From Channeling Your Sharkiness to Sharing Science

When the doors swing open and hundreds of students flood the hotel hallways after a congress breakout session, you can feel the energy—perspectives changing, knowledge expanding, networks forming, and ideas percolating. Conversations buzz and action plans take shape. That’s just what happens when you bring together passionate physics and astronomy students and experts for targeted discussions on topics like impacting your community, innovation, and preparing for your future.

The 2025 congress features two breakout sessions but many more workshops and panels, so participants won’t be able to attend everything they’re interested in. And we know not all of you can make it in October. Either way, don’t worry—we’ve got you covered. SPS will be engaging participants to report back on what they learn, compile resources from leaders and panelists, and let you know how to get involved.

Here’s a sneak peek of what’s to come.

Wide-Ranging Workshops

Typical physics and astronomy education programs don’t include all the fun and helpful things available to majors outside of content knowledge. That’s where these focused experiences come in. Explore, innovate, step up, prepare, and play in these workshops created especially for physics and astronomy undergraduates.

• Audience-Centered Science Communication: Upgrade your science communication skills by exploring how to meet your audience where they are.
• Be a Shark: Learn how to channel your inner shark to network, innovate, and take your career to the next level.
• Hidden Histories: Improving Visibility of Physicists and Astronomers on Wikipedia: Correct Wikipedia’s bias and improve the visibility of deserving scientists in this editing festival.
• Looking Good on Paper!: Learn how to build your resume for maximum success when applying for research and career opportunities.
• Physics for Humans: Applying Physics to Invention and Innovation: Explore how physics rises to the challenge of inventing new ways to address human needs and aspirations.
• Resonance: Connecting Your Creativity to Physics Through Music, Motion, and Art: Learn why physics (and astronomy) connect so strongly to music, motion, and art, and play at their intersection.
• Science Outreach: Impact Your Community: Develop a plan for starting and maintaining an outreach program that inspires students of all ages.
• TEAM-UP x SPS: Empowering Students as Change Agents: Be an agent of change—learn how to improve equity, inclusion, and belonging in your department.
• Workshops especially for SPS advisors and faculty members:
  
  • Ask SPS Leadership Anything
  • Chapter Research and Development
  • Student Leadership Development

Highlight!

Be a Shark
The first thing you’ll notice about the Be a Shark workshop will probably be the guy in a shark costume. That will be workshop leader Matt Wright, a physics professor at Adelphi University. Why a shark? “We often run across failures and things that impede our success,” he says. “The message here, especially when you’re looking for jobs, is that physicists have all the skills they need to go out there and make it happen.”

The workshop focuses on how to use those skills to launch your career forward, he says. There are many resources to help students with job hunting—but putting them into practice by, for example, reaching out to a professional for an informational interview can be pretty intimidating.

“You have to find the internal resolve to step out of your shell to make something happen,” Wright says. “This is about finding what that is for you and channeling it. And biting the crap out of everything you can.”

Panels Galore

With a physics and astronomy degree, doors open. Want to go to graduate school? Get a job in private industry? At a national lab? Work in robotics? Clean energy? How do you get there? What’s it really like? Ask your questions and get firsthand insight from alumni during panels on the following topics:

• Careers at national labs
• Careers in energy, climate, and sustainability
• Careers in industry and advanced manufacturing
• Careers in medical physics
• Careers in optics, robotics, and electronics
• Graduate student panel on physics and astronomy pathways
• Graduate student panel on engineering pathways

Highlight!

Resonance: Connecting Your Creativity to Physics Through Music, Motion, and Art

Albert Einstein carried his violin everywhere. Caroline Herschel was a well-known soloist. Robert Oppenheimer wrote poetry. Richard Feynman played bongo drums.

If you love playing music or creating art and doing science, you’re in good company. “Scientists have really been engaged in the arts forever,” says Shannon Clardy, a professor of physics and engineering at Henderson State University. She’s also a professional oboist, playing for the South Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and Little Rock Winds. In this workshop, she’ll help attendees explore the intersection of physics and the arts, discuss why so many scientists engage with the arts, and explore the benefits of getting lost in the creative process.

During the heart of the workshop, attendees will play with a creativity starter pack of supplies, making different forms of art and music to share with one another. The arts engage your mind in a different way, Clardy says. They can offer a restorative reprieve from the constant processing and problem-solving that occupies many scientists.

Highlight!

Hidden Histories: Improving Visibility of Physicists and Astronomers on Wikipedia

Wikipedia is often the first stop when people want to learn about the lives of historical and current scientists. Unfortunately, women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ individuals are underrepresented among Wikipedia’s biographies of scientists. In this editing festival, attendees will come together to create and edit scientists’ biographies and scientific theme pages, correcting Wikipedia’s bias and improving the visibility of a diverse array of scientists.

Workshops for all attendees

(No sign-up required)

Forming the 2025 Physics and Astronomy Congress
During every Physics and Astronomy Congress, students come together to examine the current state of the field, discuss successes and concerns, and decide how SPS should evolve to impact the future of physics and astronomy. This collective workshop is what makes the event a congress, not just a meeting.

Unapologetically Being
What would it look like to be authentically you—without apology? As a Black woman with a hearing impairment who earned a PhD in materials science and works at NASA, Renee Horton knows what it’s like to be different. She also knows what it takes to become who you want to be. In this workshop, Horton will help you learn about yourself, support your future self, and unapologetically be yourself—and share the joy that can bring.

Can you feel the energy and anticipation? If you’re attending the Physics and Astronomy Congress, divide and conquer the workshops and panels with friends for maximum impact. If you won’t be there, keep an eye out for follow-up stories and resources in SPS publications and on the website. We have lots to learn from each other!