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. It does this by building the skills and knowledge for success, exposing them to the wealth of career opportunities, and providing an opportunity to meet and network with both senior women physicists and other students. We hope that they will return to their home institution with increased enthusiasm, and serve as ambassadors for physics to their families, friends and fellow students. A subaward at Indiana University supported assessment of the impact of the conferences. The Midwest regional conference hosted at Illinois was in very high demand, with 250 attendees from 300 applicants. The conference featured a number of interactive elements: Panels on career options, undergraduate research and graduate school. A liquid nitrogen ice cream social. A poster session featuring more than 40 student posters. Tours of six campus physics laboratories. Presentations on a broad range of topics in science and technology, including particle physics, nuclear physics, laser physics and industry. Each speaker integrated into her talk a brief description of her personal career path. The keynote talk by Margaret Murnane, which was simulcast to all regional conferences, described her research and explored the need for diversity in meeting the scientific and engineering challenges of the future. The websites for all six conferences are linked to this APS-hosted site: www.aps.org/programs/women/workshops/cuwip.cfm 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 Illinois conference additionally hosted a group of 20 female high school students for one day. Speakers, panelists and student attendees spent time with the high school students in parallel with other conference activities.
