Picture a Physicist

Picture a physicist. What do you see? A man with wild hair scribbling complex equations or diagrams on a whiteboard? Perhaps someone peering through a telescope, adjusting the focus as they search the night sky for distant stars and galaxies? Maybe someone typing intently at their computer, lines of code filling the screen as they develop complex simulations? I have seen each of these scenarios playing out in real life, but there is something missing from all these images. The person at the whiteboard is typically collaborating with a peer or student; the person adjusting the telescope is sharing their observations with colleagues; and those lines of code are a language that connects members of multiple disciplines. At the heart of our field is a sense of community and collaboration, and that sense of community was well established at the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society’s (SESAPS) annual meeting on the campus of UNC Charlotte on October 24-27th, 2024.

My name is Faith Simmons, and I am an undergraduate student at East Tennessee State University studying physics with a focus on astronomy. This year, I was elected President of our SPS Chapter, and have been working towards a goal of increasing our involvement on campus and within the physics community that is so vital to our success. Over the summer, we established ETSU’s first ever Sigma Pi Sigma chapter and proudly inducted seven of our students in September. We also hosted the Zone 8 meeting on the ETSU campus in October of this year. I am honored to say that we had over 40 students from 7 different schools in attendance, and the event proved to be a wonderful networking opportunity for the SPS members in our region. In our search for ways to connect with the cohort that SPS provides, we came across the SESAPS meeting and were excited to see that it was within driving distance of our campus. We worked with our department to fund our travel and recruited a few new members to attend the meeting with us.

I was nervous going into the meeting because this was my first time presenting my research at a physics conference. I felt like an imposter walking into a lion’s den. As I sat through the welcoming session, I looked out to the sea of physicists and saw something that I wasn’t expecting. There were a dozen laptops open with presentations pulled up while they made last minute edits and reviewed their scripts. The feeling of being an imposter faded away and was replaced with a sense of belonging. As we were walking out of the opening session, I spotted a few familiar faces, and that sense of belonging was even more cemented. Friends we had made at the Zone meeting from The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) were also at the SESAPS meeting, chipping away at any feelings of isolation. Later that day, I presented one of over 70 posters at the student poster session. Rather than being alone in the spotlight as I had pictured, I was surrounded by other students just like myself who were encouraging, inspiring, and interesting to talk with.

I had the opportunity to interview some of the top researchers at the meeting, and I asked each of them for their advice to undergraduate students on how to successfully attend a conference like SESAPS. All of their responses came down to one idea – talk to people! The purpose of networking events like this is to build and foster those connections that propel our field forward. Scott Ransom, a staff astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and a Research Professor in the University of Virginia Astronomy Department says, “Don’t be shy! Go to as many talks as you possibly can, and if you find something absolutely fascinating, corner them and introduce yourself… and very often you’ll get into super interesting conversations. Maybe you talk to someone that will invite you to give a talk as you are finishing your thesis, and that’s great for getting jobs and connections for when you’re a post-doc.”

Greg Gbur, a Professor in the Department of Physics and Optical Sciences specializing in classical optics, advises “Every time you meet someone at a conference, that’s one more friendly face you will see at the next one. That cycle repeats until you’re walking down the hall one day and saying hello to everyone you pass.” I can already see this cycle playing out in my conference experience. Besides seeing our friends from UTC, we also met a few people from different areas of the region through events such as the SPS luncheon, the SPS Star Party at the Observatory, and the graduate school fair. I am looking forward to seeing even more friendly faces at the next meeting!

I am incredibly grateful that SESAPS was hosted at UNC Charlotte this year, and not only because of proximity to home. The UNC campus was absolutely beautiful at this time of year, and the colorful leaves provided a gorgeous backdrop to the conference activities. This conference also served as a graduate school visit for some of students considering graduate schools. The attention to detail and faculty involvement from the UNC faculty and staff over the week highlighted the care that they have for the physics community. I interviewed Kate Cruz, the academic admin for the Physics and Optical Science Department and UNC Charlotte and the mastermind behind the conference planning process, about her experience at UNC, and she said “It’s very tightknit. We try to do a lot of events, like a potluck that we do at the end of every semester….” She also noted that “It can be a very isolating experience if you don’t know where to look for that support. That’s why it’s important to have things like SPS so that there is an informal space for people to get to know each other and bond.”

SESAPS also served as a platform to immerse ourselves into the world of research in physics and astronomy. Along with the student poster session, there were plenty of oral breakout sessions that highlighted student talks on topics from particle physics to cosmology. During my talk with Dr. Ransom, he highlighted a few trends in research that undergraduate students should be aware of. “Machine learning is changing the way we do everything nowadays. I think biophysics is going bonkers right now and is probably going to continue to do so. Quantum computing is making a lot of progress. Truthfully, its biased, but astrophysics. Tons of basic physics, the only way we can do it now is through astrophysics, through cosmology, through high energy physics, through astroparticle physics because we’re kind of beyond what we can test in terrestrial laboratories…”

Out of all of the talks at SESAPS, Dr. Gbur’s talk on Falling Felines and Fundamental Physics stuck out to me because he managed to connect the physics of tossing cats out a window to my research in astrophysics. He drew a connection between a cat’s rotation in free fall to Stoke’s parameters and how they relate to polarimetry in astronomy. Furthermore, the way that cats rotate their bodies has helped astronauts learn how to rotate while in space. During our talk, Dr. Gbur spoke about how all branches of physics are in connected in some form. Therefore, we as physicists are all connected and must maintain that community in order to propel research forward.

I am so grateful that our SPS chapter had the opportunity to attend SESAPS this year. We all gained experience in the professional community, expanded our network, and furthered our understanding of physics as a career. As we look forward to next year, I hope to see the connections that we made at SESAPS develop and grow at other conferences, such as the American Astronomical Society meeting or the Conference for Undergraduate Women and Minorities in Physics. As we think about the picture of a physicist, I hope that we veer away from the daunting picture of an isolated scientist and towards the picture of an innovative, collaborative group of people.