Women in Science: Dr. Barbara Hawkins

Dr. Barbara Hawkins has always been interested in plants and botany. She garnered a love of plants and growing things with the help of her mother and many outdoor camping and hiking trips. “I loved being outdoors,” she said.

Hawkins is now Chair of University of Victoria’s biology department—the first woman to hold this position. She was also the first female doctoral student at the School of Forestry at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Her academic career started at the School of Forestry at the University of British Columbia (B.C.). Shortly after, she went to work for a small forest company in northern B.C. “I graduated in the 1980s when there was a downturn in forestry and there weren’t many jobs,” said Hawkins. “I was one of the lucky few to get a job out of university.”

Hawkins said that her time in northern B.C. was a notable experience. She worked in the field for almost three years helping to decide which species were to be planted and overseeing the planting process. “It was very cool because it was remote,” Hawkins said. “There was wildlife, I was living in logging camps. . .that was all very interesting.”

However, during her undergraduate studies, Hawkins got a taste for academic research through her third year honours thesis and, after working in the field for a few years, decided she wanted to go back to university.

Hawkins received a Commonwealth scholarship and went to New Zealand to work on the native conifers in the country with the School of Forestry in Christchurch. She turned her research into a PhD, and right after graduation she secured a faculty position at the University of Victoria where she still is to this day.

Hawkins said her outdoorsy family and having a mother who was interested in plants is what encouraged her to pursue plants and forests as a field of study. Biology was her favourite subject in high school, and Hawkins recalls having female biology and chemistry teachers who were very inspiring.

At first she thought she wanted to pursue marine biology but was told at a career fair that it would require a PhD. “I thought I could never go to school for that long so I decided not to do marine biology and do forestry and then what happened? I ended up getting my PhD,” Hawkins said.

Dr. Barbara Hawkins is now the Chair of the University of Victoria’s biology department (Photo | Shalu Mehta).

Now, as a tree physiologist, Hawkins studies how trees function, including stress tolerance and nutrient use. “Trees live for a really long time and they’re rooted in place so they have to survive environmental stress over decades,” Hawkins said. “They’re really stress-tolerant organisms and I find that really interesting.”

In her spare time, she reads about genetic variation and evolution as well as the interaction between plants and people.

Hawkins credits time, perseverance, and hard work for getting her where she is today. “Science is a calling, it’s not just a job,” Hawkins said. “It’s basically your life. . .you have to love what you do because it’s an awful lot of work.”

Hawkins has one son and said that as a woman, more of the child care work fell to her when he was younger. While she said her husband has been extremely supportive of her, she said she did decide to do less field work after her son was born to be closer to him. “I changed the direction of my research so it was more lab-based measurements,” Hawkins said. “But it’s not a sacrifice at all.”

Hawkins said that while she experienced some uncomfortable incidents when working in logging camps, she does not feel her gender interfered with her studies and career. In the past, about 25–30 years ago, Hawkins said there were some male academics who didn’t take women in the field seriously, but she said that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. “There are so many young women out there now,” Hawkins said, referring to fellow researchers and students in her classes.

However, she did note that the administrative workload seems to have increased for women in recent years. With universities seeking to have more female representation on committees and proportionally fewer women in departments, women are called on more often than men to ensure there is a gender balance.

Throughout her career, Hawkins said she is most proud of spearheading the Canadian Foundation for Innovation proposal to build the greenhouse facility at the University of Victoria. Before the facility was built, the university had only two greenhouses with poor environmental control. Now, the new facility has helped the Centre for Forest Biology do a lot of different research. Hawkins said she also loves teaching and seeing where her students end up after taking her courses.

The number of women in science classes has grown noticeably over the years according to Hawkins, and there are many female academics that are doing incredible work in science. As for women who are just entering STEM fields, Hawkins’s advice is to be confident. “I think women often lack confidence, and they’re maybe too modest,” Hawkins said. “So value yourself, be confident in who you are, recognize your abilities and your accomplishments for what they are and don’t be shy about putting yourself forward.”