short, intense laser pulse in time—making it longer and less intense—then amplify this stretched pulse safely, and finally compress it back to its original duration. The result was a pulse with unprecedented power that didn't destroy the equipment creating it.

The technique was so fundamental that Strickland published it as part of her PhD thesis in 1985. She was just 26 years old, and the paper describing CPA would become one of the most cited in laser physics. Yet at the time, she had no idea she was laying the groundwork for a revolution in precision manufacturing, eye surgery, and scientific research.

The Nobel moment itself came as a genuine shock. Strickland was getting ready for work on the morning of October 2, 2018, when her phone started ringing incessantly. Half-asleep, she initially ignored the calls, assuming they were spam. When she finally answered, a representative from the Nobel Committee was on the line. Her first reaction wasn't joy but disbelief—and a practical concern about whether she'd have to travel to Sweden during her teaching semester.

The announcement made headlines not just for the scientific achievement, but for a sobering statistic: Strickland became only the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in its 117-year history, following Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963. The 55-year gap since the last woman winner sparked conversations about recognition and representation in physics that Strickland found herself reluctantly at the center of.

The politics surrounding her Nobel recognition revealed both progress and persistent challenges in science. Strickland shared the prize with her former PhD advisor Gérard Mourou and Arthur Ashkin, whose work on optical tweezers complemented the CPA breakthrough. The collaboration between Strickland and Mourou was genuinely equal—she wasn't just a student implementing his ideas, but a co-inventor who brought crucial insights to the technique. Yet for decades, she remained in relative obscurity while the applications of her work transformed industries.

The human cost of scientific excellence became apparent in Strickland's journey through academia. After completing her PhD, she faced the challenge that confronts many scientists: finding a permanent position in an increasingly competitive field. She spent three years as a research associate at the National Research Council of Canada, a period of uncertainty where her future in science wasn't guaranteed. When she finally secured a faculty position at the University of Waterloo in 1991, she was grateful for the opportunity to continue her research, even if it meant working at a less prestigious institution than some of her peers.

The "Nobel effect" transformed Strickland's life in ways she never anticipated. Suddenly, the professor who had been content to work in relative anonymity found herself fielding interview requests from around the world. The woman who had never had a Wikipedia page became a symbol for women in physics. She handled the attention with characteristic pragmatism, using her platform to advocate for better support of young scientists and more recognition of collaborative work.

Strickland's approach to her newfound fame reflected her engineering mindset: she saw it as a problem to be solved efficiently. She gave interviews and speeches not because she enjoyed the spotlight, but because she recognized the importance of representation. "I never thought of myself as a woman in physics," she said. "I thought of myself as a physicist." Yet she understood that her visibility mattered for the young women who might follow in her footsteps.

The applications of chirped pulse amplification extend far beyond what Strickland and Mourou originally envisioned. The technique enables LASIK eye surgery, allowing surgeons to reshape corneas with unprecedented precision. It's used in manufacturing to cut materials with atomic-level accuracy. In research, it has opened new frontiers in studying ultrafast processes, from chemical reactions to the behavior of matter under extreme conditions.

What makes Strickland's story particularly compelling is how it illustrates the unpredictable nature of scientific impact. Her PhD work, conducted in the mid-1980s, seemed like a clever solution to a technical problem. She couldn't have predicted that it would enable millions of people to see clearly without glasses, or that it would become essential to advanced manufacturing processes that didn't even exist when she invented the technique.

Revealing Quotes

On her Nobel Prize reaction: "I thought it might be a prank call. I get a lot of spam calls, so I almost didn't answer. When I realized it was real, my first thought was, 'Oh no, do I have to go to Sweden during the semester?'" (Reflecting her practical, no-nonsense approach to even life-changing news)

On being a woman in physics: "I never thought of myself as a woman in physics. I thought of myself as a physicist. But I realize that my being visible is important for young women who are considering careers in science." (From interviews following her Nobel Prize, showing her evolution in understanding her role as a symbol)

On the nature of discovery: "We were just trying to solve a problem. We had no idea that what we were doing would lead to LASIK surgery or precision manufacturing. That's the beauty of basic research—you never know where it will take you." (Illustrating the unpredictable path from curiosity to application)

From her Nobel acceptance speech: "I am honored to be the third woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. I hope it won't be another 55 years before the fourth." (Acknowledging both the honor and the problem it represents)

On scientific collaboration: "Science is a team sport. The best discoveries come when people with different perspectives work together. I was lucky to work with Gérard [Mourou] at exactly the right time, when we could push each other's thinking." (Emphasizing the collaborative nature of breakthrough research)

Donna Strickland's journey teaches us that revolutionary discoveries often come from addressing practical problems with creative solutions. Her story reminds us that recognition and impact don't always align—some of the most important work happens quietly, in labs where dedicated scientists pursue their curiosity without fanfare. Her Nobel Prize journey illustrates both how far we've come in recognizing diverse contributions to science and how far we still have to go. Most importantly, her approach to sudden fame shows us that authenticity and purpose matter more than polish—she used her platform not to celebrate herself, but to advocate for the next generation of scientists who might change the world from their own quiet corners of discovery.