The University Society of Physics Students hosted a conference this weekend to promote networking and solidarity between undergraduate women majoring in physics.
The three-year-old South Central Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics is held annually in conjunction with seven other events around the country. This year, the University drew in students from Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas, Florida and Illinois.
“We held this conference to bring young women in undergraduate physics together, and to show them they’re not alone,” said Mette Gaarde, University physics professor and chair of the conference. “These young women don’t want to be defined by their gender. They think of themselves as physicists, so that is the purpose — trying to get these students together, and trying to get them to interact with each other, and with the professional women here.”
Gaarde said women on average represent less than 24 percent of physics undergraduates in the United States. The conference serves primarily as a place for young women to network with each other and with employers seeking to hire undergraduate interns and future graduate employees.
Programs featured at the conference included laboratory tours, career and graduate school panels, networking sessions, a writing workshop and talks by prominent physicists from around the country.
Among the most recognized speakers was Gabriela González, a University physics professor who was selected as the American Physics Society’s Woman Physicist of the Month. González was recognized for her work with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, as both a scientist and a spokesperson.
As a scientist, González is currently trying to detect gravitational waves. Physicists understand them to exist as ripples in space-time, as predicted by Einstein’s theory of relativity, but have yet to detect them.
González leads a working group to improve the diversity of physicists in her collaboration, and in the field in general, as LIGO’s spokesperson.
“The general philosophy is that we have to create a good climate,” González said. “We do a lot of outreach. We go to high schools, elementary schools, and we try to show young energetic girls that there are role models in physics.”
Another goal of the conference was to increase the number of women who remain in the field after they obtain their bachelor’s degrees. The event featured more than 24 undergraduate research presentations, including one from the Society of Physics Students’ president Hannah Gardiner, who helped run the event. Gardiner, a physics senior, said she conducts research on the nuclear processes that form stars and studies the causes of the Big Bang. The conference was a breath of fresh air, she said.
“We had a lot of help from the boys,” Gardner said. “But there’s only one other girl who’s a senior in my major. It’s really nice to see that there are other girls who do this too. It’s nice to know that we’re not alone.”