Myriam Sarachik, a physicist and professor at the City University of New York’s City College for more than 40 years, is being awarded this year’s L’Oreal-Unesco for Women in Science North American award Thursday in Paris. The award carries with it a cash prize of $100,000. Ms. Sarachik, 71, who is also a former president of the American Physical Society, spoke with Daniela Gerson of The New York Sun about the comments of Harvard’s president, Lawrence Summers, on women and science, about living as a refugee in Cuba, and about condensed-matter physics.

Q: What’s it like to win the Women in Science award?

A: It’s better than nice – it’s fantastic. My head is still spinning. It’s an incredible award for what I consider to be my life’s work. It puts me in a position where I would like to help L’Oreal to facilitate other women to enter into the sciences and I will work with them to do it. It’s a wonderful recognition for me personally.

What will you do with the $100,000?

I haven’t really decided yet. I’m flying my daughter, her husband, and my three grandchildren to Paris for the week for them to see their grandmother get the L’Oreal prize. After that, I don’t know yet.

Your research in condensed-matter physics has studied electrical conductivity and magnetic properties of various materials at very low temperatures. They have implications for quantum computers, communication, among other technology. Can you give me some examples, in layman’s terms, of your work?

One of them has to do with a transition from insulating to metallic behavior in a two-dimensional material. … There was not supposed to be a transition into a metallic phase, and we have found evidence, with other people of course, that that belief is not correct. That’s not settled yet. And we have found some quantum mechanical effect in nano-magnets that really has opened up a whole new field. We just made a very important advance and discovery in that area.

Harvard President Lawrence Summers suggested that the low representation of women scientists at universities might stem from, among other causes, innate differences between the sexes. What do you think of this statement?

There are certain obvious innate differences between the sexes…. Whether they’re relevant is another matter entirely, and I think it is irrelevant. I think President Summers was ill advised in saying what he said. It’s precisely the attitude he expressed and the belief he expressed that has made it so difficult for women to go into the sciences.

What’s the response been among your students?

My own students in my laboratory have talked about it and they feel it’s just inappropriate for him to say it. And incorrect.

Why don’t more women go into physics?

I don’t really know. I think we have to find out and to change it, because we’re missing almost half the talent in the world, because there are many women who could do it well.

What made you decide to go into physics?

Very few women were pursuing it at the time. In fact, I went to Barnard, and except for a first-year course no other physics classes were given at the time. … Physics was a real challenge, it made me think very hard and very tight. It was a real challenge for me, and I like challenges. I found the material very interesting and so I took it on.

You were born in Belgium and escaped the Holocaust as a child. How did you make it out?

It was long and arduous. … We had plans to get through to Spain, and many other members of our family did go straight through. We did not. We were caught and we were in a couple of concentration camps. We escaped again, this time successfully, took a boat to Cuba, and ended up there in 1941. I was a little over 8 years old when I arrived in Havana, that was the end of 1941. … I spoke no English, I spoke no Spanish, but we were safe, and we had not been safe for quite a while.

Five years later, when you were 13, your family left for New York, and you have never left. What’s kept you in New York?

I love New York. I think New York has an energy and a pulse and a rhythm. It’s alive and it has many languages, and lots of art and music. And the people in New York are really very nice. They have a bad rep that’s undeserved. When I go downstairs and go for a walk I can see the world.

You’ve been at City College of New York since 1964. I’m sure you’ve had opportunities to leave. Why didn’t you? What’s kept you there?

I really do believe in what it stands for: access and excellence. City College has really been a great place for me. I built my whole career at City College, and it’s given me the opportunity to do essentially the whole range of what I was interested in doing: the research, the education, trying to inspire students who come from backgrounds where they don’t have a role model to look up to. … At the same time it’s given me the opportunity to do the type of work that makes it possible for me to get, for example, the L’Oreal prize.

City College’s reputation has gone down and up while you’ve been there. What do you think makes City College unique?

I think what makes it special is the heterogeneity of the student body and the fact that we get a broad range. Now we are really on the upswing, and we are getting better and better and better students. But these are students that are in some cases going a very tough road. Some of them have had jobs on the side because they need to make ends meet for their families. But they strive. They want to succeed.

Part of the student body is from immigrant circles, and they want to make their mark. They care about what they do, and some of them are extraordinarily bright. Students of that caliber have been coming to us through the years, even through the years that people thought our admission standards have been lower.

What advice do you give your students?

What I think everybody should do is to find something they really want to invest themselves in, find something you really love do to, and do it to the very best. And just work at it and enjoy it. Be as good as you can be.