Maia Chandler, 2025 Physics Today Science Writing Intern

Biography

SPS Chapter: Swarthmore College
Hello! My name is Maia Chandler. I am a recent graduate of Swarthmore College majoring in Biophysics and minoring in Educational Studies. I have a passion for science pedagogy, whether that be in the form of journalism, museum studies, or teaching. As a young scientist, I wanted to be an astronaut, and then a palaeontologist. I want to ensure young people find joy and love in science, experience how it teaches us about the connections between people, and the living and nonliving world around them, and see a place for themselves as scientists. Over the past four years, I have dedicated my time to helping build my school’s natural history collection, mentoring underclassmen as a teaching assistant for physics classes, and leading circus and acapella clubs. I hope to pursue a graduate degree and a career in science communication. I have also participated in bioinformatics research on dragonflies and biomechanics research on hydra. I am beyond excited to be the Physics Today Intern for Summer 2025!

Internship

Host: Physics Today Science Writing Intern

Internship Blog

Week 1: Starling Murmurations

Boy, oh boy, am I ready for another SPS Summer! As this year’s Physics Today intern, I am gearing up for a summer of reading, writing, and learning about new physics. So, I plan to use this blog to practice these skills. Current blog post plans? Some discussion on what I have read and loved this week. Perhaps a few practice pieces on interesting physics papers. And, of course, looping whoever reads this blog in on all the joyous intern summer activities.

This week, I’ve had the joy of learning that one of my mentors (Toni Feder!) wrote a PT article about the group from one of my favourite papers: Attanasi’s Information transfer and behavioural inertia in starling flocks.

Toni covered this work , conducted by a European collaboration across biology, physics and economics called STARFLAG, two years after it began in 2007.

STARFLAG studies collective animal behaviour. One of their interests is starling murmurations, aerial displays of 200 to 50,000 starlings in a black cloud, darting, twisting, and pulsing through the air. To study this, the team aligned and synchronised high-speed cameras from different angles to create three-dimensional images of a murmuration.

To handle all this data, they built an algorithm that tracks each bird across images, producing a 3D position for each individual as the flock moves. It also analyses data on the size of the flock and the relative movements of each starling to its neighbours.

While this is an impressive amount of data processing, it is not why I love this paper.

How collective behaviour emerges from the interaction of individuals is a broad physics problem. Attanasi’s 2014 paper is about collective decision-making. A flock of starlings dancing together must rapidly share directional information: turn left, turn right, duck! If one bird doesn’t get the memo, it may fly off alone.

Previously, these behavioural changes were described as a game of telephone. A signal to turn diffuses from one bird to the next, fading as it gets further away from the source. STARFLAG’s data suggests something different. The decision to turn starts with just a few birds, spreading through the flock at a constant velocity.

Diffusion also doesn’t work because the birds should have some resistance to changing direction. A starling flying around cannot change direction instantly. We must consider inertia.

The 2014 paper does just that. Attanasi, Cavanga and their team create a mathematical description of how the starling flock turns. The model says that any slight variations in how neighbouring birds are oriented to one another are passed through the flock.

These variations must pass through the entire flock for them to fly cohesively. Any misalignment from a bird in the flock has to travel through everyone, causing the group to change direction collectively. If I fly a little funny and turn a bit to my left, so will all my neighbour birds, and their neighbour birds, until we arrive at a new normal.

What is amazing about this model is that the starlings’ flight is mathematically the same as the quantum dynamics of superfluid helium. This is a strange state of matter, found only in incredibly cold liquid helium, that flows without any resistance.

This paper is beautiful to me for its scale. It talks about patterns that reach farther than you ever thought they could. Each bird is massive compared to a single atom but moves the same way. It makes me feel the way I do about the golden ratio, or Voronoi tessellations, or the way I walk through the woods, waiting for each heel to sink into the ground before my next step.

This paper is beautiful to me because of the starlings. Starlings’ flight feels otherworldly, thousands of black specks twirling at dusk against a changing sky. They move in unison, splitting and merging again and again without ever touching one another. A starling murmuration is wonderful and curious.

Something about it is grounding. Perhaps it is the consistency in the big and the small. Maybe it’s something that I don’t yet know how to articulate. Either way, I love it.

Moving on to things I have learnt this week! I was given lots of advice during my first PT lunch hour. I have decided to be generous and share the wisdom of others:

• There isn’t just one route for disseminating content.
• Focus less on rule-following and more on clarity, consistency, and meeting the context of your audience.
• Calibrate.
• Focus on storytelling. There are multiple entry points to a story.
• Reach the science at a level you can understand.
• Always ask questions.
• Science journalism isn’t a writing job. It is a learning job.
• We write to be read.
• To understand your audience, you must engage with them directly.
• Everything we do is an experiment we can learn from.
• Take time to stop and think.

This is becoming a very long blog post. I guess it is now time for the incredibly anticipated weekly rundown. Monday (an evil day) was the day after I graduated from college. My family packed up my entire life (ahhh!) and drove down from Philly. I met all the interns in the evening, before falling asleep at a ripe 9 pm. Tuesday was orientation! I was joyful to see so many people from last summer again. I met Toni and Andrew, my PT mentors for this summer. Wednesday was my first day in the PT office. I was introduced to everyone and did a lot of reading. I annotated articles for structure, intent, rhythm, language choices, and more. Thursday (ACP office day) was similar. Lots of reading, comparing PT articles to publications from other science news, and blog writing. I met with Andrew to begin to prepare for my first assignment: the Physics Olympiad! Friday: More reading, more annotating, more Olympiad. Bonus of more interns being in the office. I had meetings with Andrew and Toni to discuss the Olympiad, and with Jenessa to talk about Tuesday’s National Academy’s State of the Science Address (exciting!). We also got to attend the Trimble lecture, titled “History, Philosophy, and Culture of Black Holes in the Midst”. I was quite exhausted after, so went back home to lay down and call my friend. No intern karaoke for me, sadly.

On Saturday, I was missing my dearest and most beloved pesto, egg and cheese bagel from Swarthmore’s Hobbs Coffee. With no Hobbs in sight, I was left to my own bagel making device. It was not as good. Jenna, Zhane and I then ventured off to the Natural History Museum for the day. Joyous! I love the dinosaurs, bugs, and sea creatures. We touched Mars rock, and I saw my favorite Meganeura monyi (see: last year’s blog for more on him). Then, a quick beverage break and dinner before the NOI orchestra’s rendition of Dvorak’s New World Symphony. Joyous! On Sunday, Jenna, Grace, Saniya and I got up for the Dupont farmer’s market. Acquisitions include rhubarb, strawberries, and coffee. After a second quick grocery stop, I began to make full use of the Shenkman kitchen. Rhubarb and strawberry compote. Chicken congee. Delightful days of eating to come. Grace, Jenna and I ventured out to the mall, only to return quickly as I cut myself slicing an apple pear (sadness). This did make time for some miso brown butter chocolate chip cookies and pasta salad though, so wins and losses. Then, dinner time and our new intern reality tv viewing: The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

What I’ve read this week and loved:

• Forever Gone by J. Drew Lanham in Orion Magazine.
• How Paradoxical Questions and Simple Wonder Lead to Great Science by Molly Herring in Quanta Magazine.
• Science by Alison Hawthorne Deming in Science and Other Poems.
• Gauge invariance applies to statistical mechanics too by Johanna Miller in Physics Today

Week 3: Green Lasers in the Sky
Big news this week: I am writing the backscatter for PT’s August issue! The backscatter is the second-to-last page of the magazine. It highlights an eye-catching image and explains its physics. Mine is about fluorescence lidar!

In the lowlands of Germany, there is a very bright, very green laser shooting up into the atmosphere. This is MARTHA, the oldest and largest lidar instrument at Germany’s Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS). MARTHA collects the laser’s backscattered light to measure polarisation and scattering.

Light bounces off and is absorbed by different particle types in different ways. This means that each particle type has a specific signature. So, collected light can be sorted through like a puzzle to determine what kind of stuff was in the atmosphere at the time of measurement. However, this doesn’t always paint a clear picture. MARTHA had limitations because some of these signatures partially overlapped. It had difficulty distinguishing between smoke/volcanic sulphates at high atmospheric layers and smoke/urban pollution at low layers.

A 2022 update to MARTHA changed this. Scientists at TROPOS added a channel to collect fluorescence backscatter. This extra measurement, fluorescence capacity, made MARTHA better at typing and detecting aerosol particles.

While these fluorescence signals can only be detected at night due to noise from solar radiation, having more data is a massive win. For one, smoke has a very high fluorescence capacity compared to other stuff. So, those ‘smoke or volcanic sulphates’ and ‘smoke or urban pollution’ questions? Solved.

The fluorescence lidar is good at seeing super thin layers of aerosols. TROPOS collected atmospheric fluorescence observations during the spring and summer of 2023, when plumes of sooty aerosols from Canadian forest fires were moving through Europe. They found several otherwise undetectable, thin layers of wildfire smoke at high altitudes, suggesting that the atmosphere over Europe is more polluted than previously thought.

These thin aerosol layers may also have implications for cloud formation. The specks of aerosols might act as seeds for tiny ice crystals, helping form clouds in a process called ice nucleation. While wildfire aerosols are not usually a relevant source for ice crystals, some studies have suggested otherwise for cirrus clouds (those horse-tail guys at high altitudes).

Why is this relevant? MARTHA’s fluorescence measurement also helps unambiguously distinguish between dry, non-activated aerosols and aerosols in hydrometeors in the same volume, as water doesn’t fluoresce. In some MARTHA data, parts of cirrus clouds were embedded in a smoke layer. The smoke layer and cloud top rose simultaneously before the cloud scattered and ice nucleation stopped. This might indicate that the smoke triggered cloud formation. Smoke-cloud interactions could have implications for the size and lifetime of cloud events.

Thank you to Johanna (through Alex) for this piece of writing advice: If a particular detail is presented, then it should be obvious why it is included.

Moving on to this wonderful SPS week 3! Monday was a DC office day. After work, I speed ran food prep (onigiri and tofu katsu curry), before watching Big Bird in Japan with my friends. Big Bird, oh Big Bird, why was this movie so sad? Tuesday, I was feeling unwell. After a morning in the DC office, I went home, took a nap, and had (very unproductive) job application time. My friends and I played skribbl.io and discovered that none of us can spell ‘limousine’. The ‘u’ is entirely unexpected.

Wednesday, Maryland day! Naomi and I headed out at a wonderful 8am. At College Park, we got on the 104 which we thought would take us directly to ACP. Falsehoods. Instead, we went on a lovely driving tour of UMD campus, which dropped us off, backpacks and all, at the ACP doorstep. After a day of making edits to my backscatter and looking into poetry/physics, Jenessa gave me a ride to the metro. Joyous! On Thursday, I finalized my backscatter and sent it to the paper’s authors for a fact check. After a chat with Toni, I also sent an inquiry email for my poetry/physics Q&A. More to come soon! After work, I met my high school friend for dinner and walked to the mall to toss a ball around with some interns. It’s gnat central over there, which is more than a little evil. I think I ate some.

Friday, I decided to work from home. I scheduled an interview, had a new meeting, wrote some interview questions and my blog. After sending so, so many emails, I began collecting poems. If you, whoever is reading this blog, have any favorites, please send them to me. Saturday was an inside day. I baked, we sang happy birthday to Saniya, and Grace and I steamed a fish. On Sunday, I went to see my cousins! They are teaching me how to drive. Lesson one, complete.

What I’ve read this week and loved:

• Who Speaks for Earth? by Morgan Parker
• Antidotes to Fear of Death by Rebecca Elson from A Responsibility to Awe

Week 2: Jar Octopus

Back at school, I worked in our natural history collection. Part of my job was ensuring liquid invertebrate specimens were safe to handle. Preserved parasites, crustaceans, and jellyfish held still and silent in jars of poison, waiting for me in the dark. Each week, I would go into the lab and twist open jar after jar, replacing formalin (diluted formaldehyde, sometimes containing methanol) with ethanol.

During my last week, I came across an octopus. He was smaller than expected; I could cup him in my hands. His tentacles were stiff, permanently curled up towards his head. He had a single tentacle unfurled, a last reach for something frozen in time.

I bathed him, washed the formalin off of him. Poison gone, still dead.

The octopus was more solid than I was expecting. He was rubbery and dense, the weight of him sinking into my palm as I moved him into a new, clean jar. His label went with him: Octopus. Collected in Antarctica.

I don’t know why I share this. I don’t even know what species the octopus was. Turquet’s octopus, maybe? It becomes hard to tell when something has morphed beyond what it used to be, pallid and wrinkled and rigid.

One of my favourite facts used to be that octopuses have three hearts. This is because their blood is blue. Unlike the iron-rich haemoglobin cells that we have, copper-based haemocyanin flows through their veins. Haemoglobin holds four oxygen molecules; the binding of each molecule makes it more likely that another oxygen will bind. Biophysicists used it as a model of cooperativity. Haemocyanin, on the other hand, binds a singular oxygen.

Our haemoglobin is packed up into red blood cells to be transported efficiently around our bodies. Haemocyanin doesn’t do that–it is suspended directly in an octopus’ blood. Because of haemocyanin, octopus blood is more viscous. The octopus’ body needs to create more pressure to pump blood around the body. So, three hearts.

One heart pushes oxygenated blood around the body. Two hearts push deoxygenated blood through the gills. Three hearts for one octopus, one heart for one me.

It might seem inefficient for one octopus to have so many hearts. One heart and red blood seem better, right? However, our red haemoglobin becomes inefficient in cold environments with oxygen pressure. Haemocyanin keeps its efficiency. My Antarctic octopus had blood fit for his home.

I keep thinking about how stiff my octopus was. Octopi have no bones. My octopus could not sink into an alcove anymore, body seeping through crevices. He could only sit straight, posed forever.

I’m not sure why I share this. I have been thinking about my jar octopus. About washing the poison off his body. About what it would be like to sink into a chair, really, truly sink into it, body flowing into all the cracks between the cushion and back, between the threads of the fabric. People say that octopi are the best problem solvers.

This week was an octopus week for my body but not for my work. On Monday, I did background research on the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) and the people involved. Remember that acronym. It’ll come up again later. After that, some background reading on the State of the Science address from last year. After work, Jenna, MJ, Saniya, Kalen, Naomi, and I went to Tonic for some trivia. Our team, Kermit to the Bit came in fourth. Pretty good for the first trivia of the summer, I think.

Tuesday morning, I read the NSF funding proposals and searched for some interesting articles. In the afternoon, Jenessa (from PT!), Jenna and I trekked over to the National Academy of Science. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen an auditorium so packed. I spent much of the week discussing the address with others. Afterwards, my friend and I called to do job applications (scary).

On Wednesday, I went to the Maryland office, only to be surprised by a special PT field trip. Wind tunnels! Ice cream! What joy! After a quick check-in with my mentor Andrew, I wrote some notes for a backscatter idea. A backscatter is the second-to-last page of the PT magazine with an engaging picture that tells a physics story.

I spent all of Thursday at the University of Maryland observing the IPhO students in their competition preparation and speaking with the coaches. Evan, an intern from last summer, is a junior coach. He’ll be accompanying the five selected students to France in July. A journey for him! In the evening, it was dinner cruise time: two hours of mingling and eating with SPS and AIP staff. I spent much of the evening talking with Trevor Owens (from AIP research) about the State of Science address, science writing and education. Friday was an early morning for interviews with the IPhO students, after which I went home to write my blog. And think about my jar octopus. And read some science writing (what a wonderful part of my job).

On Saturday, Jenna, James, Kavin, Grace and I ventured out into the world. We went to a bookstore, got some delicious pastries and coffee, and went to the African American History Museum. Then, to my most-greatest-ever-delight, we went to see the Muppets. The Museum of American History has Fozzie Bear, Wilkins, AND Bert and Ernie on display. I almost cried. I love the Muppets. I brought my Kermit to meet them. In the evening, we watched The Muppets (2011). Kermit and I had a great day.

Sunday! Jenna and I had breakfast, then I hemmed my pants. In the afternoon, I headed to my cousins’ place, where we watched Atlantis, ate kare kare, and yapped. I love my cousins and also their cat Peebs. Peebs is the best.

What I’ve read this week and loved:

• Total Eclipse by Annie Dillard (Thank you Trevor for the recommendation)
• The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson
• Could Wildfire Ash Feed the Ocean’s Tiniest Life-Forms? by Jenessa Duncombe in Eos
• Eight million years of Arabian climate were not all dry Free by Andrew Grant in Physics Today
• Finding Beauty and Truth in Mundane Occurrences by Charlie Wood in Quanta
• A poem my best friend wrote