In 2018 Donna Strickland became the first woman in over 50 years to win the Nobel Prize in Physics, and only the third woman in history.

Her award-winning work however began decades earlier. While undertaking her PhD Donna developed chirped pulse amplification – a unique way to amplify ultrashort laser pulses. This breakthrough paved not only the way for safer and more precise laser eye surgery but also improved mobile phone technology and is now helping to advance quantum science.

Listen to Donna in conversation with the ABC’s Tegan Taylor, as she shares the early curiosity that fuelled her love of physics, the joy of discovery and how she became a ‘laser jock’.