Ann Marks MBE
24th July 1941 – 9th October 2016
The European Platform of Women Scientists EPWS is mourning the passing of its longstanding Board of Administration Member Ann Marks MBE on 9th October 2016. Ann Marks, a past chair of the Women in Physics Group (WIPG) of the Institute of Physics (IOP), served as representative of the WIPG on the EPWS Board of Administration since 2009 and for many years edited the EPWS Newsletter.
After many years as a specialist physics teacher, Ann Marks provided teacher professional development and was an education consultant for university departments involved in physics outreach. A keen communicator of science, she developed fun, web based presentations that are now used internationally. She also trained physicists, across the UK, to give presentations to interest school pupils, particularly girls, in science.
She has served as a member of the Council of the IOP, the governing body of the Institute, and chaired their Nations and Regions Committee. As chair of WIPG, she founded the UK Young Woman Physicist Award; winners are role models promoting the exciting careers open to young women physicists. Ann Marks has taken an active part in all five IUPAP International Conferences for Women in Physics (ICWIP), in 2005 giving an invited talk and in 2014 leading the UK delegation. As member of the Local Organising Committee, she was involved in the preparation of ICWIP 2017 at the University of Birmingham. At the IUPAP conferences Ann Marks suggested women physicists to network across continents following the example of EPWS. On behalf of the Platform, she presented very successful workshops to attract young girls into science at the science events Expanding Your Horizons – Geneva in 2009 and 2011.
In the 2007 Queen’s Birthday Honours list, Ann Marks was awarded Membership of the Order of the British Empire, MBE, for “services to Physics” and in 2013 she received the Institute of Physics Phillips Award for distinguished service.
In memory of Ann, with all our gratitude for her expert and enthusiastic commitment for women scientists at the European Platform of Women Scientists
Dr. Brigitte Mühlenbruch
President EPWS
Prof. Claudine Hermann
Vice-President EPWS
If you wish you may donate to the Pancreatic Research Project at Cancer Research UK in memory of Ann and help make pancreatic cancer history.
Read more at bit.do/AnnMarks.