Then, after a couple of years' postdoctoral work in Vienna and Oxford, she spent seven years teaching in girls' schools in England and a year in an industrial research laboratory. After the second world war her career changed and she spent the rest of her working life in Universities, mainly in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. She became a Fellow of her old college, Girton, where she acted as Director of Studies in Physical Sciences encouraging and guiding generations of young women scientists. Her research work was concerned with ferroelectric crystals. You are all familiar with magnets which have two ends with opposite magnetic polarity.
Ferroelectric crystals are the electric analogues with two ends with opposite electric polarity.
As you can imagine they are important industrially. The source of the ferroelectricity lies in the arrangement of the atoms in the crystals and this was determined by Dr Megaw for an important class of ferroelectric crystals known as Perovskites. She also did pioneering work on disorder in crystals and its effect on the X-ray diffraction patterns. She was awarded the Roebling Medal of the Mineralogical Society of America in 1989 and has an Island in the Antarctic named after her in recognition of her work on ice. Dr Megaw, Queen's University wishes to recognise your contribution to science and the example that you have set to generations of young women and young men.