Anna Perry, 2019 AIP Center for History of Physics Intern

Biography

SPS Chapter: Gettysburg College

I am a rising junior at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. At Gettysburg, I study Physics, Africana Studies, and Peace & Justice Studies. Outside of class I am a member of the Latin American Student Association; I am on the organizing committee for a discussion group called Let’s Talk About It; I have a radio show called Voice of a Generation, where I and my co-hosts fact-check and provide multiple perspectives on pressing social issues; I am the social media chair for the Peace & Justice Studies Council at my school; and I am chair of the budget committee for the Consortium of North American Peace Programs (CONAPP). Last summer I carried out research on PDMS (Polydimethlysiloxane) deterioration using my school’s van de Graaf proton accelerator.

Currently, I am interested in the intersection of the physics world and social issues. My hope is to help physicists deconstruct their roles in social change, and to create learning and teaching environments in which all physicists-- no matter their identity-- can thrive.

Internship

Host: American Institute of Physics

Internship Blog

Why am I here? Why aren’t You here?

Dear reader,

Do you think I deserve this position? Would you credit my landing this internship to my hard work? If you were me, would you be congratulating yourself?

During the application process, I did not believe I was qualified for this position. I felt guilty asking my mentors for letters of recommendation—surely my application would not be taken seriously. Surely I was not going to land an interview.

I landed an interview, and then I landed the job. It... did not feel real. It is only now, here at the American Center for Physics, that I am able to fully comprehend what has happened. I got here! I am the person my younger self dreamed of becoming! So, now that I have digested these facts, I have some reflections on my journey thus far.

While I was hired because of my experiences and abilities, my whiteness cannot be separated from my path here. Even though my parents were low-income, they were not discriminated against by landlords or loan providers ; this meant I was able to grow up adjacent to affluent white communities and attend a well-funded public school. I was given access to the world of powerful people. I was exposed to lessons on how to talk like a professional, how to navigate college, how to build my network. I know how to navigate white spaces (spaces where power is concentrated), and it does not take a significant toll on me to do so.

What about the people who were dealt a different hand? Would you call them less deserving? Should we grant them access to our world of free coffee and lunchtime plenaries and workplace friendships?

While I want to give myself credit for landing this position, I know I cannot take full credit for where I am in life. I need all the other people that applied to this internship and did not receive an offer to know that they are valuable. I need all of us who have been given a clear path to safety and security to know that we are responsible for the wellbeing of our siblings without safety.

Fellow physicists, what role has power played in your life? What lies have you been told about yourself? How does your work uphold these lies, and how will you seek the truth? I am still searching for a picture of the world that includes us all, that showcases our full range of humanity. Please, search with me. Show me your path.

If any of what I have said resonates with you, please reach out to me. I genuinely want to learn from your perspective, dear reader. We have so much to teach each other.

With love,

Silence

I’ve found that, in physics spaces, the less I speak, the more popular I am. Something about my voice or my mannerisms or the way I see the world is displeasing to the average physicist; and though I can change how I act so that they’ll think I’m someone I’m not, silence is easier. In these cases, I would not call silence a choice; I would call it a defense mechanism.

In silence, I’ve learned how to speak. I’ve learned to say as little as possible to get my point across. I’ve learned that I don’t need to show my soul to someone to earn their respect.

As the Pride festivities continue, I find myself silent once more. The disconnect between what Pride makes queer ness look like and what my experience of queerness has been is jarring. Is this silence a defense mechanism?

I want to tell you, dear reader, how my queerness has made the path to this internship all the more rocky for me. I want to tell you that I am too queer for most. I want to show you how most people hide their queer parts. But right now, I choose silence. Right now I’m silent because it’s Pride and I’m not proud. I’m silent because people want to hear about the good parts of being queer. I’m silent because right now it’s not so good.

In the silence, let us remember who Pride is about: Muhlaysia Booker , Layleen Polanco Xtravaganza , Marsha Johnson , and many more whose names we’ll never know.

Dignified Science

“Ciencia para qué y para quiénes?”

“Science for what and for whom?”

This question has become one of the central rallying cries of the Ciencia Digna movement . Started by the late biologist Andrés Carrasco, this is a movement centered on the health and wellbeing of all people; because this movement prioritizes community, it is called “pueblo-centric.”

I stumbled upon Ciencia Digna at the end of last week, as I was searching for Latinx scientists that I could create teaching guides on. Carrasco began planting the seeds of this movement when he listened to the mothers of the Cordoba province in Argentina as they spoke of and organized against the devastating effects herbicides have had on their communities. Driven by empathy, he sought out scientific proof of what the mothers already knew. He was the first to show that the use of glyphosate-based herbicides leads to birth defects in surrounding communities.

Carrasco’s willingness to doubt the herbicide industry’s claim that glyphosate was completely safe for heavy use in agricultural industries took courage. Shortly after he made the results of his study public—in a press release, far before any journal publication—he began receiving death threats and angry responses from his employer.

The way I see it, there were two conflicting forces pulling on Carrasco when he was conducting this research: the force of comfort, and the force of love. To choose comfort is to take what the world tells you at face value. For a scientist, to choose comfort is to never question what role your work plays in the violence of the world. To choose love, on the other hand, is to listen to those who have had violence enacted upon them; to choose love is to turn inward and see your own humanity.

Científicas Dignas are scientists that explore the natural world with intention and love. They enter their workplace with humanity in mind; they consider whose interests their science serves, and they shift their work when it harms the pueblo.

Scientists, who are you serving? Who do you want to serve? How can you leverage your expertise to improve everyone’s quality of life? Will you serve violent states and corporations, or will you serve your own humanity? Will you choose love?

Vulnerability

Yesterday, SPS had tables of physics demonstrations at Astronomy on the Mall. For about three hours, we showed passerby how to use a telescope, what a tuning fork sounds like, and what gravity looks like. Notably, people of all ages came and interacted with our demos.

There was a remarkable beauty in the eyes of those who observed our displays. Many strangers touched me with their enthusiasm for the natural world. They reminded me of how I first fell in love with physics.

I can only speak for myself, but my excitement for physics has been slowly replaced with a private, consuming pessimism. Honestly, I had completely forgotten what it felt like to lose oneself in a novel concept—to delight in the solving of a tough problem, to awe at the strange order of our world.

The attendees of Astronomy on the Mall filled me with an urgency to cultivate that feeling of wonder, to care for the members of my physics communities. That spark of interest is so precious. For those cautiously interested 30-year-olds that wandered up to our demonstrations, I want to protect them from any forces that are pushing them away from pursuing their desires. I want to build a world overflowing with a positive enthusiasm for learning and exploring.

There is a vulnerability in happiness. To admit that one finds joy in the world is to admit that one is human. It is to admit that one has soft spots. Not all of us can afford to show our soft spots. A lifetime of discouragement can make us callous, private, slow to trust. Seeing the soft happiness of children and adults alike has helped me to recognize that I have hardened over time. Seeing my own callousness has helped me recognize the dire lack of love in certain pockets of the physics world.

To those brave enough to smile, I thank you. To those hardened and shy, I feel you. Let us all work together to create learning environments in which we can let our guards down, admit our ignorance, and delight together in what we don’t yet know.

The Emotional Toll

My goal with this internship has been to research past efforts to improve the physics climate so that we can better understand the current climate-- to draw parallels between the world then and the world now. This goal is borne in part from my own negative experiences in physics; I always wanted to know why all of the physics spaces I had encountered were hostile, and my search for answers led me to the past. Digging through past physicists’ correspondences and asking those older than me to share their experience has been my way of understanding what I’ve gone through.

What I did not fully comprehend about this process going in is that it brings up a lot of old, intense emotions. As a raging empath, listening to other people’s stories of discrimination in physics does not just mean following their tale and digesting what they say; it means putting myself in the shoes of the narrator, living their story out in my imagination. When one has already been to these sad places and felt this type of hurt, reliving these stories can be a heavy reminder of humankind’s capacity to hurt.

Wrestling with such emotions has led me to this realization: the cost of hostile physics environments goes far beyond simply losing diverse physicists. There is a spiritual toll taken on all parties involved every time someone is talked over, disrespected, ignored, or pushed out. To me, this cost is far greater than the cost of losing my physics degree .

I invite all those who remain in physics to pay attention to how you feel in your lab, classroom, or workplace. How are your peers speaking to you? How are you speaking to your peers? Are you able to express yourself there? Are you making room for others to be their authentic selves? If we all turn to each other with love and intention, we may not have to listen to stories like mine for much longer.

Gratitude

Before this internship, my whole life was spent in rural areas. This means I had never had access to public transportation, or to the large array of social and political events on constant rotation in major cities. It has been incredibly rewarding to adjust to a life where there are people who look like me around every corner; a life where I am normal, and a life where I have room to discover new ways of living.

At this point we are well over half-way through the 10-week program. All I can think about is how sorely I will miss this place and this lifestyle. I’m scared that if I leave, I’ll get stuck in farmlands for the rest of my life. I’m scared that when this job ends, the next one won’t come. I’m scared that my new friends will build extravagant lives that do not wait for me. I’m scared that the world will end before I find my home.

During these moments of fear, gratitude is the only thing that makes sense to me. I am grateful to the American Institute of Physics for employing and housing me; I am grateful to the people I’ve met who have taken interest in my life; I am grateful to the Whole Foods employees that sell me my groceries; I am grateful to all my past educators, who showed me I was capable of landing an internship like this one. While I am scared for the future, I know that I have been incredibly privileged to even get where I am right now. While I do not want this internship to end, I know that the future is bursting with opportunities to grow and share joy. I cannot wait to see what these final three weeks have to show me.