Clara Michelle Barker is a British

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

and

material scientist Materials science is an interdisciplinary field of researching and discovering materials. Materials engineering is an engineering field of finding uses for materials in other fields and industries. The intellectual origins of materials scien ...

. In 2017 she received the Points of Light award from the UK Prime Minister's Office for her volunteer work raising awareness of

lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender LGBTQ people are individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning. Many variants of the initialism are used; LGBTQIA+ people incorporates intersex, asexual, aromantic, agender, and other individuals. The group is ...

issues. The outcome of this was her rise as a significant role model to the LGBT+ community.

Career and research

Barker completed her thesis on

thin film A thin film is a layer of materials ranging from fractions of a nanometer ( monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many ...

coating at

Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester Metropolitan University is located in the centre of Manchester, England. The university has 40,000 students and over 4,000 members of staff. It is home to four faculties (Arts and Humanities, Business and Law, Health and Education ...

. She then held a post-doctoral position at the

Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa; German: ''Eidgenössische Materialprüfungs- und Forschungsanstalt'', French: ''Laboratoire fédéral d’essai des matériaux et de recherche'', Italian: ''Laboratori ...

(EMPA) in Switzerland for four years, before she moved to the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, where she manages the Centre for Applied Superconductivity within the Materials Department. Her current research focuses on creating thin film high temperature

superconductors Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in superconductors: materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic fields are expelled from the material. Unlike an ordinary metallic conductor, whose resistance decreases ...

that could be used a resonators for

quantum computing A quantum computer is a computer that exploits quantum mechanical phenomena. On small scales, physical matter exhibits properties of wave-particle duality, both particles and waves, and quantum computing takes advantage of this behavior using s ...

devices. Barker is currently a Daphne Jackson Trust research fellow and Dean for equality and diversity at Linacre College. She is a member of the Royal Society Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She was the vice-chair of the university's LGBT+ Advisory Group. In 2023, she was featured in place of the Seven Sisters tube station in the Engineering Icons Tube Map. In November 2023 she was appointed Inclusion and Diversity Representative by the Institute of Physics, taking over the position from Helen Gleeson.

LGBT+ advocacy

Barker is a transgender woman and an advocate for LGBT+ diversity and

women in STEM Many scholars and policymakers have noted that the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) have remained predominantly male with historically low participation among women since the origins of these fields in the 18th ce ...

. She works with a youth group in

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire ( ; abbreviated ''Oxon'') is a ceremonial county in South East England. The county is bordered by Northamptonshire and Warwickshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the east, Berkshire to the south, and Wiltshire and Glouceste ...

, TOPAZ. She has also spoken local schools on behalf of Stonewall and has helped Oxford City Council run an anti-HBT bullying initiative. In 2017, she was featured in a Stonewall poster campaign for

Trans Day of Visibility International Transgender Day of Visibility, often simply Trans Day of Visibility (often shortened online as TDOV), is an annual event dedicated to celebrating transgender people raising awareness of discrimination faced by transgender people, ...

. She also led the promotion of the Out in Oxford project, a project which highlights LGBT+ artefacts in museums. She has given numerous talks on LGBT+ visibility and diversity in STEM. In December 2018 Barker gave a

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "Ideas Change Everything" (previously "Ideas Worth Sprea ...

talk entitled "Why we need to build trust to create diversity in institutions". She has also appeared on

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

Victoria Derbyshire and

Sky News Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel, live stream news network and news organisation. Sky News is distributed via an English-language radio news service, and through online channels. It is owned by Sky Group, a division of ...

talking about transgender rights. Barker has received several awards for her advocacy. In 2017 she was the 795th person to receive the Points of Light award for her work with Out in Oxford her other volunteering. Her belief is that role models are necessary in all aspects of life. Her representation in STEM has been pivotal for following generations to follow in her footsteps. In 2018, she won the staff Individual Champion/Role Model award in the Vice-Chancellor's Diversity Awards from the University of Oxford.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barker, Clara 21st-century British women scientists 21st-century British engineers Alumni of Manchester Metropolitan University British materials scientists British women activists British women academics British women's rights activists Living people British LGBTQ rights activists British LGBTQ scientists People associated with Linacre College, Oxford Superconductivity scientists and engineers Transgender academics British transgender women Transgender scientists Women materials scientists and engineers Year of birth missing (living people) British women civil rights activists 21st-century British LGBTQ people