Fabiola Gianotti received a Ph.D. in experimental particle physics from the University of Milano in 1989. Since 1994 she has been a research physicist at CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, and since August 2013 an honorary Professor at the University of Edinburgh. She is also a corresponding member of the Italian Academy of Sciences, foreign associate member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States and of the French Academy of Sciences, honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy and Foreign Member of the Royal Society, London.

Dr Gianotti has worked on several CERN experiments, being involved in detector R&D and construction, software development and data analysis.

From March 2009 to February 2013 she held the elected position of project leader (”Spokesperson”) of the ATLAS experiment. The ATLAS Collaboration consists of 3000 physicists from some 38 countries. On 4 July 2012 she presented the ATLAS results on the search for the Higgs boson in an historic seminar at CERN. This event marked the announcement of the discovery of the Higgs boson by the ATLAS and CMS experiments.

Dr Gianotti is the author or co-author of more than 550 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals. She has given more than 40 invited plenary talks at the major international conferences in the field.

She has been a member of several international committees, such as the Scientific Council of the CNRS (France), the Physics Advisory Committee of the Fermilab Laboratory (USA), the Council of the European Physical Society, the Scientific Council of the DESY Laboratory (Germany), the Scientific Advisory Committee of NIKHEF (Netherlands) and the Scientific Advisory Board of the UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki- moon.

She received honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Uppsala, the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, McGill University (Montreal), University of Oslo, University of Edinburgh, University of Roma Tor Vergata, University of Chicago and University of Naples.

Dr Gianotti was awarded the honour of “Cavaliere di Gran Croce dell’ordine al merito della Repubblica” by the Italian President. She received the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (2013), the Enrico Fermi Prize of the Italian Physical Society (2013), the Medal of Honour of the Niels Bohr Institute (Copenhagen, 2013), and the Wilhelm Exner Medal (Vienna, 2017).

She was included among the “Top 100 most inspirational women” by The Guardian newspaper (UK, 2011), ranked 5th in Time magazine’s Personality of the Year (USA, 2012), included among the “Top 100 most influential women” by Forbes magazine (USA, 2013 and 2017) and considered among the “Leading Global Thinkers of 2013” by Foreign Policy magazine (USA, 2013).

On January 1st, 2016 she became Director-General of CERN.

Dr. Mary James, the Dean for Institutional Diversity at Reed College in Portland, OR, is the chief diversity officer of the college. The dean reports to the president and works closely with the dean of faculty, Reed’s chief academic officer. The dean for institutional diversity oversees the functions of the office for institutional diversity. Mary is also a Professor in the Department of Physics. She has taught courses in electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics and electronics at the upper-division level and courses on waves/math methods, "modern physics", and intermediate laboratory at the sophomore level. She has taught introductory physics courses (with laboratory components) for both science and non-science majors. She has completed major curriculum development projects for introductory laboratory-based courses for both science and non-science majors. She specializes in accelerator physics, classical electrodynamics, and physics outreach.

Alison is the cofounder and CEO of a new company Knitrino in Seattle, while also serving as a strategic adviser to local start ups. Prior to this, she spent 6 years on the executive team at Zemax where she led a cross-functional, global team of product managers and engineers. She exited the business in 2018 following the successful sale of the company. Before joining Zemax, she spent 15 years in the optics and photonics world, where her experience spanned from the design of high-performance lasers for emerging applications to the creation of new optical polymers and waveguides.

Alison is completing her MBA at UW's Foster School of Business, and holds an MS in Electro-optics from the University of Dayton, a BS in Physics from Wright State University, as well as a yoga teaching certificate to keep her balanced. Passionate about promoting STEM education, Alison has conducted math and physics programs for high school and undergraduate students as well as inmates in the state prison.

Dr. Emily Schaller is the Science and Education Project Manager for the National Suborbital Research Center at the NASA Ames Research Center. Emily received her Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences from the California Institute of Technology and her B.A. in Physics and Geology from Dartmouth College. Prior to joining NASA, she worked as a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Hawaii and University of Arizona. Emily's research as a planetary astronomer focused on using large telescopes around the world to characterize the surface compositions and atmospheres of small bodies and moons in the outer solar system. Her work using the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility and Gemini Observatory to discover and characterize large methane storms on Saturn's moon Titan was featured as one of Discover Magazine's "Top 100 Stories of 2010."

Throughout her scientific career, Emily has always had a passion for education and outreach. She joined NASA in 2011 to coordinate educational programs for the NASA Airborne Science Program. In this role, Emily has used her background as a planetary scientist to communicate the excitement of NASA's Earth Science missions to students and the public. She has flown over both the North and South Poles, Guam, South Korea, Chile, Greenland, Alaska, etc., while connecting over ten thousand K-12 students and their teachers in real-time to NASA's airborne Earth Science research missions. In addition, Emily directs the NASA Student Airborne Research Program (SARP), an annual summer internship for ~30 undergraduates from across the US who fly onboard a NASA research aircraft in Southern California collecting data on the Earth, ocean and atmosphere. Emily is also a runner and a certified ballet barre instructor.

Dr. Cochran is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Office of STEM Education at Rutgers University where she teaches introductory physics courses for engineering students and collaborates on education research projects throughout the STEM disciplines. Cochran is a physics education researcher with a passion for broadening participation in STEM and addressing issues of equity in STEM education.

Katherine Kornei became a freelance science journalist after finishing a Ph.D. in astronomy. (She realized she wanted to communicate science to more than the 50 people who understood her thesis.) Katherine writes news and features for Science, Scientific American, and Discover. She also works at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, Oregon and has appeared in NASA- and Google-funded science videos. When she's not communicating science, Katherine enjoys transforming the land around her house into an urban orchard.

Erin Miller is a physicist in the Applied Physics group at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the Technical Team Lead for Non-Destructive Evaluation Science and Technology. She has led projects developing methods for phase contrast x-ray imaging for explosives detection; gamma emission tomography for verification of spent nuclear fuel; and inverse problems in radiation detection: localizing and describing radioactive sources in aerial survey, pedestrian search, and in combination with radiographic data in cargo containers. She holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Washington, and received her undergraduate degree there as well in Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy.

Kathryn Oseen-Senda studied applied physics at Caltech as an undergraduate and earned her doctorate in Mechanical Engineering in France. She studied heat transfer in fuel cells for her doctoral work. In industry, she researched magnetocaloric cryogenic liquefaction of liquid natural gas (LNG) as well as improving the efficiency of established large-scale air separation plants. She currently applies her experience in heat transfer and engineering to create grid-scale energy storage in redox flow batteries at UniEnergy Technologies. These technological advances are all helping to bring about a more sustainable future.

Moses Rifkin went to Brown University: BS, magna cum laude, Geology/Physics and Mathematics, and University of Washington: M.Ed in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on science education. He taught science and math at the Cambridge School of Weston, Massachusetts, for four years. He was a winner of multiple National and World Ultimate championships; Two-time Washington Ultimate Coach of the Year. He believes that relationships are the most important part of his teaching and coaching, that all students can learn science (and Ultimate), and that we are all works in progress. Enjoys working for social justice, reading, cooking, marriage, and fun.

Alexis Schubert received her PhD in physics from the University of Washington in 2012, where she worked on the Majorana experiment, a search for neutrinoless double-beta decay. Until mid 2017, Alexis was a postdoc at Stanford, working on the EXO-200 and nEXO neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments. For a year, she was a data scientist analyzing oil-pipeline inspection data. Since September 2018, Alexis has been working as mechanical engineer at Microsoft, in a cryogenic computing group.

Anne Alesandrini is a graduate student in the Department of Physics at the University of Washington. After completing a Bachelor of Science in Physics from UW, she earned a Master in Teaching from Seattle University and taught high school physics and physical science before returning to UW to do Physics Education Research. She is also completing a Graduate Certificate in Science, Technology and Society Studies. Her research interests include student explanations in introductory physics, metacognition, physics identity and belonging, and teacher/instructor development. Anne gets excited about science education, social justice, hiking, plants, and hanging out with her daughter.

Amal al-Wahish is a lecturer in the department of physics at Seattle University (SU) and a visiting researcher at Lamar University. Prior to joining SU, al-Wahish worked as post-doctoral fellow at the University of Missouri Research Nuclear Reactor (MURR). She received her Ph.D. in condensed matter physics from University of Tennessee Knoxville (UTK) in December 2014. Most of her doctoral research took place at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Her research focuses on studies of new materials, energy-related materials and energy applications by means of quasi-elastic neutron scattering (QENS). She synthesized new materials and characterized the samples by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and neutron powder diffraction (NPD).

Besides the sample synthesis and characterization, her work at ORNL lead to designing and building a new apparatus for high temperature (up to 950 C) quasi-elastic neutron scattering in a controlled gaseous environment. It is currently in use at SNS by all the users in the world. Her research is published in prestigious journals such as Nano Letters, Chemistry of Materials, Physical Review Letters and the Journal of Physical Chemistry C. In 2008, the students vote won her the physics and astronomy Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award at UT sponsored by the American Association of Physics Teachers.

Dr. al-Wahish lives in Seattle, WA with her husband Usama al-Binni and her daughter Lena. She is passionate and a strong advocate of motivating and inspiring young women to pursue STEM fields. When Dr. al-Wahish is not doing experiments, she is very involved in community and volunteer work and loves to cook. She believes that early childhood science education is important, so she volunteered and organized science fairs and projects for elementary through high school students in many states such as Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri and locally here in Seattle.

In the Stereotypes, Identity and Belonging Lab (SIBL) at the University of Washington, we are interested in understanding how people’s choices and behaviors are shaped by cultural factors, such as stereotypes and social identity. We examine how stereotypes and other cultural beliefs preclude the full participation of women, people of color, and other disadvantaged groups, and importantly, how to change cultural beliefs to reduce inequalities. Our lab is primarily concerned with developing and empirically testing theories that inform current social problems, particularly inequality and prejudice, in the hopes of bringing attention to these problems and working towards feasible solutions.

Robin Chang is the Director of the Office of Merit Scholarships, Fellowships & Awards (OMSFA) at the University of Washington. OMSFA’s mission is to support UW undergraduate students in developing the skills and personal insights necessary to pursue scholarships appropriate to their goals. Over the past 10 years working with OMSFA, Robin has had the honor of supporting applicants as they learn to communicate their strengths and goals effectively for a wide range of local, national and international scholarships.

In addition to her role with Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Research at the University of Washington, Janice Decosmo is also an affiliate faculty member in the UW’s department of Earth and Space Sciences, having earned a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences in 1991 specializing in atmosphere-ocean interaction. She has taught science at all grade levels from kindergarten through university, and more recently has focused on helping university faculty find ways to include undergraduates in their research and to integrate research into their teaching. Janice became director of URP in 2000. She is the campus representative and an elected councilor for the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR), and an elected member of the board of governors of the National Conferences on Undergraduate Research (NCUR). Her UW responsibilities include oversight of the Mary Gates Endowment for Students and providing leadership to the Center for Experiential Learning and Diversity.

Kelly Edwards is an Professor in the Department of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Adjunct Professor of Environmental Health in the School of Public Health, and core faculty for the Institute for Public Health Genetics. Dr. Edwards also serves as Associate Dean for Student and Postdoctoral Affairs in the Graduate School. She received an M.A. in Medical Ethics and a PhD in Philosophy of Education from the University of Washington, Seattle. Research and program responsibilities include serving as Director of the Ethics and Outreach Core for the NIEHS-funded Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health and also as Co-Director of the Regulatory Support and Bioethics Core for the Institute for Translational Health Sciences (CTSA), and lead investigator with the NHGRI-funded Center for Genomics and Healthcare Equality. Special interests include community-based research practices, biobank governance, environmental justice, everyday ethics in research practice, feminist and narrative approaches to bioethics, and integrating ethics into training programs, public conversations about science, and public policy. Dr. Edwards has been a member of the International “Making Connections” consortium that focuses on innovative governance strategies for biobanking research and practice, and as of 2010, co-chairs the Biobank Working Group within the CTSA Consortium.

Anna Goussiou is a professor at the University of Washington Physics Department. Her field of interests are Collider Physics, High Energy Experiment, and Particle Experiment.

Paula R.L. Heron is a Professor of Physics at the University of Washington. She holds a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. in physics from the University of Ottawa and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Western Ontario. She joined the Physics Department at the University of Washington in 1995. Dr. Heron’s research focuses on the development of conceptual understanding in topics including mechanics, electricity and magnetism, and thermal physics and on the development of formal reasoning skills. She has given numerous invited talks on her research at national and international meetings and in university science departments. Dr. Heron is co-Founder and co-Chair of the biannual “Foundations and Frontiers in Physics Education Research” conference series, the premier venue for physics education researchers in North America. She has served on the Executive Committee of the Forum on Education of the American Physical Society (APS), the Committee on Research in Physics Education of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and on the ad hoc National Research Council committee on the status and outlook for undergraduate physics education. She is Chair-elect of the Executive Committee of the Topical Group on Physics Education Research of the APS. Dr. Heron co-chaired a joint task force of the APS and AAPT that produced the report Phys21: Preparing Physics Students for 21st Century Careers. She also serves as Associate Editor of Physical Review – PER. She was elected Fellow of the APS In 2007 and in 2008 she shared the APS Education award with colleagues Peter Shaffer and Lillian McDermott. Dr. Heron is a co-author on the upcoming 2nd Edition of Tutorials in Introductory Physics, a set of instructional materials that has been used in over 200 institutions in the US and that has been translated into German and Spanish.

Rodríguez Hidalgo came to the University of Washington from Humboldt State University in northern California where she was Assistant Professor of Physics & Astronomy. Born in Colombia and raised in Spain, she studied Physics with specialization in Astrophysics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the Universidad de La Laguna (Instituto de Astrofisica) de las Islas Canarias. She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. in Astronomy from the University of Florida and held postdoctoral fellow and research associate positions at the Pennsylvania State University and York University in Toronto, Canada. She was also a visiting assistant professor at the University of Toronto.

She loves astronomy, music, and traveling and is passionate about education and helping students succeed in their academic careers.

Mary James, the Dean for Institutional Diversity at Reed College in Portland, OR, is the chief diversity officer of the college. The dean reports to the president and works closely with the dean of faculty, Reed’s chief academic officer. The dean for institutional diversity oversees the functions of the office for institutional diversity. Mary is also a Professor in the Department of Physics. She has taught courses in electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics and electronics at the upper-division level and courses on waves/math methods, "modern physics", and intermediate laboratory at the sophomore level. She has taught introductory physics courses (with laboratory components) for both science and non-science majors. She has completed major curriculum development projects for introductory laboratory-based courses for both science and non-science majors. She specializes in accelerator physics, classical electrodynamics, and physics outreach.

Emily Levesque is an American astronomer and Assistant Professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Washington. She is renowned for her work on massive stars and using these stars to investigate galaxy formation. In 2014, she received the Annie Jump Cannon award for her innovative work on gamma ray bursts and the Sloan Fellowship in 2017. In 2015, Levesque, Rachel Bezanson, and Grant R. Tremblay published an influential paper, which critiqued the use of the Physics GRE as an admissions cutoff criterion for astronomy postgraduate programs by showing there was no statistical correlation between applicant's score and later success in their academic careers. Subsequently, the American Astronomical Society adopted the stance that the Physics GRE should not be mandatory for graduate school applications, and many graduate astronomy programs have since removed the Physics GRE as a required part of their graduate school applications.

Amanda Myhre is the Student Care Coordinator at the University of Washington Health and Wellness Center.

Valery Richardson is the Title IX Coordinator at the University of Washington. In addition to serving as the UW’s Interim Title IX Coordinator since March 2018 and Deputy Title IX Coordinator from May 2017 to March 2018, Valery brings extensive management and oversight experience in higher education administration and leadership. Prior to joining UW Compliance & Risk Services, Valery served as the Associate Dean of Student Affairs at UW Bothell and previously worked for the University of California system for more than 15 years.

Valery has a bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Barbara and earned a master’s degree in college and university administration from Michigan State University.

Cliff Slaughterbeck has been with the Allen Institute for Brain Science for the past fourteen years, where he currently serves as the Sr. Manager of Systems Design Engineering. In this role he has helped to design instrumentation to help study the most complex piece of organized matter in the known universe – the brain. The Allen Institute specializes in doing industrial big scale neuroscience, and specializes in doing work that is open and freely available to all. The instruments his team has helped to develop include everything from multi-photon laser imaging systems to instruments that record electrical signals from more than a thousand neurons simultaneously.

Cliff’s previous work includes working as an embedded software engineer in other firms that developed everything from programmable temperature switches to refrigerator control systems to a desktop mass spectrometer. He also served a stint as an applications/integration specialist and trainer for a data acquisition company. He received his BS in Physics from the University of Idaho in 1988 and his PhD in Physics from the University of Washington in 1996. When Cliff isn’t working, you can likely find him on a trail somewhere in the northwest looking for a geocache.

Paul Wiggins is a Joint Associate Professor in Physics and Bioengineering at the University of Washington.

Katherine received her Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge, UK, where she studied various thin film surface phenomena in polymer, soft matter, and biological systems. During her Ph.D., Katherine spent several months working at the ExxonMobil Chemical Company research labs in Texas. She went on to work as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany.

Katherine joined APS in 2013 working as an editor for Physical Review Letters and for Physics. In 2018 she moved to Physics full time as a Senior Editor. She writes the occasional freelance science story, with articles in APS News, Scientific American, and Edible East End.

Alison is currently starting a new company in Seattle, while also serving as a strategic adviser to local start ups. Prior to this, she spent 6 years on the executive team at Zemax where she led a cross-functional, global team of product managers and engineers. She exited the business in 2018 following the successful sale of the company. Before joining Zemax, she spent 15 years in the optics and photonics world, where her experience spanned from the design of high-performance lasers for emerging applications to the creation of new optical polymers and waveguides.

Alison is completing her MBA at UW's Foster School of Business, and holds an MS in Electro-optics from the University of Dayton, a BS in Physics from Wright State University, as well as a yoga teaching certificate to keep her balanced. Passionate about promoting STEM education, Alison has conducted math and physics programs for high school and undergraduate students as well as inmates in the state prison.

Stacey York, Director of the Master’s Industrial Internship Program at University of Oregon, combines her passions of STEM and relationship management by connecting master’s students with industry employment. Prior to her position with UO, Stacey was an R&D Principal Scientist for Johnson & Johnson skin care brands such as Neutrogena, Aveeno, Clean & Clear and Johnson’s Baby. Stacey's graduate research resulted in over 900 citations and her time at J&J led to 3 issued patents, a pending patent application, and 3 internal awards for leadership. Stacey spends her free time exploring the Pacific NW with her husband Adam (who is also a polymer chemist) and two children.