This Quantum Physicist and Photographer Have More in Common Than You Think

Palestinian photojournalist Laura Boushnak and quantum physicist Shohini Ghose sit down for a conversation about quantum entanglement, the Arab Spring and gender parity.

Laura Boushnak is a Palestinian photographer based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. She mainly works on documentary projects with a focus on Arab women and education. Quantum physicist Shohini Ghose’s research focuses on how to harness the laws of quantum physics to build quantum computers and design applications like quantum teleportation. She’s also founder of Centre for Women in Science, an organization based at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, where Ghose is an associate professor.

Laura Boushnak: You’re the first woman in your family to study physics. What inspired you to do so?

Shohini Ghose: As a kid, my favorite books were detective stories and mysteries. I loved the thrill of collecting clues and using nothing but evidence and logic to solve complicated problems. I was also really inspired by Rakesh Sharma, who was the first Indian to go to space back in 1984. I wanted to be like him one day, and science showed me the way. When I first took a physics course, I realized that it was nothing but a grand detective story — scientists are nature’s detectives who try to solve the mysteries of the universe. I was hooked.

As a quantum physicist, I now explore the microscopic quantum world of atoms and electrons, which is just as mysterious and exciting as outer space. It is amazing to me that we humans can examine ourselves and the universe from the subatomic level to the grandest cosmic scales and find ways to solve the detective story of the universe. Nature is and always will be my inspiration.

LB: Tell me about your greatest achievement.

SG: One of the projects I worked on was to try to directly image the invisible quantum world of an individual atom. When you shine a laser beam at a cloud of atoms, the atoms interact with the laser light and leave their shadows in the light. By collecting the laser light after the interaction and analyzing it, we can reconstruct a picture of the atom. By constructing many such pictures over time and putting them together, we can actually make a movie of the atom. This had never been done before because it takes very high-precision control of the lasers and atoms. So this was the first time we directly observed an individual atom’s quantum evolution.

We saw some amazing effects, like quantum tunneling, where an atom “walks” through a seemingly impenetrable wall. We also observed the quantum butterfly effect — chaos theory acting on a quantum scale. And we found a connection between chaos theory and quantum entanglement.

Entanglement — a powerful connection between quantum particles — is one of the strangest predictions of quantum theory. It’s at the heart of the famous EPR paradox posed by Einstein and his colleagues. A change to one particle in a pair of entangled particles can instantly affect the other particle, no matter how far away it is! Entanglement between pairs of particles has been widely studied, but the problem becomes exponentially more challenging when we consider three or more particles in a network. Recently my team and I have found surprising new properties of entanglement in a multi-party network. Our work has led to new protocols for network quantum teleportation and security, and also raises questions about the very nature of reality.

LB: Our professions are mainly male dominated. Was it difficult to make a career in science as a woman?

SG: I used to joke that I picked physics to meet lots of guys! Being a woman of color in physics has had its challenges. As a student, I had professors walk into the class and say “Good morning, gentlemen.” At conferences, I have been mistaken for the secretary. As an instructor, I have faced some harassment. As a researcher, it’s hard to get your work recognized. And saying you are a physicist at almost any kind of social gathering is a tried and true way to be left drinking alone.

Being a white man is still the best way to have a successful career in physics.But I don’t get discouraged, because I know the universe does not care about my gender. The laws of physics work the same way and are equally accessible, no matter who you are. Also, as a women professor who openly talks about gender in physics, I find that I am approached by many female students looking for a mentor or wanting to do a research project under my supervision. So I get to work with brilliant female and minority students who might otherwise have left physics. That’s a real opportunity, and I find it very fulfilling.

LB: Why are women discouraged from getting into science, and what do you think could be done to bring more women in?

SG: One thing that comes up a lot is this myth that women are somehow mathematically challenged. In fact, numerous studies and tests at every stage from infancy to high school have shown that there is no discernible difference in math and science abilities between boys and girls. Yet this stereotype persists, and it has an impact on female students, who judge themselves to be weaker at math than male students, even when they outperform them.

Perceptions, biases and environment all play a huge role in the choices we make in our careers. To fix this, all we have to do is challenge stereotypes, celebrate female role models, change culture and perceptions, create effective policies and change the world! Easy!

Shohini Ghose: I’m interested in your focus on Arab women and education. What are the most important insights on this subject your work has given you?

Laura Boushnak: It’s vital to demonstrate that women’s education is essential to achieving self-reliance and financial independence. I’ve noticed that the most successful situations are those where girls receive the support of not only the mother, but also the father. Knowledge is power, and it can only be gained by reforming the educational system so that both men’s and women’s view of women’s rights — and human rights — changes.

SG: What’s the story behind your favorite photo or moment in your work as a photographer so far?

LB: My favorite photo is from a project documenting cluster-bomb victims in South Lebanon. It shows the prosthetic legs of a boy called Mohammed. He had been on a motorbike with his father when they drove over a cluster bomb, near Tyre. I first met Mohammed three months after the accident. When I saw him again two years later, I was really happy to see him able to walk with these prosthetic legs. But he doesn’t like to wear them; he finds them difficult to adjust to. He sat and we chatted a bit. But he wasn’t in the mood to be photographed. I put down my camera and continued talking with his sister. Then he excused himself and said, “I want to go to my room.” That’s when he took off his legs. I didn’t realize how shocking the image was until I did the editing. I see this image as an interpretation of war and violence without showing a drop of blood.

SG: I’m so inspired by your work with Rawiya, your female photography collective. What are the stories that only women photographers can tell? I am also interested in how visual stories might help more women participate in science.

LB: When it comes to stories about women, especially in conservative societies where men and women are segregated, we have access that male photographers do not. That doesn’t mean we can publish all the images we take, but we can document more intimate details. The Arab Spring brought a lot of international coverage to the region. When we first formed Rawiya, the first all-female collective in the Middle East, it was our chance to create a platform where we could share stories from the region, told through local eyes.

When I work on stories full of problems and misery, I try to find a positive aspect that might inspire, prompt change and provide a solution. I’ve noticed that when I focus on successful stories of women from the region, it influences other young women. Offering role models proves to others it’s possible to make it in certain fields despite obstacles. That’s what we could do with women involved in science — bring their stories to the public.

SG: What is the one thing you would like the world to know about Arab women?

LB: They are not all oppressed, beaten by their husbands or forced to wear the hijab. There is this general tendency to portray Arab women in this superficial way. I get tired of this stereotypical image of Arab women, and women in general, in mainstream media.

I’m often asked how it feels being an Arab woman photographer. A friend of mine was once asked this by a journalist. Her reply was, “How does it feel being a male British journalist?” The point is, there are many problems concerning women’s rights in the region, and that’s where we need to put the focus. For example, my mother has a Jordanian passport, but when I travel to the Jordanian capital Amman for a visit, I have to get a visa. I’m treated as a foreigner because she cannot pass her citizenship to me as a woman.

SG: As a physicist, I think about the nature of reality and how to describe it. How do your photographs capture reality? Are there multiple realities in the images you present? What do you want people to see in your photographs?

LB: The images we take represent a small portion of reality. When I document certain scenes, I decide what I want to show and how to show it. We crop many parts of the reality during the process to reflect certain aspects of the story we consider important. When I manage to achieve an image that has many layers of information, that’s when I feel that I’ve done a good job. When the audience starts asking questions, I feel I’ve achieved something.

However, the images I take are interpreted in different ways depending on the viewer’s background. Sometimes I’m rather surprised. For example, I was showing a series of portraits of women, taken in Yemen, who were the first members of their families to go to university. But the women wear the Niqab, the full face cover. I was approached by a woman during this exhibition, who said, “Thank God I was born in the UK.” A journalist in Dubai presumed these women were illiterate because they were fully covered. Another journalist from the region asked, “So Laura, you’re trying to show how backward the Arab world is?” This can be a bit scary. Is this the way people read the images? I see they are kind of provocative because they challenge people’s preconceptions of women in the region. But it’s also fascinating to see these reactions. As long as we keep exchanging our views, that’s how we’ll create real change.

The TED Fellows program hand-picks young innovators from around the world to raise international awareness of their work and maximize their impact.