Nasa boss from Hitchin praises rise of women in science

While she has noticed more women studying Stem subjects, figures from Stem Women, external suggest the number working in those fields has risen only gradually.

Despite gains in student enrolment, graduation rates and workforce participation, the report suggests parity with the number of men working in Stem is still decades away.

Her advice to young women today is to follow their curiosity and ignore claims that science is not for them: “If somebody says girls don’t do that, then that’s just not true.”

Fox has often credited her father with inspiring her love of space after he showed her the moon landing on television when she was eight months old.

But she said her mother deserved “all the credit for the determination” she developed as a child.

She said: “Even though she may not want to walk on the moon, she was going to make sure I had every opportunity if I wanted to.

“There’s times where you think ‘I just can’t do this, I’m just going to give up’… she had a very, very good way of just being like ‘no, let’s not just give up, let’s just give it a go and if you fail, then we’ll go do something else’.”

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