Who is Donna Strickland and how did she become the first woman to win the Nobel Physics Prize in 55 years?

DONNA Strickland is a Canadian physicist and pioneer in the field of laser, calling herself a "laser jock".

She became the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics for 55 years and describes her research as "fun".

Who is Donna Strickland?

Strickland was born in 1959 in Guelph, Ontario.

She received her first degree in physics in 1981 from McMaster University.

She studied optics at the University of Rochester, in New York state whilst working towards her PhD.

It was here she invented Chirped Pulse Amplification for which she was awarded this year's prize.

How did she become the first woman to win the Nobel Physics Prize in 55 years?

The Chirped Pulse Amplification invention has a variety of applications, including corrective laser eye surgery.

She has taught at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, where she oversees an ultrafast laser lab and works with a team of undergraduate and graduate students.

She was one of three Nobel Prize laureates for physics this year along with Gerard Mourou, who Donna worked on her PhD under, and Arthur Ashkin.

Who are notable previous winners of the Nobel Physics Prize?

Albert Einstein won the prize in 1921 for discovering the cause of the "photoelectric effect".

Marie Curie and her husband Pierre Curie won in 1903 for their joint researches on the radiation phenomena.

Peter Higgs won for research into the fundamental particle (the Higgs boson) that eventually led to experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.