UNIVERSITY WOMEN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 270, 13 November 1943, Page 7

UNIVERSITY WOMEN

RUSSIAN PROFESSORS

STALIX PRIZE TO BIOLOGISTS

News of Russian University women is contained in a bulletin published by the International Federation of University Women, which has just bqen received by the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Federation. This bulletin and one other are the first to be received in Auckland for some time, and are full of interesting—and sometimes sad—information about university women in free and occupied countries, their part in the war and their plans for the future. The honorary treasurer of the International Federation, Miss J. Margeurite Bowie, says: "There is as yet no association of university women in Russia, but Dr. Hannovart and myself have both paid visits there before the war and discussed with academic women the prospects of starting an association. During the past year we have received from the Soviet Women's Anti-Fascist Committee a considerable amount of information about the part university women are playing in the Russian war effort. '•We have news of Professor Lena Stern, who for 26 years worked with Pavlov, and holds the Chair of Physiology in Moscow University. Lena Stern was the first woman to be appointed a university professor in Switzerland before the 1914-1S war. After taking up work with Pavlov in Moscow she visited Brussels and London on several occasions, and spoke to gatherings of university women. "This "year the Stalin prize has been awarded to two women biologists, Professor Zinaida Ermolieva and Lydia Yakobson, for outstanding work in the use of ferments in serotherapy. "There appears to be no difficulty in the U.S.S.R. in the recognition of women's work by appointing them to professorships and to the charge of important research expeditions. We are told of women geologists prospecting oilfields and metal ore deposits, which suggests new fields of women's work in other countries."