Another chemist in the headlines is Kristin Bowman-James, professor of chemistry at the University of Kansas. She received two awards in 2002, from the Iota Sigma Pi (national honour society for women in chemistry) and the American Chemical Society – for encouraging women to enter the discipline. Her reading reflects this: she loves novels with women protagonists or at least women in the main roles, as well as suspense and intrigue, and fast-paced novels, “especially if there is some science in them as well”. So she has particularly enjoyed Final Target by Iris Johansen (Macmillan, 2001).
“Most of the time I only read when travelling,” she…
