Jocelyn Bell Burnell inadvertently discovered pulsars as a graduate student in radio astronomy in Cambridge, opening up a new branch of astrophysics - work recognised by the award of a Nobel Prize to her supervisor.

She has subsequently worked in many roles in many branches of astronomy, working part-time while raising a family. She is now a Visiting Academic in Oxford, and the Chancellor of the University of Dundee, Scotland. She has chaired, served on, or serviced more Research Council Boards, Committees and Panels than she wishes to remember, and has also chaired a European Community Committee. She has been President of the Royal Astronomical Society, in 2008 became the first female President of the Institute of Physics and in 2014 the first female President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She was one of the small group of women scientists that set up the Athena SWAN scheme.

She has received many honours, including, in 2018, a $3M Breakthrough Prize. She donated the money to the Institute of Physics to set up scholarships for graduate students from groups under-represented in Physics.

The public appreciation and understanding of science have always been important to her, and she is much in demand as a speaker and broadcaster.  In her spare time she gardens, listens to choral music and is active in the Quakers. She has co-edited an anthology of poetry with an astronomical theme – ‘Dark Matter; Poems of Space’.

Andrea M. Ghez, is one of the world’s leading experts in observational astrophysics and heads UCLA’s Galactic Center Group. Best known for her ground-breaking work on the center of our Galaxy, which has led to the best evidence to date for the existence of supermassive black holes, she has received numerous honors and awards including the Nobel Prize in 2020, she became the fourth woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, sharing one half of the prize with Reinhard Genzel (the other half of the prize being awarded to Roger Penrose). The Nobel Prize was awarded to Ghez and Genzel for their Independent discovery of a supermassive compact object, now generally recognized to be a black hole, in the Milky Way's galactic center.

Her work on the orbits of stars at the center of the Milky Way has opened a new approach to studying black holes and her group is currently focused on using this approach to understand the physics of gravity near a black hole and the role that black holes plays in the formation and evolution of galaxies. She serves on several leadership committees for the W. M. Keck Observatory, which hosts the largest telescopes in the world, and the future Thirty Meter Telescope.

Dr. Ghez is also very committed to the communication of science to the general public and inspiring young girls into science. Her work can be found in many public outlets including TED, NOVA’s Monster of the Milky Way, Discovery’s Swallowed by a Black Hole, TED, and Griffith Observatory.

Jill Pestana is an accomplished leader, scientist, and entrepreneur in the field of battery technology. She currently leads battery consulting in North America at Accenture, providing support and guidance on battery technology for Fortune 500 companies. She has been at the forefront of battery technology development for 12 years, and her expertise has helped to shape the industry in innovative ways. She is an inventor of 14 patents related to battery technology, and is dedicated to finding new and creative solutions to the world's energy challenges. With a MS in materials science and engineering and a BS in physics with a minor in music, Jill brings a unique perspective to the field. She also volunteers as a JEDI Project Director for the Volta Foundation, working towards a more inclusive and equitable battery industry. In addition to her work at Accenture, she shares her knowledge through her "battery famous" YouTube channel, Across the Nanoverse, where she provides accessible and engaging educational content. She lives in Santa Barbara, CA where she enjoys hiking, salsa dancing, playing clarinet in the local concert band, and beach sunsets!

Dr. Katy Rodriguez Wimberly is an Assistant Professor at CSU San Bernardino, with expertise in Near-Field Cosmology and galaxy evolution particularly in ultra-faint dwarf galaxies. Alongside astrophysics, Katy is also passionate about mentorship — she is Director of Mentorship for the Cal-Bridge Program, a CSU-UC STEM scholarship program, where her aim is to normalize a holistic approach to academic success and strengthen marginalized communities. Katy, a SoCal native, first attended Mt. San Antonio College, then earned her Physics B.S from CSU Long Beach, her Physics Ph.D. from UC Irvine and completed a postdoc at UC Riverside, where she was an NSF MPS Ascend Fellow. 

Aside from work, Katy loves slightly contradictory things like hiking and binging anime, HIIT and gardening, and Disneyland and rock-climbing (though her 2 toddlers make a lot of that hard 😂).

Midhat Farooq is the Careers Senior Program Manager at the American Physical Society. Within this role, she develops career and professional development programs and resources for students and early career physicists. Midhat manages the APS Career Mentoring Fellows program, through which academic and industry-based physicists receive training on and have the opportunity to mentor the next generation of scientists. Midhat holds a PhD in physics from the University of Michigan, where her research focused on building an optical magnetometer for a particle physics experiment. 

Workshop leader: Resume Building for Industry & Creating Sustainable Mentoring Relationships

APS Representative

Stacey York serves as the Senior Director of Professional Development and Workforce Readiness at the University of Oregon. Within this role she builds out critical professional and leadership trainings for Knight Campus Graduate Internship Program students, which is home to the largest physics master’s program in the US. Under her leadership, the program increased representation of women and historically excluded groups by 250%.  She also develops trainings and curricula for Knight Campus Bioengineering doctoral students, and works with the broader Knight Campus and UO community on STEM training opportunities. 

Prior to joining the UO in 2014, Stacey was a principal scientist for an upstream innovation group at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products Worldwide working on iconic brands such as Neutrogena, Aveeno, Clean & Clear, and Johnson’s Baby.

Stacey holds a PhD in Polymer Science from the University of Southern Mississippi, where her research focused on the development of polymers for gene delivery and cell growth applications.

Stacey has been actively engaged in CUWiP since 2018 as a panelist and facilitator.

Workshop leader: Interviewing & Implicit Bias

University Representative

Kathy Prestridge received her Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 1998 in Applied Mechanics and Engineering Sciences. Her B.S. is from Princeton University in Aerospace Engineering.

Kathy is the Team Leader of the Extreme Fluids Team, as well as Principal Investigator for the horizontal shock tube, vertical shock tube, and turbulent mixing tunnel experiments. Kathy's research interests focus on studying the behavior of materials under high strain conditions, shock-driven instabilities, mixing and turbulence.

Workshop leader: Negotiation Skills

National Lab Representative

Dr. Alvine Kamaha is an assistant professor in the department of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA, and UCLA’s inaugural Dr. Keith and Cecilia Terasaki Endowed Chair in Physical Sciences. She is also the 2024 recipient of the prestigious Edward A. Bouchet award from the American Physical Society (APS). Prof Kamaha's research interest is in experimental astroparticle physics, specifically in searching for the missing matter of the universe so-called dark matter. Currently, she mainly works on the LUX-ZEPLIN experiment, a US flagship dark matter experiment, while setting up a test facility at UCLA for various R&D ideas on low background techniques and different detector technology calibrations.

Beside her research, Prof. Kamaha is passionate about outreach activities geared toward stirring the interest of the younger generation and visible minorities in STEM programs. She also enjoys baking and stand-up comedy shows in her free time.

Careers: Academia

Bryn Bishop joined Art of Problem Solving in 2021. She has a B.S. in Physics, a master’s in STEM education, and taught physics courses in public high schools for a decade. Bryn is passionate about developing innovative and equitable curricula that nurture lifelong curiosity in all learners.  Byrn is currently an officer for the Southern California Chapter of the American Association of Physics Teachers (SCAAPT) and is a leader for the SCAAPT "New Physics Teacher Workshops" running three San Diego workshops each year. She is a STEP UP Ambassador, part of an NSF-funded national program with APS and AAPT. With STEP UP, she provides teacher professional development and helps teachers build community around research-based teaching strategies with the goal to make the field of physics more inclusive.

In her free time, Bryn enjoys adventuring with her family throughout San Diego and the world via foot, bike, car, boat, or plane. She also has numerous hobbies such as photography, astronomy, reading, and martial arts.

Careers: Physics Education

Erin Beaudoin is a science communicator and technical writer. After studying Astrophysics at Whitman College, she melded her love of words with her fascination for space by founding Irulan, a dynamic writing agency. Erin's primary focus revolves around grant writing to secure funding for transformative projects in space technology, green energy, and biomedical research. She is also a journalist, copywriter, and creative writer.

Careers: Technical Writing

Joan Dreiling received her PhD in atomic physics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She held a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Institute of Standards in Technology in Gaithersburg, MD. She started at Quantinuum in 2018, and her current work there focuses on bringing the next-generation quantum computers into commercial operation.

Careers: Quantum Tech

Industry Representative

Michelle Espy is a physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory who studies ultra-low-field nuclear magnetic resonance magnetic resonance imaging using SQUIDs, with applications including magneto-encephalography (the recording of magnetic fields generated by brain activity) and the detection of explosive materials and nerve agents in airline security screening. At Los Alamos, she has also worked on neutron imaging of stockpiled weapons and of the skull of the Bisti Beast, a fossil tyrannosaur.

Michelle received her BS in physics from the University of California, Riverside, and her doctorate in experimental nuclear physics from the University of Minnesota. After completing her doctorate she has pursued the application of nuclear physics techniques to biomedical and applied physics research based on detection of weak electromagnetic fields. She has worked for the past 16 years as part of the SQUID team at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Michelle has more than 55 publications since 1996, four patents and several awards in the field of MEG and ultra-low field NMR and MRI. She was made a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2015.

Careers: National Labs

National Lab Representative

Miriam Bell is a Translational PKPD scientist at Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine. She received her BS in physics from Harvey Mudd College and her PhD in mechanical engineering at UCSD where her work focused on computational modeling of signaling networks in neuroscience. She attended both the 2015 and 2016 CUWiPs, which both supported her undergraduate physics successes and also inspired her to go to graduate school and apply her physics skills to diverse applications. In her free time, she enjoys playing soccer and biking.

Careers: Bio Tech

Gurleen Bal received her Ph.D. in experimental Plasma Physics from UCLA in 2023. During her time at UCLA, she studied RF sheath mitigation and RF wave coupling for optimal ICRF Heating in Fusion Plasmas. Before getting her Ph.D. at UCLA, she joined Teach For America and taught high school Math and Physics in Los Angeles for three years. This is where she discovered and developed her passion for teaching and education equity. 

Gurleen recently started working as an assistant teaching professor at UCSD where she gets to fuse her love for physics and education. Outside the lab and classroom, Gurleen likes to play beach volleyball, explore southern California on her bike, and play board games.

Dr. Sara Callori is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, where she started in 2015. She got her bachelor’s degree in 2007 from New York University and earned her Ph.D. in 2013 from Stony Brook University. Her dissertation work focused on ferroelectric oxide superlattices. She then spent two years as a post-doctoral researcher in Sydney, Australia in a joint position between the Bragg Institute (now Australian Centre for Neutron Scattering) and the University of New South Wales. As a post-doc she worked on studying magnetic thin film systems with neutron scattering.

She is part of the university's Center for Advanced Functional Materials, which partners with the University of Nebraska - Lincoln and University of Buffalo and aims to enhance the research capabilities at multiple minority-serving institutions through the establishment of a sustainable, interdisciplinary and inter-institutional advanced materials research effort. She is on the steering committee and serves as a mentor for Cal-Bridge, a bridge program between the CSU and UC system aimed at increasing the number of underrepresented minorities earning Ph.D.s in physics, astronomy, and related fields. She recently joined the ISSUES-X project at CSUSB, which develops faculty learning communities to broaden the knowledge and use of evidence-based teaching practices within the College of Natural Sciences.

Sarah Dalessi is a fourth-year Space Science graduate student at the University of Alabama Huntsville studying gamma-ray bursts as a part of the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor team. Her undergraduate research was on RR-lyrae variable stars at Occidental College, where she majored in Physics and Comparative Studies in Literature and Culture focusing on Ancient Greek. She is currently the head of a student group at UAH aimed at opening communication between students and faculty to discuss options for the betterment of the department. In her free time, she enjoys reading, performing in community theater shows, and caring for her dog.

Robin Glefke's (she/they) primary goal is to achieve a balanced life; this is reflected in her pursuit of Physics and Art. Robin graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a BS in Physics and has since been pursuing her PhD in Physics as an NSF fellow at the University of California in San Diego, and is so excited to be on this adventure! She has a deep passion for math, minerals, and mystery; as such she currently travels to synchrotrons around the world to study different perovskite thin films/heterostructures for use in neuromorphic computing applications. 

Robin is also an artist. During her undergrad she worked hard to dual enroll at The Savannah College of Art and Design for her fine art education because Georgia Tech did not offer fine arts classes. She has been nominated for shows by her professors and won various awards for her work in painting and sculpture. She is currently a member of the Maek* ceramics collective in San Diego.

Professor Gluscevic (she/her) studies fundamental physics that governs our universe using cosmology. She got her undergraduate degree in astrophysics in Belgrade (Serbia) and PhD at Caltech (Pasadena, California). She was a postdoctoral scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, before joining University of Southern California (USC) Physics and Astronomy faculty as a Gabilan Assistant Professor in 2019. Professor Gluscevic has co-led dark matter science teams for the Simons Observatory and CMB-S4 collaborations, and she currently serves on NASA Physics of the Cosmos executive committee. Her work was recognized through the Cottrell Scholars Award, NSF CAREER award, and USC Raubenheimer Outstanding Junior Faculty Award. In addition to research, she works with the USC Center for Excellence in Teaching to create active and inclusive learning experiences in physics classrooms at USC and chairs the Climate committee at USC Physics and Astronomy.

University Representative

Alexandria (Lexie) Holthaus is a physics graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa who started in Fall 2020, after finishing her B.S. in Astrophysics from UHM in Spring 2020. Lexie is working on an analysis of Neutron Monitor (NM) yield function using AMS and NM data, under the supervision of Professor Veronica Bindi, and is pursuing a Physics MS degree.

Brit Hyland studied chemistry and physics as an undergraduate at CU Boulder before going on to earn her MS and PhD in Chemical and Materials Physics at UC Irvine, where she focused on computational biophysics and investigated ion current through synthetic nanopores.  While at UCI, Brit was a TA for several courses and realized - much to her surprise - that she enjoyed teaching physics more than doing research.  After finishing graduate school, Brit started teaching part-time at UCI, Saddleback Community College, and Irvine Valley College, before becoming full-time faculty at San Diego Miramar College.  Brit currently teaches the introductory physics courses for life science and pre-med majors and organizes the 'Women and Non-binary in STEM' speaker series at Miramar.  In her free time, Brit enjoys swimming, reading, writing, and watching anime.

Greta Koumarianou is a Scientist at TAE Technologies in Irvine, a private fusion energy company working towards the development of a commercial fusion plant. She specializes in plasma fueling optimization and wall conditioning methods. She obtained her PhD in Atomic and Molecular Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2023. During her graduate studies, she also co-lead a professional development group planning educational events for networking, negotiation, resume and other career-related skills. Outside of work, Greta loves exploring new local places, shopping, and traveling with her friends.

Kelly Luo is a Gabilan Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Southern California starting in 2023. Her research investigates the dynamics and effective couplings of quantum degrees of freedom such as electron spin, photons, and magnons in solid-state systems. She was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University and co-chaired the 2023 CUWiP site at Cornell and Ithaca College. She received her Ph.D. in Physics at the Ohio State University in 2019, and BSc in Physics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2012. Outside the lab, Kelly enjoys badminton, bike rides, wandering in nature, and spending time with her two kitties.

University Representative

Jessica MacFarlane is a Jr. Scientist at TAE Technologies, a private fusion energy company. At TAE, she works as an optical systems specialist for the diagnostics team. She completed a Bachelor of Art in Physics at the University of California, Berkeley in 2020. Jessica had many opportunities to explore different areas of physics through internships at Las Cumbres Observatory and Lawrence Berkeley Nation Laboratory while in school. After graduating, she worked for Freedom Photonics, a semiconductor and photonic component manufacturer, before coming to TAE Technologies. In her free time, she enjoys artistic activities like metalsmithing and pottery.

Yasmeen Musthafa (they/them/theirs) is a Jr. Scientist at TAE Technologies, a private nuclear fusion research company located in Lake Forest, CA. They received their M.S. in Plasma Physics from UC Irvine, where they studied ultrafast laser-plasma interactions. At TAE, Yasmeen uses visible plasma spectroscopy to study impurity emission in magnetically confined fusion plasmas. They have also been involved in a number of equity and physics education research initiatives, most recently organizing the 2022 Physics Education Research Conference: Queering Physics Education and managing TAE’s community STEM outreach program.

Dr. Vanessa Preisler is a professor and chair of the Physics Program at the University of La Verne (ULV). ULV is a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) located about 35 East of Los Angeles. Before coming to ULV, Dr. Preisler conducted spintronics research as a postdoc at UCLA and completed her PhD at the University of Paris where she studied quantum dots. At ULV, Dr. Preisler’s research includes magneto optical experiments such as Faraday rotation and MOKE with the goal of involving undergraduate physics students. Dr. Preisler is also active in justice, equity, diversity and inclusion efforts in STEM at ULV.

Tina Reuter is a Chemical Engineer working at General Atomics in the Inertial Fusion Technology Division. She works to support production of precision components needed for high energy density physics experiments at national labs including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility and University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics Omega Laser Facility. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Business from UCSD in 2023 where she also competed for the NCAA Division 1 swim team. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with friends, doing crafts, and spending time at the beach.

Industry Representative

Dimple Sarnaaik is a third year graduate student at the University of Southern California. She works with Dr. Andrew Benson on the formation history of dark matter through N-body simulations and analytic modeling. Simultaneously, she is working with Dr. Kris Pardo at USC on probing properties of dark matter through its gravitational effects and astrometry. She is also the President of the Graduate Association of Students in Physics at USC and is passionate about science communication.

Eleanor Stuart is a second year physics PhD student in the University of Southern California’s cosmology group. She received her Bachelor of Science in Physics from Florida Atlantic University. As an undergraduate researcher, she examined light curves of variable stars, using information about a dwarf galaxy’s variable star population to calculate its distance from us. She received an honorable mention for her poster presentation on this work at the 234th American Astronomical society meeting. After graduation, she completed a post baccalaureate program at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, developing a machine learning tool to help neuroscientists in their data analysis which was published in Scientific Reports in 2021. Now she is developing a method for constraining properties of dark matter by looking at measurements of galaxy clusters. Outside of the office, Eleanor enjoys hiking, roller skating, and making plant-based meals.

Kathreen Thome is a General Atomics experimental research scientist that works on both the DIII-D and NSTX-U tokamaks. She received a B.S in Nuclear Science and Engineering from MIT in 2009 and her PhD in 2016 in Engineering Physics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. At DIII-D and NSTX-U, she has participated in diverse research topics, including the development of steady-state plasma scenarios for fusion reactors, transport physics and modeling, and hands-on development of a high-frequency magnetic diagnostic for energetic particles. Dr. Thome is a co-leader of the DIII-D negative triangularity working group, head of the NSTX-U scenario group, an executive member of the APS Division of Plasma Physics, and regularly participates in outreach and mentoring activities. 

Industry Representative

Dr. Ana Valdes Curiel is a Quantum Research Scientist at the Amazon Web Services Center for Quantum Computing in Pasadena, California. Prior to joining her current position she was a postdoctoral researcher at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory where she investigated applications of cold atoms for quantum sensing and space missions. She received her BS in Physics from the National Autonomous University of Mexico and her PhD from University of Maryland where she studied the use of ultra-cold quantum gases as quantum simulators. Outside of work Ana enjoys cooking and spending time with her family. 

Dr. Laura Woodney is a professor in the Physics & Astronomy department at California State University, San Bernardino. She is a planetary scientist who has been studying small icy bodies in the solar system for her entire career.

Amani Zalzali is a strategic development associate at General Atomics in San Diego working on merging the latest innovations in fusion research with commercial energy needs. She obtained her PhD in computational plasma physics from the University of Warwick in 2022 and MPhil in mechanical engineering from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom in 2017. During the weekends, Amani enjoys practicing yoga with her daughter and spending time with her family on the beach.

Industry Representative

Frankie Sullivan has a Masters in Social Work and became certified as a yoga instructor in 2012. She has experience teaching in various settings such as with people that have serious mental illness, and in the geriatric community. Frankie helped create a compassion intervention for caregivers, demonstrating and teaching mindfulness techniques to help alleviate stress. 

Join Frankie in a guided mediation on Saturday and Sunday morning of the conference from 7:30-8:15 am where she will help create a soothing space to decompress. All levels are welcome. It’s a great opportunity for beginners that have never meditated before.