The key to successful research in science, and not least in Nobel Prize-winning research, is having the right research collaborators. This was highlighted by the co-winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics, Canadian Professor Art McDonald in his recent South African National Research Foundation ‘Science for Society’ lecture at the University of Pretoria. (McDonald, and co-winner Dr Takaaki Kajita of Japan, were awarded the prize for establishing that neutrinos – one of the smallest particles known – had mass.)

“When students ask me how you do well in science, I say chose your collaborators well,” said McDonald. “I received a Nobel Prize, but I received it on behalf of 200 or 300 scientists or tactical people who actually did the work on this major experiment. I’m simply representing [them] here as a Nobel Prize winner.”

He was one of the 16 founding members of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) collaboration, who set up, ran and analysed data gathered by the SNO detector. This was located deep underground in a mine in Sudbury, in Canada’s Ontario province. SNO was later upgraded into SNO+, and incorporated into the larger SNOLAB facility, in the same mine.

“We started in 1984,” he reported. “Our results, for which the Nobel was awarded, were in 2002. So, this was an extremely dedicated group of people.”

McDonald became director of the SNO in 1989. The research programme at SNO also served to train scores of scientists at post-doctoral level.

“[W]e educated over 200 students as postdocs,” he highlighted. “Those same students were surveyed later, and only about 25% of them ended up as professors in universities. I’m very pleased to say that over 35% of people who have those academic positions are women. That’s not common in physics these days and I consider it progress. The other 75%, were surveyed ten years after the project was over, and they worked in a wide variety of occupations.”

“[T]he other thing I often say to young people who ask me how you chose a career is ‘well, think about the things you might like to do when you get up in the morning. But then try a variety of things to see what you’re good at.’ Lo and behold, I tried physics and I was good at it. So, I put it together, and if you do that, you’ll have fun everyday and you’ll also be successful.”