Amelie Heying, 2026 AIP History and Library Programs Intern

Biography

SPS Chapter: Hamilton College
Hello! My name is Amelie Heying. I’m a rising senior at Hamilton College, double majoring in Physics and History. In physics, I’m extremely passionate about various forms of astronomy research; previously, I’ve worked with the Nicholas and Lee Begovich Center for Gravitational-Wave Physics and Astronomy to measure birefringence in crystalline silicon samples and Hamilton College to confirm exoplanets identified by the TESS mission. In history, I focus primarily on the history of science and ideas. I’m particularly interested in American history, specifically on how gender, race, and science have intertwined to influence “ways of knowing” in our country. My goal is to make the world a more curious place through interdisciplinary efforts that open people’s minds to different possibilities. Outside of my academic pursuits, I enjoy hiking, cooking, and leading my school’s Marathon Canoe Racing Team. I am so incredibly excited to be this year’s AIP History and Library Program Intern!

Internship

Host: American Institute of Physics History and Library Programs

Internship Blog

Week 1: Back in America

Wow. Time truly flies. I can’t believe it’s already been a week.
Some context to get you up to speed:
I’ve been out of the country since January 5th, studying abroad at Trinity College, Dublin. I had a terrific time, met tons of super interesting people, and spent about a month after finals traveling around Europe. At the end of my travels, my parents met me in Switzerland, and we spent an amazing week exploring the Swiss Alps. Last semester was the longest I’ve gone without seeing them, so it was super important to me that we got some time to adventure in Europe together.

After some tearful goodbyes, I flew straight to DC for this internship! I’m definitely missing my home state of California right now, but I’m pretty happy just to be back in the US.

Traveling to DC was a bit hectic: my flight out of Zurich was delayed, and I was about five minutes away from completely missing my transfer in Lisbon. In a crazy turn of events, TAP Portugal was able to delay my flight to DC by 20 minutes to get me onto the plane. I felt like the President; as soon as I got off my first plane, a bunch of TAP Portugal personnel in neon vests surrounded the tarmac and began sorting customers, sporadically yelling “Washington” to find me more quickly. Once they identified that I was the flier in question, they rotated around me, rapidly muttering on their walkie talkies, as we flew through security and passport control. I was just happy that all the action was able to wake me up from some of the endless-travel stupor I was falling into. Shoutout TAP Portugal.

Once in DC, I was able to stay with some family members I hadn’t seen in a hot second, and then it was MOVE-IN DAY! My boyfriend was able to drive down to DC with some of the cooking supplies I had stored at Hamilton and helped me move into Shenkman Hall! Days 1-2 was a whole lot of reshuffling furniture, washing laundry, unpacking clothes, and getting to spend some much-needed time with my boyfriend.

I hadn’t seen Z (the boyfriend) since spring break when he visited me in Dublin, so it was important to spend some time together while we could. While he was here, we were able to explore a nice brunch spot in the area and go sightseeing. Our dorms are extremely well-positioned in the city with sites such as the Lincoln and Washington Memorials only a short walk away.

Walking down the National Mall was beautiful but made me ponder the role of the Historian in the creation of monuments and national mythologies. The scenes of the National Mall---brilliant white marble structures---showcased a stunning facade. Upon closer inspection, much of the initially beautiful architecture showed signs of strain: marble cracked, ceilings with holes, construction walls set in preparation for the big 250. Strolling past small groupings of National Guard members, I marveled at how permeable the American historical narrative seems in our current world. Fragile.

Before the first big day, I started meal-prepping for the week and made a large vat of Bircher Muesli (a Swiss breakfast I absolutely fell in love with while traveling) and the NYT’s paprika chicken and potatoes. If you follow this blog, you will definitely figure out that I love food.

The first day in the AIP DC office was dedicated to meeting the other interns, taking headshots, and learning about the AIP organization/SPS internship program. We had a small competition to build the largest spaghetti/marshmallow tower (my team placed second but was first in spirit) and then spent the rest of the day orienting into the internship program.

I was able to take the leftover spaghetti home and then crafted some homemade ricotta and parmesan meatballs to serve with it! I’ve also been craving green things lately, so I threw together a lime, avocado, green onion, and cumber salad as a side dish. #zerowaste. The day after was spent ironing out some technical issues and receiving standard HR trainings.

My first few days of work were spent figuring out some more small technical issues, reading some history of physics introductory material, and brainstorming topics for my ‘capstone’ project this summer. A few of the interns went to the Shakespeare Library so we could do some work together!

It was really incredible to meet the other interns. Everyone is very motivated and passionate about their work. From our first few days exploring DC (like seeing Petworth Porchfest this weekend) and bonding over JackBox games and Werewolf, I can already tell that this is going to be a fantastic summer.

Highlight of the Week: Trimble Lecture!
On Wednesday evening, Dava Sobel, a highly acclaimed science writer committed to highlighting the history of women in physics, came to AIP for her lecture “At Mme. Curie’s Lab: Radioactivity and a Place for Women in Science.” During her lecture, Sobel brought up a very interesting point about the internalized misogyny of women and how that can affect the scholarship we produce on the historical role of women. It really reminded me of Paris Spies-Gans’ piece, “Why Do We Think There Have Been No Great Women Artists? Revisiting Linda Nochlin and the Archive,” an incredible piece of historical scholarship that has really influenced the way I understand gender dynamics of greatness and remembrance. Essentially, the piece argues that women have been “greats” of their own time in a variety of different disciplines (Spies-Gans focuses on art), but preconceptions by historians (like that women couldn’t historically rise to high levels of career success) have limited our recognition of these women. Spies-Gans ultimately advocates a much less linear history of the progression of women’s rights. Sobel’s lecture reminded me to check my preconceptions at the door as I dive into the world of women’s historical involvement in physics. Reality is rarely linear, and it would be a disservice to the women I am trying to illuminate to try and categorically jam them into an easily explainable box.

Sobel’s account of her surprise at seeing women so deeply involved in the pursuit of physics also reminded me of an earlier lecture I attended at Trinity College, Dublin this year. A historian of the Irish Revolution had expressed her deep surprise at learning that her very own relative had been a large participant in the Revolution, along with all her friends. This “generational amnesia of women’s involvement,” I believe, is deeply ingrained---the relative’s generation of women had not been attempting to keep their involvement a secret, they had just never been asked about their involvement. It is very easy to write a historical narrative based only on the loudest voices, often to the historical narrative’s detriment. The historical archive is built along our own perceptions of possibility---what we value as legitimate material is heavily influenced by the social hierarchies of today. These are lessons I will need to keep in mind as I pursue my own historical research.

Week 2: The Adjustment Period

The Week in a Flash:

• Finally got to see the Niels Bohr Library and Archive in person!

• Narrowed my final presentation topic down to three potential avenues (more on this next week)
• Watched the first few episodes of Love Island with some other interns

• First intern potluck!!! (and a MASSIVE pot of chili)

• The beginning of my Instagram era with my first official Instagram takeover of @spsnational

• First AIP Weekly History Newsletter published! This week, I extracted exercepts from a recent oral history interview with trans food physicist Megan Povey!
• National Orchestral Institute private showing in the National Museum of American History

• Happy Hour Friday with the Interns

• National Gallery of Art Block Party+Dupont Underground

• Dupont Circle Market

• Smithsonian Zoo with the Interns

Summer Goals:

• Explore different physics-oriented career paths (in other words, figure out what I want to do with my life)
• Find my creative voice (this is what I’m trying to do with this blog!)
  • Try and use a different writing form each blog (i.e. poetry, blog prose, bulleting)
• Get cooking!

• Write down essay ideas/research questions whenever inspiration strikes
• Make a whole lot of amazing physics friends (this one shouldn’t be too hard to do with all the amazing people in this program)
• Explore DC as a potential city to live in post-grad!

Week 3: What is a physicist?

The question above currently holds the crux of all of my work-related problems.

This summer, I’ve been tasked with forming a historical project that emphasizes the contributions of women to physics throughout the ages. This project should be simple enough: women have been involved in physics in all sorts of ways throughout time...or have they?

It all really depends on how you define a physicist. Do you need to have a PhD in physics? Or will a Bachelor’s do? Does an education define a physicist, or is their product the only thing that matters? Can you still be a physicist if you self-conceptualize in a different way (as a mathematician or a natural philosopher or a wife, for example)?

Digging my way through the various archives of DC this week has convinced me that women have always been deeply involved in finding the fundamental laws governing matter and energy. However, I’ve also found it nearly impossible to create a feasible summer project focused on the contributions of women.

The title of physicist does not come easily to womankind. Women have historically been excluded from educational opportunities that would allow them to self-identify with the term ‘physicist.’ Even when their contributions are appreciated by the historical record, their fame is relegated to the status of amateur scientist, inventor, or experimenter. But a lack of educational opportunities does not cover the entirety of the problem. Laura Bassi earned her doctorate in science in 1732. While she was an exception rather than the rule, a whole series of women had earned PhDs in physics by the early 1910s. Surely, by now in 2026, we should have a robust history of female contributions to the field.

Not so. In a feat of massive specification, the archive has managed to obscure the historical role of women by embedding social hierarchy into its labels. All too often, this social hierarchy is enforced after the fact, in a combination of lazy record-keeping and social norms that historically relegated women to the private sphere. A picture of three physicists becomes two physicists and an assistant. A woman experimental physicist becomes a technician. A woman who does her physics at home is simply the wife of a physicist. This becomes especially egregious when trying to quickly sift through millions of pages of archival material.

My education in historical thinking has occurred during the immense refutation of the ‘great man theory’---the idea that major events and societal shifts are driven by the actions of extraordinary and inherently brilliant individuals. Thus, I refuse to believe that the history of women in physics should be driven by the few individuals who managed to gain legitimacy in the scientific establishment. These women were undoubtably brilliant---this is not to undercut the incredible barriers they managed to overcome. However, it does not (and should not) take an extraordinary individual to become a physicist. Knowledge is created and accepted collectively. I want to create a history that reflects this.

To me, a physicist is someone who seeks to understand the fundamental interactions of the world around them. Is this an overly broad definition? Almost certainly. However, I’m trying to understand the history of physics, a field that has only recently become separate from other sciences. Should I confine my definition to those recognized as physicists? This excludes almost half of the discipline’s history, as well as pretty much all women and contributors of color. My new rule: if it thinks like a physicist, it is a physicist.

In the words of Amalie Emmy Noether, the mother of abstract algebra whose theorem created the key links between symmetry laws and conservation laws in physics (later leading to Einstein’s discoveries):
“my methods are really methods of working and thinking; this is why they have crept in everywhere anonymously.”

In Other News...The Week in a Few Pictures:

The Capitol City at sunset with a paragliding show by one of the military branches:

A spectacle on the Hill:

A maize chapel and a butter cow:

The People’s House becomes a next-generation parking structure for police vehicles:

Some art:

Some food:

Talking of the apocalypse....