USD COVID-19 HEALTH AND SAFETY MEASURES

At the 2024 CUWiP Conference hosted at the University of San Diego, the well-being of all attendees will be our highest priority.  All student attendees will receive a water bottle to help stay hydrated, have access to free face masks, and encouraged to let an organizer know if they feel unwell. 


Consistent with USD's policy on COVID and vaccinations, we will neither require vaccinations nor face masks. However, we encourage all attendees to be up-to-date in their vaccinations and will have face masks freely available. 


Attendees will be informed well in advance of the conference that they must cancel their plans to come to USD if either (i) they have tested positive for COVID-19 within 10 days of their planned arrival, (ii) they have COVID-like symptoms, or (iii) they were in close contact to someone with COVID-19 and have not been able to provide a negative test following that exposure. Additionally, after the conference, we will request that attendees notify us if they test positive for COVID-19 within five days after the event so that we may contact those who might have been exposed. 


If an attendee develops flu-like symptoms during the conference, we will provide a COVID-19 self-test kit free of charge. At USD, self-test kits are freely available to all students, faculty, and staff. Should that supply of test kits not be adequate, we will purchase additional self-test kits for students. 


If an attendee tests positive for COVID-19 during the conference, they will isolate at their home or at their hotel room. If that attendee has a roommate, we will move that roommate to a new hotel room for the remainder of the conference. We will notify those attendees who traveled or came into close contact with the person testing positive that they should take a COVID-19 test, monitor their symptoms, wear a mask when indoors and near others, and isolate if either they test positive or develop symptoms. 


For any attendee who tests positive for COVID-19 and has to isolate themselves in their hotel room, we will coordinate the delivery of food, medicine, and any other items that the attendee might need. That attendee will continue to receive self-test kits and remain in isolation until they test negative or arrange a way to travel home without putting anyone else at risk.



Welcome to APS CUWiP at University of San Diego!

The APS Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics, or CUWiP, are a collection of 14 regional conferences across the US and Canada intended for undergraduates interested in physics. The main goal of CUWiP is to provide undergraduate women and gender minorities in physics the opportunity to attend a professional conference, to learn about the many different opportunities in physics, and to connect with other female physicists of all career stages to build supportive and inclusive networks. It is the goal of this conference to work to welcome all undergraduate women and gender minorities. 


Activities will include research talks by faculty, panel discussions about graduate school and careers in physics, presentations and discussions about women in physics, laboratory tours, student research talks, student poster sessions, and several meals during which presenters and students interact with each other. All sites will participate virtually in the keynote address to be given by Jocelyn Bell Burnell. More information about CUWiP can be found on the APS website.

All meals and accommodation during the conference are organized and the costs are met by CUWiP. Travel to the conference is usually paid for by attendees' home departments, and if this is not possible there are funds available to support travel to CUWiP (see details here) so no one has to miss out on CUWiP for financial reasons.

USD and the Department of Physics and Biophysics value diversity and are committed to making all CUWiP participants feel safe and welcome here. We hope to see you here in January!

Applications for the 2024 CUWiP closed at 5 pm October 23, 2023.

CUWiP has become incredibly popular. In order to maximize the number of CUWiP participants we can accommodate, we will allocate participants to sites based on travel logistics and site capacity. Please do not purchase travel tickets or plan to be at a specific site until you receive an email confirming you have been accepted to a specific CUWiP site.

These conferences are supported in part by the National Science Foundation (PHY-1346627, PHY-1622510, and PHY-2012033) and by the Department of Energy (DE-SC0011076). Further details are available on the APS conference website.

Conference details are specific to CUWiP at USD. For general information please visit the American Physical Society's website. Contact us at usdcuwip2024@gmail.com.