Clara Michelle Barker is a British

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

and

material scientist Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure, living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties, or on their geologica ...

. 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 ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term 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 material 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 ap ...

coating at

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

. 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 acronym for ''Eidgenössische Materialprüfungs- und Forschungsanstalt'') is an interdisciplinary Swiss research institute for applied materials sciences and tech ...

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

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, where she manages the Centre for Applied Superconductivity within the Materials Department. She is currently a Daphne Jackson Trust research fellow and Dean for equality and diversity at

Linacre College Linacre College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the UK whose members comprise approximately 50 fellows and 550 postgraduate students. Linacre is a diverse college in terms of both the international composition of its m ...

. 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 Seven Sisters is a National Rail, London Overground and London Underground Victoria line station in the Seven Sisters area of the London Borough of Haringey, north London. The station has two entrances/exits, one on Tottenham High Road and the ...

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 is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

, TOPAZ. She has also spoken local schools on behalf of

Stonewall Stonewall or Stone wall may refer to: * Stone wall, a kind of masonry construction * Stonewalling, engaging in uncooperative or delaying tactics * Stonewall riots, a 1969 turning point for the modern LGBTQ rights movement in Greenwich Village, Ne ...

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. 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 worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

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

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

Victoria Derbyshire and

Sky News Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel and 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 Comcast. John Ryley is the hea ...

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 LGBT rights activists British LGBT scientists People associated with the University of Oxford Superconductivity scientists and engineers Transgender academics British transgender women Transgender scientists Women materials scientists and engineers Year of birth missing (living people) Women civil rights activists 21st-century British LGBT people