Three Chinese women who excel in male-dominated fields
Three outstanding women shared their stories to welcome International Women’s Day falling on Friday.
Naval vessel designer Peng Yan, underground tube maintenance worker He Xiaoling and laser power researcher Liang Xiaoyan are distinctive because they are women succeeding in male-dominated fields.
Peng, head of the Research Institute of USV Engineering at Shanghai University, designed China’s first unmanned surface vessel that traveled with Chinese icebreaker Xuelong on Antarctica’s Ross Sea and was used to explore what’s above and under the ice.
Her work has also led to inventions used to monitor safety conditions in the Huangpu River, explore ancient sunken ships in the Yangtze River, and detect water quality after oil spills in the East China Sea.
He Xiaoling is the only female of 200-plus maintenance workers. Every night at midnight, she walks several kilometers along dark tubes to ensure the normal operation of the city’s Metro lines, where daily passenger flows reach 10 million.
Liang Xiaoyan is the leading researcher at State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics at the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The lab has set a world record by amplifying and outputting 10-petawatt lasers. As the world’s most powerful pulse laser, its energy equals the radiant energy emitted by ten suns on one single hair, or the energy at the center of a nuclear explosion.
The three outstanding women have given up time with their families to excel in their careers.
“We do everything for our country and people,” Liang said.