Rachael Padman
Dr. Rachael Padman (St. John’s, 1977; Newnham, fellow, 1996) is an internationally renowned scientist. ​
Following a first degree in Electrical Engineering, at Monash University, Rachael carried out research on antennas for radio astronomy, before coming to St. John’s and the Cavendish for her PhD in mm-wave astronomy and instrumentation. She held an 1851 Research Fellowship, and then spent two years in Berkeley as a Miller Research Fellow, before returning to the Cavendish in 1984 as Deputy Project Scientist for the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii. Her research encompassed mm-wave optics and instrument design, observational studies of molecular outflows from young stars, and the development of data reduction and analysis software. She authored around 65 academic papers, including a number of invited reviews, in the period until 2001.
Rachael was elected to a Teaching Fellowship at Newnham in 1996, which attracted the ire of Germaine Greer (who later resigned her own Fellowship), and caused both to become causes celebres on different sides of what would now be called the trans 'debate'. Rachael was appointed a University Lecturer in 1998.
Following that very public discussion of her gender, Rachael turned her attention primarily to education, first within Physics and then more widely. She was appointed to the General Board's Education Committee in 2004, and from 2009 to 2016 served
on the University Council and General Board. She also served as Director of Education for the School of the Physical Sciences from 2008 to 2014. She was Chair of the Board of Graduate Studies until its dissolution in 2020, and was deeply involved in the restructuring of University computing services to form the UIS.
Rachael was promoted to University Senior Lecturer in 2019 and retired in 2021.
One of the first out trans students, and then academics, at Cambridge, Rachael was awarded the Barbara Burford award by Gay Times in 2017.