Donald worked at
Cornell University as a
postdoctoral associate, where she switched from working on metals to polymers, before returning to Cambridge (Department of Materials Science) in 1981 and to the
Cavendish Laboratory in 1983. She became Professor of Experimental Physics in 1998. Her major domain of study is
soft matter physics, particularly its applications to living organisms and the relationship between structure and other properties. Her research has applied microscopy, and in particular
environmental scanning electron microscopy, to the study of both synthetic and biological systems, notably protein aggregation. Further details of her research can be found in the citation for the Faraday Medal she was awarded by the Institute of Physics in 2010:
Administrative work Donald was a
Fellow of
Robinson College, Cambridge from 1981 to 2014, when she became Master of Churchill College. She was a member of the
ESPCI ParisTech scientific committee during that time. She is now an honorary fellow of both Robinson College and Girton College. From 2009 to 2014, she was a member of the Council of Cambridge University. She has previously been a member of the Advisory Council of the
Campaign for Science and Engineering, and was a Trustee of the
Science Museum Group from 2011-16. She was a member of the Scientific Council of the
European Research Council from 2013-2018. She chaired the Scientific Advisory Council of the Department of Culture, Media and Sports from 2015 to 2017. Donald was the first chair of the Institute of Physics biological physics group from 2006 to 2010, and coordinated the writing of lecture notes in biological physics. From 2006 to 2008, from 2012 to 2015, and 2021-2024, she served on the Council of the
Royal Society, and from 2010 to 2014 she chaired their education committee. She is currently very involved with their policy work, including around skills. For 2015–16, she was President of the
British Science Association. She chaired the Interdisciplinary Advisory Panel for REF2021. As Master of Churchill College, in June 2021 Donald was involved in a dispute regarding the College's Working Group on Churchill, Race, and Empire.
Diversity work Donald has been an outspoken champion of women in science. From 2006 to 2014 she was director of WiSETI, Cambridge University's Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Initiative, and she was the university's first Gender Equality Champion from 2010 to 2014.[23] Outside the university, she chaired the Athena Forum from 2009 to 2013. She sat on the BIS (later BEIS) Diversity group, and serves the Equality and Diversity Board of
Sheffield University and the Gender Balance Working Group of the
ERC; she is a Patron of the
Daphne Jackson Trust. She regularly writes on the topic of women in science in both mainstream media, and on her personal blog. She gives many talks on this issue. She is the author of
Not Just for the Boys: Why We Need More Women in Science, published in 2023. She was awarded the UKRC's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, a Suffrage Science award by the
MRC in 2013 and her portrait by Tess Barnes hangs in the Cavendish Laboratory. Donald talks about some of the issues for women in science in this video.
Awards and honours In 1999 Donald was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). Her nomination reads: • 1989: Boys Prize of the Institute of Physics. • 1994: Inducted a
Fellow of the American Physical Society • 2005:
Mott Medal of the Institute of Physics. • 2006: Bakerian Lecture of the Royal Society. • 2009:
L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science award. • 2009: Elected member of
Academia Europaea. • 2010: Appointed
Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the Queen's Birthday Honours. • 2010:
Institute of Physics Michael Faraday Medal and Prize. • 2011: UKRC Women of Outstanding Achievement's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. • 2012: Honorary Doctorate of Science from the
University of East Anglia. • 2012: Honorary Doctorate from the
University of Exeter. • 2013: Honorary Doctorate from the
University of Sheffield. • 2013: Elected Fellow of the
European Academy of Science. • 2014: Honorary Doctorate from
Swansea University. • 2014: Honorary Doctorate from
UCL. • 2014: Rideal Prize Lecturer of the SCI. • 2015: Honorary Doctorate from
Heriot-Watt University. • 2015: Honorary Doctorate from the
University of Manchester. • 2015: Honorary Doctorate from the
University of Liverpool. • 2016: Bradford Global Achievement Award. • 2016: Honorary Doctorate from
University of Leeds. • 2017: Honorary Doctorate from
University of Bath. • 2019: Lifetime Achievement Award from
THE. • 2021: Honorary Fellow of the
Royal Society of Chemistry. ==Personal life==