My mother, Nancy Lane Perham, who has died aged 89, was a renowned electron microscopist, cell biologist and champion of women in science. She was dedicated to teaching and research at the department of zoology at Cambridge University, specialising in cell interactions.
Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Frances (nee Gilbert), a journalist, and Temple Lane, a civil servant, Nancy attended Queen Elizabeth high school, where she was told that women could not be scientists, only lab technicians. Nevertheless, she went on to study cell biology at Dalhousie University, Halifax, graduating in 1958, and afterwards took a master’s degree.
She was awarded the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire scholarship and won the Governor General’s Gold medal, allowing her to pursue doctoral studies at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She completed her DPhil in 1963, and then held a postdoctoral position at Yale University, where she met her husband, Richard Perham, who was also a postdoctoral scientist, and they married in 1969.
On moving to Britain in 1970, where Richard was doing research at the department of biochemistry at Cambridge, Nancy joined the department of zoology at the university and became a fellow of Girton College. She helped to lead Girton into a new era, bringing an outspoken and flamboyant presence to the college. She had a lifelong impact on many of her students, not only through her enthusiasm for biology, but also due to her championing of careers for women. Over the course of her career she published more than 100 papers in a range of scientific journals.
Nancy became the first director of the Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Initiative in Cambridge, and helped set up and run the UK Athena Swan Project, which aimed to increase the participation of women in science, engineering and technology across the UK. In 1994 she was appointed OBE for services to science.
Nancy also painted in oils and acrylics. She focused on the artistic portrayal of the structures and interactions of cells. Her work has appeared on journal covers and was included in the Royal Academy of Art’s summer exhibition in 1995.
Richard died in 2015. Nancy is survived by her two children, Quentin and me, by two grandchildren, Isabella and Tristan, and her sisters, Elise and Susan.
