SMILES sparkled from Atik Retnowati’s face when her name was announced as a receiver of a L’Oreal-Unesco Fellowship for Women in Science 2008. The award was bestowed to her by Chairperson of Judges in the Field of Life Science, Endang Sukara, last August. Her victory that night proved that taxonomy is equal to other sciences.

Receiving a gift in the form of a research fund worth Rp60 million she disclosed her feelings as a researcher in a fi