This award provides funding for the 8th annual Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics and for a formative assessment of the effectiveness of the conferences in meeting their goals. The next conferences will take place on January 18-20, 2013, simultaneously at Caltech, Colorado School of Mines, Cornell University, the University of Central Florida, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Texas.
The conferences have two overarching goals: 1) To give undergraduate women the resources, motivation, and confidence to apply to graduate school and to successfully complete a Ph.D. in physics or a related discipline; and 2) To increase awareness by undergraduate women in physics of the wide range of career opportunities available to them. Regional conferences are held simultaneously to maximize student attendance by minimizing travel, to increase the excitement of the participants in a joint national venture, and to allow the interactive simulcast of a keynote address. The conference goals are achieved by providing a series of inspiring talks by female physicists, panel discussions on graduate school and physics careers, student presentation sessions, and ample opportunity for networking and informal mentoring. The success of these goals will be measured by surveys given to students before and after the conferences, as well as by longitudinal studies following the students' post-graduation paths and comparing them with female student cohorts who did not attend the conferences.
The primary purpose of the conference is to retain female students in physics. The conference achieves this goal by providing to students - the skills and knowledge needed for achieving success, - a wealth of career opportunities and personal success stories, and - opportunities to meet and network with more senior women physicists as well as other women physics students. The conference hosted at UCF had 90 attendees from 103 applicants. The conference featured a number of interactive elements: A science café for women to discuss science and technology (see Figure 1) A student science research poster session from participants from all states of the southeastern United States (see Figure 2) Graduate school and industry fair to learn about science opportunities (see Figure 2) Hands-on activities including workshops on how to generate a CV or resume; how to apply to graduate school; how to find science jobs in industry (see Figure 3) Panels on careers in physics, undergraduate research, the status of women in physics, minorities in physics, and graduate school (see Figure 4) Science talks and personal success stories from women physicists of diverse race, ethnicity, background, research, and geographic location Tours of UCF campus laboratories in research areas including atomic, molecular, and optical physics; computational physics; condensed matter physics; mathematical physics; physics education research; planetary sciences; quantum information science; soft condensed matter and biological physics Presentations on a broad range of topics in science and technology, with representation from government, industry, academia, education, and other careers in physics (e.g., museums) Focus groups to discuss interest in science, other issues, and to provide personal feedback on the conference A social at the UCF Robinson Observatory, to see stars, planets, galaxies, and/or nebula using portable and fixed research-grade telescopes. Each speaker at each local conference integrated into her talk a brief description of her personal career path. The keynote speech by Margaret Murnane included her research and personal success story and explored the need for diversity in meeting the scientific and engineering challenges of the future. We expect students to leave each local conference with increased enthusiasm to continue in physics and to serve as ambassadors of physics to their families, friends, and fellow students. The websites for all six conferences are linked to this APS-hosted site: www.aps.org/programs/women/workshops/cuwip.cfm A subaward to Indiana University was used to support assessment of the impact of the local conferences. The materials generated by the conferences, including the results of the assessment supported by this award, are archived on an APS-hosted wiki, and are being used to identify and promote best practices and facilitate efficient organization of future conferences. The UCF conference piloted a science café for women that aims to increase public understanding of, and participation in, science and technology. Creation of other science cafes in the United States resulted from the participation by students in the science café for women at UCF. One such example is the science café for women at Florida State University. The conference participant photo is shown in Figure 5.
