Invited Speakers and Panelists
Keynote Speaker
Professor Patricia Burchat
Stanford University
Patricia Burchat is the Gabilan Professor in the Physics Department at Stanford University. Her research focuses on studies of the Universe at both the smallest and the largest scales, to probe two questions: What is the Universe made of? What are the laws of physics that govern the constituents of the Universe? She has held a number of leadership positions in experiments at accelerators that probe the elementary particles and the fundamental interactions.
She is now part of a large international team of scientists preparing for analysis of data from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which will provide the most extensive census of the Universe to date. She and her collaborators will use these data to investigate the nature of dark matter and dark energy, and the cosmological evolution of the Universe.
Patricia Burchat is a “first-gen” high school graduate. She received her Bachelors degree in Engineering Science at University of Toronto in 1981, and her PhD in Physics from Stanford in 1986. She was a postdoc and faculty member at UC Santa Cruz before returning to Stanford as a faculty member in 1995. At Stanford, she has served as Chair of the Physics Department and has been very active in introducing research-based pedagogy in the teaching of physics. She has received the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Walter J. Gores Award for excellence in teaching, and was elected as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Physical Society. Patricia Burchat has played a leading role in the growth of the APS Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics.
Plenary Speakers
Professor Meg Urry
Yale University
Meg Urry is the Israel Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, and from July 1, 2007 through June 30, 2013, was Chair of the Physics Department at Yale (the first woman to serve in this position). She arrived at Yale in 2001 as the first woman with a tenured position (primary appointment) in the Yale Physics Department, and the only woman on the faculty at that time. Previously, Meg was also the President of the American Astronomical Society.
Her scientific research concerns active galaxies i.e., galaxies with unusually luminous cores powered by very massive black holes. Her group has carried out extensive multiwavelength imaging and spectroscopy (at radio, infrared, optical, UV, X-ray, and gamma-ray wavelengths), much of it from space, in order to understand their energetics, structure, and evolution. Current interests include the interplay of black hole growth and star formation as galaxies form and evolve.
Professor Kathy Aidala
Mount Holyoke College
Kathy Aidala was an undergraduate at Yale University, where she was a double major in applied physics and psychology and worked on wavelength division multiplexing of radio frequency single electron transistors. She went directly to graduate school in applied physics at Harvard. Her thesis was on imaging electron motion in magnetic fields in a two-dimensional electron gas. This involved designing and constructing a cryogenic scanning probe microscope. She continues to focus on scanning probe microscopy as a flexible technique to study a variety of nanoscale systems Mount Holyoke College.
Kathy studies nanoscale science, through the use of a scanning probe microscope (SPM). A small cantilever and tip (tip radius = 10 nm) is brought close to or in contact with a surface to measure local properties. Topography, magnetism, elasticity, conductivity, and much more can be locally mapped out in this way. There are applications to materials science, device physics, and cell biology, to name just a few. Her primary work focuses on electrical measurements on non-traditional semiconductors like organics and nanocrystal quantum dots.
Panelists
Lecturer in the School of Physics and Astronomy at RIT. My research interests are in galaxy groups.
Professor in the Center for Imaging Science at RIT. My research interests are in ultrafast lasers for advanced optics and optical imaging.
Research Astrophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD
Crystal Bailey
Careers Program Manager at the American Physical Society (APS) in Washington DC.
AAAS Public Policy Fellow
Fatma Salman
Assistant Professor of Physics at Manchester Community College in Manchester, Connecticut
Marissa Adams
Graduate student in physics at the University of Rochester studying plasma physics
Professor of Educational Studies at St. Mary's College of Maryland.
Margot Accettura
Graduate student in the Center for Imaging Sciences at the Rochester Institute of Technology
Professor of Professional Practice in the Office of STEM Education and the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University
Professor of physics at Syracuse University.
Casey Miller
Professor in the School of Chemistry and Material Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Rebecca Durfee
Optical Engineer at II-VI INC
Triana Almeyda
Research Fellow at the University of Southampton. My research interests are AGN and the role that they play in galaxy evolution.
Imani West-Abdallah
Graduate student in physics at the University of Rochester.
DJ Wagner
Professor at Grove City College with interests in physics education.
Teresa Symons
First year astrophysics graduate student at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Yashashree Jahdav
Fourth year astrophysics graduate student at the Rochester Institute of Technology
Brittany Vanderhoof
Second year astrophysics graduate student at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Sara Bucht
Graduate student in physics at the University of Rochester.