Local Organizers
Meet the team that helped make this conference possible
dr. Kai-Mei Fu
Local Organizing Committee Co-chair
she/her/hers
Kai-Mei received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Princeton, a PhD in applied physics from Stanford, and then worked for 4 years as a research associate at Hewlett-Packard Labs before joining the faculty at the University of Washington. She currently leads a research program studying the fundamental properties of defects in crystals and their applications to the fields of quantum information processing and nanoscale sensing. She enjoys teaching at all levels, from the large introductory physics courses to the one-on-one interactions in her lab. She is the recipient of the NSF early CAREER award and is also a Cottrell Scholar. In her free time, she enjoys exploring the Pacific Northwest with her husband and three children.
dr. Marjorie Olmstead
Local Organizing Committee Co-chair
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Marjorie Olmstead is Professor and Associate Chair of Physics and Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at the University of Washington, Seattle, where she serves as the Undergraduate Faculty Advisor for the largest undergraduate physics program in the United States (175 graduates this year). Her research has focused on creating and investigating crystalline interfaces between dissimilar materials and the resultant ultra-thin films. Prior to the University of Washington, she was on the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, where she also obtained her Ph.D. Prof. Olmstead is a recipient of the American Physical Society Maria Goeppert-Mayer Award, the American Vacuum Society Peter Mark Memorial Award, a Humboldt Foundation Research Award, and a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award. She enjoys walking, music, reading, and spending time with her husband and two college-age children.
dr. Suzanne White Brahmia
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Suzanne White Brahmia is an Assistant Professor with the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington. Dr. White Brahmia began her career as a Peace Corps high school physics teacher in Central Africa, and then as a graduate student in the Cotts’ Solid State NMR lab at Cornell University. As the first Director of Extended Analytical Physics program at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, she seized the opportunity to blend her interests in physics learning and social justice by developing and designing a program that targets equity and inclusion in calculus-based physics for students considered mathematically underprepared for engineering. She earned her PhD at Rutgers, with a focus on mathematization in introductory physics. Dr. White Brahmia served on the National Research Council committee that produced the report “Adapting to a Changing World -- Challenges and Opportunities in Undergraduate Physics Education”, and currently chairs the College Board AP Physics 1 Development Committee. She enjoys urban and outdoor adventures, especially with her three adult children.
Ruby byrne
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Ruby is a physics graduate student at the University of Washington, where she studies observational cosmology. After receiving her Bachelor's degree from Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, Ruby worked in a materials research lab at the 3M Company. As a graduate student, she uses radio telescopes in far-flung places like the Australian outback to search for faint signals from the universe's first stars and galaxies. Ruby is active in the UW Physicists for Inclusion and Equity group and UAW 4121, and she volunteers with a prison education program. She is currently battling her fear of heights and learning to rock climb.
stefana ciustea
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Stefana is a current Senior double majoring in Physics and Chemistry. She is currently the Vice President of the Women in Physics Club and the Co-Community Builder of the Society of Physics Students Club here at the University of Washington. When she's not studying, doing research, or working part-time on campus, she likes spending time with loved ones and being outdoors enjoying the fresh pacific northwest air.
Dr. Abigail R. Daane
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Abigail Daane is a professor in the Physics Department at South Seattle College. Formerly teaching physics at both the high school level as a Knowles Science Teaching Fellow and university level at Seattle Pacific University, Dr. Daane now teaches physics at South. Her research focuses on studying how people best learn physics and what mechanisms increase inclusive learning (e.g., active learning can improve understanding of energy concepts and support those from marginalized groups). She actively seeks out opportunities to support increasing access and inclusion in the physics community! In her free time, she loves to cycle, dance, hike, and play with her family and friends.
Meredith fore
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Meredith Fore is a 4th-year graduate student in the Physics Department at the University of Washington. She got her B.S. in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, minoring in Math and French. She is a recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and does theoretical chemical physics research with Professor Anne McCoy in the UW Chemistry Department, studying particularly wiggly molecules. Her favorite hobbies are reading and horseback riding--she's been riding since she was 7 years old. She also occasionally writes articles about science for LiveScience.com.
dr. Jeffrey hazboun
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Jeffrey Hazboun is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Physical Sciences Division at the University of Washington Bothell. He got his PhD from Utah State University in 2014, working on conformally symmetric versions of general relativity. He is currently a member of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), doing data analysis and signal processing in the search for gravitational waves from super-massive black hole binaries. He works in Joey Key's research group at UW Bothell mentoring students in various pulsar timing related research projects. In his free time he enjoys whitewater kayaking and playing banjo.
brynn mccoy
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Brynn MacCoy is a graduate student in the University of Washington physics department. She graduated from the University of Washington in 2011 with a BS in physics and a BFA in photomedia. She worked as a scientist in precision measurement research and development at Micro Encoder Inc. before returning to UW in 2016. She is now a member of the precision muon physics group at UW, working on the Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, science fiction, tabletop games, and karaoke.
dr. elise Novitski
she/her/hers or they/them/theirs
Elise Novitski is the Robertson Research Associate at the Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics at the University of Washington. She is working with the Project 8 collaboration on developing a new method for measuring the mass of the electron antineutrino by detecting cyclotron radiation from individual electrons after they are emitted in the beta decay of tritium. She earned her Ph.D. at Harvard University making precision measurements of the magnetic dipole moments of the electron and positron by observing single particles in a Penning trap. (Apparently she’s got a thing for observing individual electrons!) She is interested in working toward making physics a truly inclusive and accessible profession for people of all backgrounds. She has served on the organizing committees of several past CUWiP conferences and the 2017 SPIN UP workshop.
yujin park
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Yujin Park is a recently graduated student from the University of Washington with double major in physics and astronomy. She is currently working as a volunteer research assistant in the Axion Dark Matter Experiment (ADMX) at CENPA while applying for graduate programs. Her current interest is in finding out what exactly is dark matter that takes up majority of the mass in the universe. In her whatever spare time she has, she likes to watch a movie while drinking warm tea or coffee. .
Lisa Pellerin
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Lisa is currently in her junior year, majoring in comprehensive physics with a minor in applied mathematics. After spending several years working as an assay technician at a lead mine in Alaska, Lisa returned to school with the goal of pursuing her interest in particle accelerators, specifically the Large Hadron Collider. She aims to focus on experimental design, helping to facilitate exploration of the frontiers of fundamental physics, and also plans to lend her writing and communication skills to the expansion of scientific outreach programs. She hopes to make the esoteric concepts of modern physics more accessible to laypeople.
Outside of the stresses of academia, Lisa enjoys gardening, art, and playing video games. While she no longer has as much time as she’d like to game, she still volunteers at the Penny Arcade Expo every year and can usually be found in the expo hall directing traffic or helping exhibitors.
Margaret Ridder
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Margaret Ridder is a senior undergraduate physics and astronomy major at the University of Washington. Her focus is on x-ray astronomy and instrumentation. If she has spare time, she enjoys taking her 8-inch reflector out for a long night of stargazing.
anna roche
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Anna is a current junior majoring in comprehensive physics. She is a member of the Women in Physics club and a research assistant in the UW Quantum Materials Lab. She grows and investigates the properties of strongly correlated materials. When she is not in lab or studying, Anna spends her time backpacking, climbing mountains, and biking.
dr. rachel Scherr
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Rachel Scherr is a Senior Research Scientist in the Physics Department at Seattle Pacific University. She got her PhD from the University of Washington in 2001. Scherr is a physics education researcher with a 25-year history studying the teaching and learning of physics. Her recent projects include research on effective teaching and learning of energy and studies of the culture of physics graduate education. Scherr was recently made a Fellow of the American Physical Society for “foundational research into energy learning and representations, application of video analysis methods to study physics classrooms, and physics education research community leadership.” She bakes from scratch.
dr. Gerald Seidler
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Jerry has been a faculty member in the Physics department at the University of Washington since 1996.
swathi srininvasan
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Swathi is a graduate student in the part time evening Masters in Physics program. She has a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering and is returning to her high school passion of Physics after almost 10 years. She currently works full time in data analytics and hopes to teach Physics after graduating with her Masters. In her time between classes and full time job she enjoys spending time with her husband cooking, gardening, watching movies and biking.
dr. sarah tuttle
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Sarah Tuttle is an Assistant Professor in the Astronomy Dept. at the University of Washington, Seattle. She got her PhD from Columbia University where she built the first fiber fed ultraviolet spectrograph for FIREBall (the Faint Intergalactic Redshifted Emission Balloon). She most recently worked as a postdoc and a research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin/McDonald Observatory, where she worked on the VIRUS spectrographs in support of the Hobby Eberly Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX). Sarah serves as the instrument scientist for the Apache Point Observatory, and is working to upgrade the spectroscopy suite for the 3.5m telescope there. Her group is also active in supporting the design and manufacture of hardware for SDSS-V. Her main research interests are galaxy evolution, UV and optical instrument building, undermining systemic bias, and bringing an intersectional feminist framework to research astrophysics.
maria viitaniemi
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Maria is a 4th year graduate student in the Physics department at the University of Washington. She does research in the Optical Spintronics and Sensing Lab looking at stacking faults as a platform for novel 2-dimensional excitonic states and excitonic interactions. She got her B.S. in physics at the University of Florida in 2015. In her free time, she enjoys volunteering at the Pacific Science Center, dancing, and traveling abroad.
nathan wilson
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Nathan is originally from Eugene, Oregon, and got his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Oregon. He is now a Ph.D. student, working in Xiaodong Xu's lab at UW, where he studies the optoelectronic properties of atomically thin semiconductors and magnetism in 2D materials.