Engage with the World and Find Your Community at SPSCon 2025

A great opportunity awaits you at the 2025 Physics and Astronomy Congress! We can’t wait to meet you in Denver, Colorado, this fall for the world’s largest conference for undergraduates interested in physics and astronomy.

The congress is organized by SPS and Sigma Pi Sigma, the physics and astronomy honor society, and supported by the American Institute of Physics. It’s expected to bring more than 1,200 undergraduates together with alumni, faculty, and renowned scientists and leaders in physics and astronomy. Over three days, participants will learn exciting physics and astronomy, benefit from professional development and career guidance workshops, engage in discussions of pressing issues in physics and astronomy, and take advantage of networking opportunities.

Not sure if you’re in? You will be after reading this issue full of details (see pages 10–18), tips, and reasons why you don’t want to miss it! When you’re ready to register, or if you want to learn even more about the event, visit students.aip.org/congress.

Originally known as the Sigma Pi Sigma Convention, the congress is almost 100 years old! It has persisted through good times and bad times and survived various challenges thrown at the science community. This unique event not only survived but grew from a gathering of a few chapters every handful of years to the triannual modern congress that brings together physics and astronomy undergraduates from hundreds of institutions across the country. SPSCon isn’t just a conference; it’s a congress, which means that every student at the convention can help steer the society by sharing their thoughts on current issues in physics and astronomy education, the fields more generally, and the community.

In fact, the all-attendee Sigma Pi Sigma congress workshop is designed to capture YOUR opinion on the most pressing issues facing physics and astronomy students today. Input from the hundreds of student attendees will be collected and analyzed and then used by SPS leadership to formulate the priorities of the society. This last point is very important in my mind, because the power of the student voice is what makes SPS unique.

SPS is a chapter-based society dedicated to helping students become productive and successful members of the scientific community. SPS is made of students and governed with their help. Think, for example, of the National Council, the governing body of SPS, which includes 18 elected students, one of whom is a student representative to the SPS Executive Committee. These students work alongside elected faculty councilors and other leaders. All of these volunteers freely and generously give their time and passion to represent and serve students from the various geographical zones of SPS.

Another great example of student leadership in SPS is the congress. The organizing committee includes several students and recent graduates in key positions.

And, of course, the main examples of student power lie in the amazing work of SPS chapters and individual student efforts. You are the forces that create student communities at the local, regional, and national levels. By leading your chapters, volunteering in science outreach events, and working on SPS-funded research projects, you are building an engaged student support system at your school. By organizing zone meetings or traveling to them, and by reporting on SPS activities or professional meetings, you are building a regional network. By applying for SPS scholarships, making a difference as an SPS intern, publishing in JURPA or the SPS Observer, running for the SPS Council, or volunteering at the congress, you are building a community that spans the nation—and beyond. The true power of SPS lies in YOU, the students!

The theme of the 2025 congress, “Supporting Phase Shifts,” reflects SPS’s mission of supporting physics and astronomy students as they shift to the next phase of their careers. The SPS leadership is fully committed to this mission and is working hard to support students through scholarships, internships, undergraduate research funding, science outreach funding, conference travel, zone meeting funding, publication and leadership opportunities, and organizing the 2025 Physics and Astronomy Congress. This support is clearly more important in trying times. But none of it would be possible without student participation in SPS, without your energy, your ideas for change, and your commitment to the community of your peers and your desire to expand it.

Therefore, I must say,

Dear Physics and Astronomy Students,

You have a unique opportunity this year to engage with the world and find your peers through SPS by coming to the 2025 Physics and Astronomy Congress! I hope you will take it! //