This award provides funding for the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics, a two-day conference for undergraduate women in physics taking place on January 16-17, 2010 simultaneously at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), the Ohio State University (OSU), the North Carolina Research Triangle (NCRT), and Yale University. The conference has two overarching goals. One goal is to give young women the confidence, motivation, and resources to apply to graduate school and successfully complete a Ph.D. in physics or a related discipline. The other goal is to make undergraduate women in physics more aware of the wide range of career opportunities available to them. The conferences will be modeled on previous conferences at the University of Illinois, Urbana (UIUC), University of Michigan, the University of Southern California (USC), and Yale over the past four years. This conference is intended to reach as diverse a group of women in physics as possible, and the organizers are committed to providing access to the conference at minimal cost to the participants to assure that a lack of funds does not discourage participation. This award is supported by the Division of Physics, the Division of Materials Research, and the Division of Astronomical Sciences.
The 3rd Annual Midwest Women in Physics Conference took place at The Ohio State University on January 15-17, 2010, and it was a huge success.It was part of a unique event which was jointly hosted at 4 sites across the country. In addition to Ohio State, there were conferences simultaneously held at the University of California at Santa Cruz (West), Yale University (East), and the North Carolina Research Triangle (Southeast). This was the 3rd annual Midwest version; the previous two were held at Illinois (2009) and Michigan (2008). This conference brought together several successful female physicists and over 50 undergraduate women in physics to highlight the presence and scientific contributions of women in physics, and to provide undergraduate women with the opportunity to present their research and learn about career opportunities in physics. The conference focused on undergraduate women researchers, allowing them the opportunity to present their research in oral and/or poster presentations. There were 53 students from outside organizations, 10 students from OSU, and 7 speakers for a total of 70 participants. The female undergraduate students from the Midwest came to present their research, hear about current research projects in physics, and learn about career opportunities and graduate programs. The conference featured student oral and poster presentations, a graduate student panel, and faculty research talks given by Dr. Gail Brown from the Air Force Research Laboratory, Ms. Jessica Hanzlik from the University of Oxford, Prof. Sabine Jeschonnek from The Ohio State University Lima Campus, Dr. Julie McEnergy from NASA Goddard, Prof. Jennifer Ogilvie from the University of Michigan, Prof. Kirsten Tollefson from Michigan State University, and Prof. Nandini Trivedi from The Ohio State University Columbus Campus. The graduate student panel talked about life in graduate school, and a roundtable of working women physicists discussed the diverse career options available to physics majors.
