Emma Goulet, 2022 AIP Center for History of Physics/Neils Bohr Library & Archives Intern

Biography

SPS Chapter: Saint Anselm College

Hello everyone! My name is Emma Goulet (she/her), and I am a rising senior at Saint Anselm College. I major in Physics and Psychology, with a minor in Astronomy and Planetary Science. This coming summer, I will be the incoming Center for History of Physics/Niels Bohr Library & Archives Intern. At this point, I have been lucky enough to do mainly more technical astronomy research through my school and previous REU programs. I have always imagined myself in some kind of astronomy or research-related field, as I am also doing a few research and teaching projects on the side and getting certified to be able to find Pulsar stars with astronomical data. However, I have always wanted to explore what else I could do with physics and am thrilled to try something new with the policy in this internship! I am extremely passionate about the importance of amplifying underrepresented voices and policy matters; finding some middle ground between this and my excitement about physics research is a really amazing opportunity. Before this internship, I couldn’t think of a way to combine my passions for physics, psych, and education specifically in social equality; I am thrilled to find some kind of intersections between these passions and am excited to try my hand at more historical research and writing! I am also the president of my school’s SPS chapter, and it has been a blast getting closer to my department because of it! We are a tiny department, so coming together in our SPS chapter has really been an amazing way to establish our wonderful community.

Apart from professional-related pursuits, I am very outdoorsy in my personal life. I love camping, hiking, animals, etc (probably because I live next to a farm and have camped my whole life). In very much the same vein, I have found hobbies in fitness and cooking! I have worked as a chef and in a kitchen, and I love making up recipes and trying new things, as well as physically challenging myself. While I am excited to combine a few of my passions together in this internship, I am also thrilled to be able to meet the other interns and live in an apartment with a few peers in downtown DC! I truly can’t wait to meet everyone and get outside of my comfort zone this summer.

Internship

Host: American Institute of Physics

Project

Abstract

Throughout history, there have been various cases of women in physics being underrepresented and undercredited for their work. It is essential to research and amplify their stories to promote representation in the field. This summer, I did just that and focused my efforts on two incredible women in physics: Katherine Clerk Maxwell and Émilie du Châtelet. I first created teaching guides on the two women for kindergarten through second graders, so that young kids could hopefully be inspired by women in science. Then, I wrote outreach articles about both women to attempt to share their stories with a wider and older audience. This consisted of articles for the AIP History Newsletter, Ex Libris Universum library & archives blog, an AIP essay competition, as well as some Wikipedia edits. Katherine serves as a case study about partners in science and how the companions of scientists often end up making huge contributions to research, but do not get credit for their work. Next, the media around du Châtelet served as a prime example of how stories are exaggerated and misrepresented throughout history. This presentation will touch upon my experience researching these two concealed craftswomen of physics, and share their very unique stories as well as my teaching guides and articles on them.

Final Presentation

Internship Blog

Week 1: Warlock and Bean Can

Before writing anything, I want to mention that I am currently writing this blog post while sitting on the edge of the Lincoln memorial with two other interns, watching the sunset. That in itself is pretty wild and awesome... and it might be the reason for a slightly disorderly blog post. This isn’t as much as a day-by-day, and more of a highlight reel of the past week and how grateful I am to be a part of this experience!

I will be honest... I’m here because I quite literally flipped a coin. I will describe more about that later, but I’m thrilled that the coin has gotten me to where I am now (and I’m sure the other physics interns could tell you all about the probability of my coin-flip).

In regard to my job so far, I will explain more what my role and project is in next weeks blog post! My job is essentially to research and amplify underrepresented voices in physics history-- which is an essential mission that I am thrilled to be a part of. I will be writing lesson plans in the first half of the summer, and using what I learned in that first half to then work on outreach to expand education and awareness of the physicists that I researched. I am planning on making these teaching guides for primarily elementary school students, because I believe that it is abolutely essential that kids learn that any minority can be in any field from a young age. It is important for kids to be able to relate to any discipline, hopefully seeing someone like themselves doing anything that they may want in their lives. I am going to focus my projects on women in physics, and started out with meeting my mentors and beginning to research who I may want to study this week!

It has been an absolute blast getting to know the other interns in the week of movie nights, exploring, baking cookies, and getting acclimated to my new position and hybrid work schedule... andalso experiencing exactly what a drag brunch is (amazing). I went on the first plane flight of my life to get here, so one could say that everything is new to me.

First, my roommate and I are honestly perfect. Our door has already turned into a scrapbook of door tags, and both of us sacrificed bringing essential items on our flights here in order to bring a Nutribullet and a projector... needless to say, we are similar in all the best ways and are having a wonderful time. We also have already started a small business. Check Janessa Slone’s blog post for more explanation and perhapse a word of what this post’s title is :)

The day of move-in (Sunday), I decided to go for a run to acclimate myself with the surroundings—when I left, I neither checked the time and nor realized that the sun was setting... so it was a giddy surprise to accidentally stumble upon the Lincoln memorial and the national mall during a stunning sunset right at the end of my street. It was honestly a truly magical moment by myself to be able to really learn my closeness to the rest of the city.

The first full day together with some the interns was Memorial Day and it was an amazing occasion to get to know some of the other interns and be able to navigate the city (despite my complete lack of experience coming from living next to farms in MA and NH). The activity and life of the city is thrilling and wonderful—I have really enjoyed the independence, liveliness, and confidence that the surroundings bring.

The next day we had orientation where we met the staff and our mentors at ACP—everyone is wonderful, kind, and excited to help us and contribute to both our personal and professional growth. I really cannot emphasize how lucky I feel to have such wonderful role-models around me; every single person at ACP/AIP/SPS/AAPT (there are literally more acronyms than this) that I have met thus far has gone out of their way to reach out with a friendly chat, genuine interest, and contact information in case I should need it. It is because of this that I am thrilled to be able to work with my mentors—they are some truly passionate and genuine people. I already know that we are going to get along great, as we have so many overlapping interests and beliefs and they are so genuine and casual. My position centers around researching underrepresented voices in physics; amplifying underrepresented voices and the movement around doing so is extremely important to me, and I am thrilled to be able to explore this passion more in tandem with physics in this internship.

Now, back to why I flipped a coin to be here: when deciding on what I was going to do this summer, I was paralyzed with indecision (not to be dramatic). I was lucky enough to have been accepted into three internships: this physics history program in DC and two technical astrophysics projects in Boulder, CO and Socorro, NM. I have only ever imagined myself pursuing the ‘hard physics’ side of astronomy, and it is essentially the only kind of research that I have performed up to this point. It is this passion for astronomy that has made my choice to come to DC for history/policy instead of traveling west for astrophysics one of the most terrifying decisions of my life. I essentially decided to ignore the internships that I know would have been essential steppingstones into the future that I have always expected for myself, and instead chose an internship in something new. I know my decision will not make me as competitive as an applicant for astrophysics-specific graduate school, may have been my only opportunity to do in-person space science research, and I can’t help but get the sense that I have changed the course of my career aspirations. I came to the terrifying conclusion that space science may not be what I truly want; I don’t want to be a professor or live in a remote area for my work, and I realized that maintaining a better work-life balance than most ‘hard-physics’ scientists hold is more important to me than studying what I am most passionate about. So—I suppose that I have this internship to thank for making me reevaluate my goals and reorder my passions from astrophysics to applying my passion for researching and spreading awareness of underrepresented minorities, particularly in STEM where they can so often be diminished.

Thank you for reading my ramblings that turned out to be way too long—and thanks so much to the incredibly patient mentors and SPS leadership that are making this possible! I can’t express how grateful and thrilled I am to be where I am, doing the work that I’m doing, with the wonderful people around me.

Week 2: Threatening sandwich shops, going fishing, and meeting the whole cast of Bambi

I suppose I will start this blog post by explaining where I’m currently sitting to write it again, as that is how a started my first post. One of my favorite locations that I have found to do work is a couple of tables situated by a garden outside of our apartments—I’m currently sitting here... and I am freezing cold in 84 degree weather. I suppose my goosebumps are telling me that I have acclimated to the DC swamp pretty quickly coming from New Hampshire.

The week started on a good note with hybrid work, catching sunsets with friends, making our way through the Pirates of the Caribbean series... and also threatening the owner of a chain restaurant. At ACP on Tuesday, a couple of SPS leadership and friends in the building ordered out at a chain sandwich shop, but the order came extremely late and incorrect. Let’s just say that Janessa (the sock intern, as well as both my roommate and hero) took matters into her own hands. The day will live in infamy.

Since my arrival in DC, I have gone on daily runs to explore the city. Now, let’s be clear, I despise running in any other setting, but in these special circumstances it has been incredibly freeing and helpful to learn the city, and it’s also my only real method of working out as there is absolutely no chance that I could afford a gym membership here. I usually pick a direction, and go wherever my feet take me. On Wednesday, I decided to go left(ish) from the apartments, ended up in what I believe to be Rock Creek Park, almost stepped on a baby fawn, ran into a bunch of rabbits, and pretty much met the whole cast of Bambi. I couldn’t recommend this method of exploring more—it is a great time to go off alone, clear my head, learn more about surroundings—and have weird encounters with Bambi.

On Wednesday, a few of the interns and I also successfully went fishing after work—there hasn’t been a night thus far that I haven’t done anything, and it has been an absolute blast.

Thursday was an awesome day—all of the interns came into ACP for the day to meet and have lunch with John Mather himself! It wasn’t only fun to have friends at work all day, but it was an incredible and unique opportunity to talk to such an inspirational role model and figure like John Mather. I got to meet and sit with John Mather during lunch—and found out that we have very similar upbringings being near farms/animals growing up, with our mothers being elementary or younger-age teachers, as well as the obvious interest in astronomy.

In terms of work— I am absolutely thrilled to be working on the research that I’m doing! At the moment, I am working on teaching guides and outreach methods surrounding two women in physics: Katherine Clerk Maxwell (James Clerk Maxwell’s wife, who you might know from color experiments, work with gasses, electromagnetism, or ‘Maxwell’s equations’), and Hypatia (one of the first known Egyptian female astronomers). It seems as though Katherine may have been extremely involved in many of Maxwell’s experiments (particularly in his color vision and electromagnetism work), but she was never recorded as a contributor. So, I am attempting to uncover what her role was in James Maxwell’s experiments, and to hopefully publicize her involvement and story of discreditation with a Physics Today article, Wikipedia edits, blog posts and a teaching guide for students to learn more. It has been a very interesting challenge for me to try to find footprints of Katherine’s work through the context of her husband—she is really only recorded in some of James’ letters to close personal friends, so I have been going through all of James’ letters and other correspondence with friends (that were close enough for him to talk about his wife with), as well as looking at any of his existing records around times when I know that Katherine was doing the experiments with him. Needless to say, it has been a very tedious but extremely interesting task to go through all of James’ letters, records, and works, looking for traces of Katherine (for example, in one of his papers there is an unnamed observer ‘K’, which was later confirmed by one of James’ close friends to be Katherine Maxwell).

To put it simply, after work on Friday, it was gametime. Not only did all of the SPS interns and mentors get the fantastic chance to go to a National’s baseball game together, but most of us also went to a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture show afterwards, and do a whole weekend of other Pride and March for Our Lives events in the days after that. Going to Rocky Horror was an experience that I will not soon forget, and the pride events this past weekend were just as full of joy... and late-night tacos. It was a truly fantastic weekend, which was closed out with a whole festival and series of pride-themed concerts (including Joe Jonas and a whole festival) on Sunday night. I figure I will also include that attending a weekend drag brunch is anything but a drag. Poor Ben got singled out. Chaos ensued. I would highly recommend anyone attend pride-related events, no matter your orientation!

Also. I just turned 21 as I’m writing this. Janessa made me include that part in the post : )

Week 3: Fruitless Efforts and Breakfast Empanadas

As always, this week was amazing. To begin with the setting that I am writing this post in: I’m currently sitting outside of the cafeteria at ACP! Whenever I am in-person at work, I tend to alternate between my standing-desk, the library, and the tables outside of the cafeteria. I have a pretty fantastic system going on, and tend to focus best by changing my environment and having some time outside like this.

In terms of work, I am continuing to love my job! I finished up creating a first and second grade-level teaching guide on Katherine Clerk Maxwell and her contribution to science this week, and worked on a draft to submit a Physics Today article about her! I have been going through *a LOT* of James Clerk Maxwell’s papers, personal letters, post cards, etc to try to find out more about his wife’s life and involvement in research. This week I have also been in contact with a number of different archives, researchers, and professors around the world to try to find more information—even just talking to some of these people has also been a privilege! The task of going through all of the documents that I have amassed is interesting, as I now know a lot about their social circle and personal lives, but it has also been pretty unfulfilling to find out that there really is no more information on Katherine (I was really holding out hope that I would uncover more about her, or be able to find her personal letters, but it does not seem to exist).

The teaching guide focuses on color-mixing, based around Katherine and James’ research on color vision. They specifically looked at color combinations using prisms, experimenting with color and light with physics (though there had been lots of previous research on color before, the maxwell’s were the first to take their particular mathematical approach). They used a spinning wheel to study how combining different amounts of red, green, and blue (rather than the primary red, yellow, blue) would result in creating almost any color. This is particularly interesting where using colored lights (as opposed to colored paper) of red, green, and blue as the three combine to create white light. The Maxwells did a lot of research revolving around the physics of color and how we perceive its combinations, specifically researching in regard to color-blindness.

Since my teaching guide is for young kids, it cannot quite cover the scope of the Maxwell’s work. Instead, it focuses on laying the foundation of what primary and secondary colors are and demonstrating that green, red, and blue mix to make white. The guide includes a hands-on demonstration using colored cellophane on top of flashlights, so the kids can experiment with combining colors. A part of the lesson also involves a makeshift color wheel, like James and Katherine used in their experiments, so that kids can see first-hand what Katherine Clerk Maxwell saw!

At work, all of us interns have also been recording short 2-second clips of ourselves for a ‘Full House’ theme outreach project. This will be posted by Janessa on the Society of Physics Student’s TikTok page, and here is a sneak-peak with Lucy:

Outside of work, my 21st birthday was on Monday and Div’s 21st was the following day! We went out to happy hour at Quigleys to celebrate, where we seem to have become regulars. Since Monday, some of us have been back to Quigley’s three times since we can’t seem to turn down the happy hour special of $5 tater tots. If there is ever a future intern reading this blog post that is also staying at New Amsterdam Hall, I would highly recommend going there! It is a fantastic place that is only two blocks away and the prices are not too bad for the city. Thank you so much to the other interns for taking me out—I am truly thankful that everyone is as wonderful and kind as they are :)

After work this week, we have been enjoying relaxing with the interns, watching movies, and eating cheesecake. We watched Dr. Strange and had some game nights this week, which has been a wonderful way to continue getting to know each other and spend time doing something while saving money.

My best friend from home also visited this past weekend! Her work paid for her to fly out and stay in a hotel near the White House, so we have been able to see each other every day this weekend. She came out with all of the interns on Friday (to Quigleys of course), coming with us to one of Brad Conrad’s recommended spots in the city. It was an absolute blast for me to be able to combine my closest childhood friend with my new DC intern friends.

On Saturday, Jack Hehn was kind enough to take all of the interns to the National Orchestral Institute and Festival! We all dressed up and went to the University of Maryland to watch the performance. The soloists and orchestra were captivating, truly making the rest of us feel untalented. It is always incredible to be able to watch someone pursuing their passion and demonstrating their expertise as they did. This also comes with a huge thank-you to Jack for taking us! For context, Jack is volunteering as the AAPT Senior Fellow at ACP, and has been absolutely wonderful to frequently have lunch with at work.

On Sunday, a couple of us went to the weekly farmers market at Dupont circle. Though I frequent all of the farmers markets in the city (there is at least two every day), the weekly Sunday event has to be my favorite. It is widespread, with any options of produce to pastries to homemade soaps. A few of the interns got ‘breakfast’ of spicy chicken empanadas and we very much enjoyed being able to walk around in 70 degree weather rather than melting (for context, I went out for a run yesterday without checking the weather and ended up in 98 degree heat with extra humidity... it did not work out for me).

The coming week is going to be quite a long one, with lots of fun and lots of work planned... see you next week!

-Dory (Janessa or Ben’s post may explain the name)

Week 4: Teaching, Beaching, and Everything In Between.

The weeks are going by WAY too fast for my liking. I have been absolutely loving the work, environment, and company of this internship, and am shocked that we are already almost halfway done. This week I am writing the blog post from my lovely apartment, after I have just gotten back from the farmers market on Sunday and added some new plants to our ever-growing collection. It has been a lovely weekly tradition to go to the Sunday morning Dupont farmers market for empanadas... though I am exempt from this tradition as I don’t eat meat.

In regard to work this week, I have continued my schedule of being in person from Tuesday through Thursday. I love being in the office, enjoying the huge windows in the library, and have been taking as much advantage as I can of ACP’s free gym (I love to explore on runs every day, but the heat of DC makes it particularly challenging). Early this week I finished up my draft of the Katherine Clerk Maxwell teaching guide, wrapping it up and sending it to my mentors for review. Then, on Tuesday, Jack Hehn stopped by my cubicle for a chat and ended up giving me the inspiration for the topic of my next teaching guide! I have started research on my next female physicist, Émilie du Châtelet. Jack had told me a bit about her incredible life, and connected me with a great resource for the project and the director of a play about Émilie that Jack himself actually helped to write! Thank you so much to Jack for the teaching guide inspiration and connections—I have loved learning about du Châtelet’s life, and am equally excited for kids to learn about it as well!

I am going to make du Châtelet’s teaching guide for younger audiences (likely for first and second graders), teaching them about gravity using modified experiments of what she used. Émilie contributed to Newtons famous work by demonstrating that energy was equal to ‘mv²', as opposed to the previously thought ‘mv.’ She did this in an experiment using heavy lead balls, dropping them into clay, and observing the depth of marks that they made depending on their mass and height. I will have kids do a similar activity, dropping balls or classroom objects of different sizes and weights into clay, and stepping into Émilie’s shoes to see what she did... though their classroom experiment will certainly involve less calculations.

Based on my research thus far, Gabrielle Émilie le Tonnelier de Breteuil was a truly amazing woman. She was nothing short of revolutionary, contributing massive advancements to physics, mathematics, and philosophy. Although she passed away at the age of 42 in childbirth, du Châtelet was an intellectual and a free-thinker of her time, continuing to stand up for her own individuality, right to education, and contributions to the sciences while also running both a family and her own experiments in 1700s French aristocracy. Some of her most notable work surrounded the physics of heat transfer (published in a paper without a woman’s name), philosophy of different ways of thinking about physics (in her very well received manuscript titled “Foundations of Physics”), reflections and expansions of Newtons ideas, and translation of Newtons entire “Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica” work (including her own annotations and explanations of his theory, published after she passed away).

However, it is an absolute shame that she has been reduced by history to the title of Voltaire’s witness. While her husband was away for long periods of time in the army, Émilie had a longstanding affair with Voltaire. Though the two worked together on many science and philosophy projects, history seems to have taken her position as a woman and neglects her intellectual pursuits to hilight her sexual affairs. Even though she may have been a well-respected and inspiring woman of her time, this historical discrimination is something that happens all too often with minorities in positions of power, intellect, or those possessing any coveted traits.

I could write endlessly about Émilie du Châtelet, and I would highly recommend looking her up if anyone is interested to learn more! I will be editing her Wikipedia page for any misconceptions and expanding on it as part of my project, which I will link to when I am finished, for further reading.

Outside of work, the week was BUSY. Last Sunday night after posting my week 3 blog, a few of us accidentally ended up at a piercer while my friend from home was still here. Janessa and Ben both followed through with getting nose studs, while I added to my growing collection of ear piercings. It was simply going to happen at some point, and now a few more interns have been inspired to get something done themselves... we also were able to catch a beautiful sunset.

Monday was Juneteenth, and most of the interns had work off in honor of the day. We used our time wisely, with four of us going to the beach at a nearby state park; if a future intern is reading this, I would highly recommend Sandy Point beach! It had grills, concessions, and clean water/sand; we will definitely be bringing the other interns there on some weekend if we have time. After the beach, nine of us also used our coupons to go bowling in Alexandria. Many of us hadn’t gone bowling since we were kids, so, naturally, it devolved quickly into a game of seeing which of us could score the least amount of points. Ben and I tied, Saksham is an absolute pro, and Matangi absolutely destroyed us going for the least points.

Tuesday brought even more fun, where Janessa and I went to a Wallows concert after work. We were absolutely exhausted, and neither of us listen to their music on our own, but it is always fun to go to live music! We have also both still consistently tested negative, so it has been incredibly fulfilling to be able to go back out into the world and take part in things like this.

On Wednesday, we went straight from work to do an intern picnic! Mikayla was kind enough to host all of the interns, mentors, and leadership in her apartment building. We had some great food and games there, and I want to say a huge thank you to Mikayla for having us! After the picnic, Anthony, Taytay, and Ben came over our apartment to watch the second Dr. Strange movie (following the first one last week). Even though we were definitely tired from the week, we ended up staying up until nearly 2am chatting, as per usual...

On Thursday, many of us started our first night of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Taylor Colaizzi (who we call Taytay) is our fearless leader, starting the campaign despite the vast majority of us being completely new to the game. We just built characters on Thursday, I have no idea what I’m doing, and the game is surely going to be a bit of a mess at first with everyone starting out, but it will most certainly be fun!

On Friday, as soon as I was done with work for the day I went directly to the supreme court to join a piece of history. Then, we did as we usually do, and caught up together with a Quigleys happy hour $5 tater tots special. We all came back to Janessa and I’s room afterwards to hang out, meet Lucy’s friend that was here for the past few days, and play some games (we discovered how to connect Janessa’s switch to my projector this week, which has been very valuable).

Saturday finally brought the Astronomy on the Mall event! Janessa has been hard at work over the past few weeks, building different physics-related demos for us to show the kids and participants at the mall. The event was a huge success, and it was super fun to teach kids some cool things about physics. I ran a station with two small telescopes and some star maps, and Bill Nye even showed up to take photos with many of the interns!

As I am writing this on Sunday, we went to our weekly tradition farmers market, and are going out to a comedy show in a few hours. The fantastic week is coming to a close, and I am equally as excited for another great week to come as I am terrified that next week is already at the halfway point in the internship.

See you next week!

Week 5: Potlucks and Paddles

Halfway through... and heartbroken about it.

Writing this blog post is bittersweet—this week was absolutely amazing as always, and I am so sad that the internship is already halfway over. I love my job and the friends that I have made here, and I am really trying to soak it up and not think too hard about how little time we have left. As per tradition, I’m currently writing this post from the consignment (our apartment), while Taytay (Taylor Colaizzi) is giving us the lowdown on music theory. We are just chatting, watching a movie, and writing our blog posts—I know that it will likely be times like this that I will miss most when this experience is over.

This week at work I was able to research and write my entire Émilie du Châtelet teaching guide! I went in person to ACP on four of the days, only being remote on Friday. I really do love to physically be there— hybrid work is very convenient, and I do not have the funds to be able to afford the metro every day, but it doesn’t hold the same value of being there in person.

I wrote a bit about du Châtelet in last week’s post, and it has been inspiring to learn more about her. Though she excelled at the various fields of physics that she studied, she also translated many works in many different genres (as she spoke six languages), dabbled in a variety of other sectors of philosophy and academics at the time, and was an activist for her education. It seems that her and Voltaire in particular had a variety of interests, debating religion, its place in science and politics, as well as various different applications of philosophy that eventually caused Voltaire’s persecution. Du Châtelet also used her wit and education to school the male scholars around her, entering various intellectual debates and changing minds around her. My favorite quote of Émilie’s is from the 1735 preface of du Châtelet’s translation from Mandeville’s fables:

"...women have a right to speak out for their education... I confess that if I were king, I would conduct the following experiment. I would correct this abuse that has cut short a full half of the human race. I would get women to participate in all the privileges of humanity, especially those of the mind.”

On Thursday at work, I was also able to meet almost the entire on-site NBLA library staff for a group lunch! Audrey Lengel is currently on site from Boston this week, and it was Chip Calhoun’s birthday, so a lot of the staff gathered together to have lunch and cater the occasions. Though Chip couldn’t actually make it, it was wonderful to be able to really meet everyone else and chat together.... as well as play Pokémon Go with the staff...

My mentors, Joanna, Corinne, and Audrey, have been absolutely fantastic and supportive throughout this internship. They have walked me through everything that I needed to know, and Corinne keeps going out of her way to support me, help me check things out at the library, and even dropping off useful books to my desk! I really can’t express how much I appreciate all of their efforts and kindness!

Outside of work, the week started on a high note with a beautiful day and beautiful run after getting home from ACP! After the activities on the previous Sunday, I just did my usual run and stayed in to watch a movie with some of the other interns on Monday.

Tuesday brought some great food, with an intern potluck! After work, Janessa and I picked up some pie crust, apples, and cherries, and we made some pretty incredible empanadas. Then, almost all of the interns were able to come to our room, with everyone bringing some kind of dish to contribute. We had everything from zucchini boats to quiche to scones, and it was absolutely amazing! Everyone showed up and showed out for the potluck, and we will be holding another one soon.

On Wednesday, Janessa, Ben, and I spontaneously decided to go to the ‘Paddle the Potomac’ kayaking event! The event consists of two hours of kayaking and donations to the Potomac Conservancy program. The conservancy is a great cause with some great people participating in it, and its efforts have raised the Potomac’s cleanliness ranking from a D to a B- in the past two years alone! I would highly recommend looking into this event to any future interns. My family camps on lakes quite a bit throughout the year, so I have grown up kayaking all the time, and really appreciated the opportunity to do so this summer; the Potomac is beautiful from vantage points both from outside and inside of the river.

Thursday brought out new weekly tradition: our Dungeons and Dragons campaign, being hosted by Taytay. This was out first real session, and though I am not directly participating, it was honestly hilariously entertaining to watch! Everyone is bringing their creativity and jokes...

On Friday, we continued our usual weekly happy hour tradition, trying a new place this time. Janessa’s friend Meghan was able to stay with us for some of this past weekend as well, and it was super fun to meet her and bring her along for all of our adventures. We went to Mr. Smith’s of Georgetown so that we had the option of watching the sunset over the Potomac or trying Georgetown Cupcake after dinner! Andrew Zeidell was even able to join us for happy hour... though Brad stood us up (and will continue to be hazed for it). We will most definitely be taking mentors and SPS leadership to happy hour in the future if they are willing to have us : )

Saturday was July 2nd, so a couple of us began the fourth of July celebrations! We went out for a bit, stopped by Trader Joes for some frozen pizza and cheese board makings, and came back to consignment (our room) for some snacks and chats. Lucy and her friend Elijah also made some absolutely delicious treats, and were kind enough to bestow some of them on us at the end of the night.

Today is Sunday, where we went on a long walk at Rock Creek Park and gathered together to have yet another movie night. We watched the most recent Thor movie to try to refresh and catch up for this coming Thursday, when the next in the series is coming out, and many of us are going to the premier. Tomorrow is also Independence Day, so we are resting up to be able to participate as much as we can in the parade, concert, and fireworks. I will update the blog on what we end up doing to celebrate in next week’s post, and am looking forward to a week full of activities that we have already planned!

Cheers to another great week!

Week 6: Pupusas and Movies

This week, I am writing this blog post from my new spot along the Potomac! Rock Creek park extends near our apartment building, and it has become one of my favorite spaces to come run or just hang out. The sunset here is beautiful, and the people-watching is even better.

First, for work, I have been editing the Katherine Clerk Maxwell teaching guide, finishing changes to the draft of Émilie du Châtelet’s guide, and beginning my outreach projects for both!

I finalized edits for Katherine Clerk Maxwell’s teaching guide early this week, emailing out to get permissions for photos that I included in it. In order to publish guides with photos it is necessary to get permissions from any creators or host sites of the photos. I honestly think that it is really interesting to reach out to these kinds of sources to acquire their permission because of the opportunity that it presents to start conversations with those that I may not have otherwise had the opportunity to talk to. Through this job, I have reached out to a few expert researchers and archives, such as the Cavendish Library from Cambridge University, and some other researchers from Europe. It has been an honor to email with some of these scholars, who have been nothing but kind with freely sharing their research with me! This comes as a special thanks to Professor Bruce J. Hunt from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a distinguished scholar of James Maxwell’s life, writer of ‘The Maxwellians,’ fellow at APS, and all around generous researcher. When I inquired about Katherines life, Professor Hunt not only responded immediately despite being in a different country without any of his work resources, but he also gave me lengthy and honest intel about everything on his research, without expecting any kind of recognition in return. This is a huge thank you to him for all his help and generosity, as well as to the other archives that I corresponded with!

I also finished the draft for du Châtelet’s guide early this week. I have to say, this guide was much easier and more creative than Katherines as I had the experience of one teaching guide under my belt, and her work is far more accessible than any of Katherines. Whereas the research for Katherines guide involved weeks of painstakingly sorting through primary sources and correspondence of her husband, desperately looking for the breadcrumb trail of her life, there is much more readily available research on Émilie’s work.

At the end of the week, I also met with my wonderful mentors to discuss some potential outreach projects. Since I am finishing up with my teaching guides, I am transitioning into the second half of this internship. This half will focus on outreach in terms of expanding education and awareness of the two women that I have researched. To do this, I am going to write a Physics Today article for Katherine, and I am planning on doing something relating to the representation of science in art with a play called ‘Legacy of Light’ involving du Châtelet that Jack Hehn told me about (though I will be working on Émilie at a later date, first focusing on Katherine’s article and finalizing the teaching guides). At the moment, the plan for the Physics Today article will be to use my experience with researching Katherine Clerk Maxwell as a case study to illustrate the topic of partners and invisible technicians in research. I am planning on narrating the article with what it was like to attempt to pick through primary sources relating to James in an effort to uncover what role Katherine played in her husband’s work. The explanation of this experience will lead into the (disappointing) findings that there really just does not seem to be any good documented accounts of Katherine, then describing how this is a common occurrence among other partners of science researchers. There are many other cases where similar instances have happened, when the partners and friends around researchers often end up doing the labor parts of research (such as typing manuscripts, stoking fires for heat experiments, etc). People in these positions, where they are helping with essential laborious aspects of research, but are (likely) not technically doing the actual mathematics or theory, often do not get any credit for their efforts. I will write more about the credibility of partners of scientists in my next blog post, as I am delving further into my article! If you are interested in the idea of how these laborer’s in science don’t end up getting credibility, as well as some reflections on how society views cases like this of skilled workers, I would highly recommend reading the philosopher Steven Shapin’s article ‘The Invisible Technician.’ I am planning on basing some of my article on this, and it is a very interesting read!

In terms of more broad work for the internship, things are most definitely picking up. We have a few deadlines for abstracts, presentations, and conferences relating to our work this summer coming up far too soon, so I am sure next week will be extremely busy. As interns, we are given a wonderful opportunity to get financial support in order to present our work at a conference of our choosing. This is extremely exciting, and it is something that will be new to me in the context of my current job. At this point, I only have experience presenting work in the context of physics research, rather than the context of education and history research, so it is all very much new to me. I am not yet sure what kind of conference I would go to for my work, and it will most certainly be a learning curve to dip into history and education that I am looking forward to.

To start the week outside of work, Monday was Independence day! Though I sure don’t agree with recent action in the United States, we still had obligations to explore what was going on in the nation’s capital. We spent the morning at the parade, stopping for lunch at Duke’s grocery after, and making our way down to the National Monument to get a great space to watch the fireworks. Though no parade in DC so far has held a candle to the Pride Parade so far, the fireworks were pretty fantastic! It was a great time to hang out with everyone while waiting for the show, and I am forever grateful that the heat wasn’t too unbearable.

Next, Tuesday brought work, a wonderful show at the Embassy of Columbia, and some Dungeons and Dragons! Janessa, Ben, and their mentors all went to a work lunch, and were kind enough to invite me along as well. I feel no shame in quoting Brad’s response to be not being able to go to the lunch because I did actually have to work, where he said “It’s a work lunch. Work is paying. It’s literally work. During work. For work.” (Conrad, 2022). After the busy day, Lucy, Taylor, Justin and I all went to the Embassy of Columbia to watch the debut of a small film on the culture of Pupusas from El Salvador, as well as try some fresh pupusas and horchata ourselves (which were both absolutely delicious, unique, ad something that I need to have again). The film was directed by Héctor Mojica, called ‘Las Pupusas,’ and though I don’t speak Spanish, I absolutely loved the experience and appreciated the night. When we got back to consignment (my room), D&D was in full swing, and we just pulled up a few more chairs.

On Wednesday, the kayaking event was postponed due to storms, so we stayed in for some bread-baking and movie watching after work instead. Thursday came with the release of a Marvel movie, so, naturally, most of us attended the premier, and we all agree that the movie was a blast.

Friday brought our weekly intern happy hour catch-up and Mario Kart night, where Nicole’s cousin and his roommate were able to join us! I do love this weekly tradition... and we all love the $5 tater tots deal at Quigleys as a break from DC’s high prices.

Saturday was a rainy and dark day, calling for a very wet run and even more movies with friends. On Sunday, I went to the Romanian Festival on the Wharf to try some Romanian food and watch traditional song and dance. I had some delicious fig desserts, and loved seeing the cultural performances! Most of us gathered at night for our second delicious potluck of the internship after I got back! I love spending casual time like this with the interns, and sharing food and games is the best way to do that. Everyone has been showing off some incredible culinary skills at the potlucks, with Peruvian dishes, roasts, and some amazing banana caramel desserts!

This coming week I have a couple more fun things planned that I am looking forward to-- see you next week!

Week 7: Museums, a Fiesta, and Doing Everything All at Once

This blog post, as usual, is being written from the wonderful consignment room (the apartment belonging to Janessa and myself). I am yet again having to face the harsh reality that we are now in the end stretch of this amazing experience, and I find myself not wanting to leave my work and friends. I am extremely passionate about the work that I am doing, all of the interns are genuinely kind and hilarious people, and I love the constant air of opportunity of the city. I don’t want to leave any of it, and don’t know how I am going to go back to a small liberal arts school in the middle of New Hampshire after this...

In terms of work this week, I have been bouncing back and forth between a few things, as much of what I am doing is currently in the send-and-receive editing process. At the moment, my projects are (a) polishing the last extensions of my Katherine Clerk Maxwell lesson plan, (b) editing the Émilie du Châtelet lesson plan draft with my mentors, (c) workshopping the Physics Today article with the magazine’s editors for Katherine’s outreach on invisible technicians and partners in science, (d) discussing back and forth with some sources about du Châtelet’s outreach article (more on that soon!), (e) organizing some more projects to do, and (f) working on some more general internship responsibilities. Needless to say, it has been busy and will only pick up from here!

The teaching guide edits mainly consists of getting permissions from sources to use image and references, as well as making a few extra worksheets and extension projects for teachers to associate with the lesson plan.

I also officially submitted my proposal for the Katherine Clerk Maxwell Physics Today article this week, and will be hearing from them early next week! Thus begins the long process of editing, emailing, editing, correcting, editing, emailing, and editing. I am thrilled to be able to have my article published by the end of this internship, and am excited to see what the journalism process will look like firsthand. It is very important to me to be able to share the story and message of Katherine’s life that I mentioned in the last blog post. The recognition of invisible technicians and partners of scientists is often essential to widen representation in STEM fields, and I am honored to have the opportunity to amplify a few of their stories. Perhaps the article drawing some attention to a few of these under-credited contributors will increase awareness of them, and inspire research to discover many more people or partners in similar positions. This not only pertains to history, but is also likely the case now, and I am very passionate in believing that the debate of extending credit to technicians and skilled workers should be more relevant to discussion and publication today.

I have also reached out to some sources about my current plan for du Châtelet’s outreach article this week, and will likely be able to move forward next week (fingers crossed). I am planning on writing an article for the AIP History Newsletter that will be focused on du Châtelet and the role of science representation and outreach in entertainment (particularly in media such as plays, movies, or articles/news for wider audiences), relating to how stories can be misconstrued throughout history when they are made for the general public. This will likely touch upon how media often highlights Émilie’s role as ‘Voltaire’s Mistress’ rather than as an intellectual in her right, as it makes for an interesting or more entertaining story. It will focus on the necessity of portraying underrepresented voices through accessible media such as news, art or teaching guides; media forms such as these are what reach and inspire younger or more general audiences most as they are generally far more approachable than what field-specific or academic sources may provide. However, media outlets like these also often exaggerate elements of historical stories, with an example in du Châtelet. This is a difficult tradeoff that I am hoping to dispute in the article; the exaggeration of historical STEM stories definitely makes the content more engaging for a far wider audience that may foster curiosity and inspiration about STEM, but it is at the cost of truth.

In terms of other projects, I am also looking to make a blog post for the Ex Libris Universum library & archives blog and make some Wikipedia edits as well! This post will be simpler than the other forms of outreach, and I am looking to write a narrative of my experience doing different forms of research on Katherine and Émilie. This is because of the vastly different circumstances of the women’s lives, and the accessibility to information about them. As she is relatively unheard of, Katherine’s research was very difficult and different than any research that I have done before. I had to do a lot of digging through primary sources, letters, post cards, etc that may have related to Katherines husband to try to find any element of Katherine’s existence and role in helping with her husband’s experiments. This was a tedious task, which ended with me coming up short as there truly seems to be so little true record, and took me weeks. However, Émilie was involved in the French aristocracy and revolution, is well-researched, written about by many, and kept her own records as well. Researching her was simple, as many before me had already set out to write about this incredible and accomplished woman, even if they were still doing so in the context of the man next to her (Voltaire). Though both women had been written about mainly in the shadow of men (Katherine’s husband James, and Émilie’s partner Voltaire), the ways that I learned about them were extremely different, and a story that I will be sharing with the NBLA blog! I also am going to be editing the women’s Wikipedia pages to expand on their stories and correct misinformation.

Finally, with internship responsibilities, I created my final project title and abstract this week, as well as started my final presentation. It definitely feels odd to be making these final projects while I am quite literally bouncing around with every piece of my internship at the moment, but it seems to just be how the editing process works. I will be finishing the draft of my presentation by Friday this week, though I am sure that I will not have a single one of my projects finalized by then, as jumping between them doesn’t quite grant me enough time to finish one quite yet and the editing process takes a long time. It also is a harsh reminder that my time here is coming to a close, and I absolutely do not want my work to end.

My presentation title is going to be “Concealed Craftswomen of Physics,” and the abstract is as follows:

Throughout history, there have been various cases of women in physics being underrepresented and under-credited for their work. It is essential to research and amplify their stories to promote representation in the field. This summer, I did just that and focused my efforts on two incredible women in physics: Katherine Clerk Maxwell and Émilie du Châtelet. I first created teaching guides on the two women for kindergarten through second graders, so that young kids could hopefully be inspired by women in science. Then, I wrote outreach articles about both women to attempt to share their stories with a wider and older audience. This consisted of articles for Physics Today, the Ex Libris Universum library & archives blog, and the AIP History Newsletter as well as some Wikipedia edits. Katherine serves as a case study about partners in science and how the companions of scientists often end up making huge contributions to research, but do not get credit for their work. Next, the media around du Châtelet served as a prime example of how stories are exaggerated and misconstrued throughout history. This presentation will touch upon my experience researching these two concealed craftswomen of physics, and share their very unique stories as well as my teaching guides and articles on them.

At ACP this Thursday, the AIP Foundation staff were also kind enough to provide all of the interns with lunch and great conversation! The AIP Foundation is a not-for-profit organization that supports various physics foundations that are mostly housed in the ACP building, and they are partly responsible for how all of us interns are able to be here. They support causes to provide opportunity and support to young people, undergraduates, and minorities in the field, as well as directly being involved with the Niels Bohr Library & Archives that I am most closely associated with! My job is most directly related to their causes with amplifying underrepresented minorities and working with the NBLA, so this was a really fantastic opportunity for me to meet and thank them—and I will most certainly be visiting the staff on Thursdays when they are in the office! The four staff members were absolutely wonderful, and were genuinely interested in our personal stories of our experiences and thoughts. Our experiences are essentially what they are working to support, and their excitement of our stories was both refreshing and motivating! It is always amazing to have someone believe in you. I really appreciate some of the personal conversations that I had with Mariann McCorkle and Abby Case as well; they both had career changes at or after the undergraduate level. We spoke for a long time about how frightening it is to make the decision to dive into a different career than what you had always pictured for yourself, and it was most definitely refreshing to hear from people that had successfully and were incredibly thankful for it.

Now, for a breakdown of the week outside of work! On Monday afternoon, I also participated in a psychology study on test-preparation and anxiety levels that was being performed at GW. During the study, I was hooked up to some electrodes and asked to perform a series of anxiety-inducing tests for a study on performance, but I was not drugged like many of the other participants as I was being used as a control subject. The GW main campus was also absolutely beautiful, and I will definitely be walking there again! After the study, many of the interns were up to different things, so I walked Janessa to the E Street Cinema where she was catching their $7 movie Mondays, and caught the sunset on my walk back!

Next, on Tuesday I took myself out to the Renwick Gallery. I absolutely love going out on my own to explore the city and taking time to myself in the museum was fantastic. The museum had works that were created throughout COVID, consisting of art made in isolation and the lonely loss of loved ones. It was both powerful and crazy to see something in an art gallery that I not only lived through and could relate to, but that is still taking place as well. After the museum, the interns gathered for another hilarious session of DnD!

We had our second Kayaking trip of the internship on Wednesday, and a lot more interns joined us! This time we kayaked to the Lincoln memorial and enjoyed a beautiful sunset; it was a great change of perspective to see the monuments from the water.

We explored the Hive on Thursday, with its beautiful rooftop view of the city! We were lucky to catch not only a sunset but a double rainbow on the roof, with some delicious flatbreads, and a movie afterwards.

On Friday, we were lucky enough to secure tickets to the ‘Jazz in the Garden’ sculpture garden event. The event returns a few times out of the summer, with the free tickets ‘selling out’ within three minutes of release, so I am thrilled that we were able to attend one! We came back to the consignment (my apartment) afterwards to watch a movie... and to celebrate Janessa being published for the first time! Congratulations to Janessa on her huge accomplishment, her work on gravity is both novel and absolutely incredible, currently only being researched by a few teams worldwide. I have absolutely no shame in plugging her research on “New Signals in Precision Gravity Tests and Beyond,” published on July 13 2022 :)

The Fiesta Asia Street Fair took place on Saturday, and most of us were able to go again! We were excited to share some Nepali dumplings with Saksham and an egg yolk Filipino donut with Justin... even with the disappointing truth that the dumpling spices did not live up to the true Nepali standard. After the fair, everyone brought snacks and games to share, and joined together for another game night in consignment! Skills were tested and laughs were shared... and things were learned about each other as we absolutely crushed some karaoke.

Finally, Sunday was a fantastic and refreshing day to myself. I did some chores, walked around town, an took myself to two of the Smithsonian’s! I was able to visit the Natural History and American History museums before they closed, and I must say, Abraham Lincoln’s famous hat was a bit smaller than expected... After getting home, I had a lovely evening of finishing up some work, this blog post, and logging onto the computer to watch a movie with some friends from home (thank you to technology developed in COVID for that).

I have all of my many projects to work on this coming week, as well as at least one event scheduled quite literally every day after work, so I have a lot to look forward to yet again!

See you next week,

Week 8: Tacos, Jellyfish, and National Labs

As I am writing this blog post from the comfort of Janessa and I’s room, wallowing in the fact that we only have one weekend and two work weeks left. This must be getting repetitive by now, but I really can’t state enough how fantastic the other interns are—they are wonderfully accepting, hilarious and generous people. I am sad to have such limited time left with them, and I am enjoying any time we get with each other.

Work this week consisted of the same projects that I listed in the week 7 blog post! I am still currently bouncing between six different goals, that were listed and described in detail in last week’s post, summarized as the following:

My projects are (a) polishing the last extensions of my Katherine Clerk Maxwell lesson plan, (b) editing the Émilie du Châtelet lesson plan draft with my mentors, (c) workshopping the Physics Today article with the magazine’s editors for Katherine’s outreach on invisible technicians and partners in science, (d) discussing back and forth with some sources about du Châtelet’s outreach article (more on that soon!), (e) organizing some more side projects, and (f) doing some more general internship responsibilities.

Since last week’s updates, I have made far more progress on each of these goals. However, it will still be a while before any of them are finalized, as I am still waiting on some edits and email responses (I have to get permissions and guidance on a lot of it, so there is a good amount of waiting and working on side projects while doing so). I am pretty much ready to post the teaching guides, I just want to review one last primary source on Katherine Clerk Maxwell before I give it my final stamp of readiness and am waiting on some du Châtelet edits. The Physics Today article is also currently at a waiting-point, as well as a few permissions for the du Châtelet AIP History Newsletter article. While I am waiting for those, I have been working on the Ex Libris Universum library & archives blog post about my research experiences, and combing through the two women’s Wikipedia pages to see what needs to be edited and updated! As for final internship duties, I also submitted my final poster, abstract, and presentation draft. It feels surreal to have put together my final presentation and invited my mentors to the symposium, because it signals the end of such a wonderful experience. I also discussed with my mentors where else to take my project on these two underrepresented women to continue with outreach, and I am thrilled to say that I am set to present my work this summer at both the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) conference and the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP)! Both of these meetings take place next January, and SPS is kind enough to provide some funding to the interns who want to present their work. This is very exciting for me, as it means that I will not only be funded to come back to DC in October for the 2022 Physics Congress from my school in NH, but I am also able to stretch the funding budget to travel to Portsmouth, Oregon for the AAPT conference and to Boston, MA for CUWiP.

Overall, work is still going great, even if the amount of projects is a bit overwhelming. Due to the long editing process, I will unfortunately not be able to wrap up my work before the end of the project, and I will likely still be working on my articles into the upcoming college semester. However, I am elated to be able to share what I have learned about these two incredible women, and excited to have my name out there on a few articles by the end of this experience!

Now for the week outside of those projects, packed with events and even a tour of some national labs:

Monday came with some amazing food and conversation. Janessa and I held an intern taco night in our room (we have been hosting some form of potluck every week)! Everyone involved pitched in to bring something, and we had some amazing tacos, dessert, and laughs afterwards. Janessa and Justin taught everyone some dances (a Filipino line dance that I was able to learn, and few Spanish dances which were a true workout). As I keep writing in these posts, food is a really great way to bond with people, and we have already picked a theme for next week’s potluck (breakfast for dinner, a personal favorite).

On Tuesday, a few of us headed to Franklin Park to join in on the ‘Can I Kick it? Downtown DC Summer Flicks’ movie series! The free event was sponsored by Whole Foods, so we enjoyed lots of free snacks, music, and a movie. We will most certainly be going back next week, as it was absolutely lovely to watch the sunset in the beautiful park.

Wednesday brought some more free events, where we were able to go explore the French Embassy! We went for a night of French theater performances, and Lucy and I were even interviewed after the first show. I grew up taking French from Kindergarten to my first year of college, so it was very refreshing to be able to hear the language again. I can still understand and speak it a bit after over two years off

Thursday was then NIST day! Nearly all of us were able to take the day to go tour the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This comes with a huge thank you to Dr. Joe Kopanski (an electrical engineer and role model that was kind enough to act as our tour guide for the day) and the NIST interns for hosting us! We got to see a variety of cool things after we passed the intensive security checks, including some extremely impressive cold vacuum chambers, the acoustic anechoic chamber (which had around NEGATIVE 2 decibels of sound!), and a neutron research center among other things. Although a lot of the physics that the incredible researchers were describing about their projects may have been a little too high-level for me, it was truly inspiring to see many of these scientists doing what they were passionate about and doing mind-boggling work. Even the elevator into the underground labs (as is required for a lot of the experiments that they run) looked like something out of a sci-fi movie to me, with huge automatic metal doors, wire gates, and sirens.

The acoustic anechoic chamber was an experience that I have never had before (as was every part of the tour). Every surface was covered by sound-absorbing wedges and we stood on a wire mesh floor that appeared to be a few feet above the actual bottom of the room that was made of more wedges. The room was a bit disorienting in a super interesting and unique way-- I felt almost as though I was in an elevator while standing on the suspended floor, and in complete silence we could hear the sound of our own blood! It was wild, and a once in a lifetime experience. We learned all about the ‘sticking coefficient when we were shown the vacuum chamber... which is a real thing, and it is genuinely the name for the a high level physics concept of atoms/molecules that ‘stick’ to surfaces (in this case, literally at the atomic level with negative significant figure amounts of time). The center for neutron research was also amazing, and our tour guide was incredible at explaining it in a way that is understandable for such a complicated piece of technology! The facility held multiple different neutron experiments, with the ability to heat or cool the minuscule particles and create a beam of singular neutrons in a massive and wildly high-tech machine. This is some incredible technology that is a privilege to get to see in a lifetime. The NIST website has a pretty great explanation for why neutron research is so incredible, describing that “neutrons are good at seeing inside materials. The NIST reactor produces streams of neutrons, which pass easily through many heavy materials like steel or iron, but interact strongly with light materials, particularly hydrogen. This makes neutrons capable of seeing what X-rays cannot.” (from https://www.nist.gov/ncnr/glance-nist-center-neutron-research-and-its-research-reactor ). We went through radiation sensors upon entering the area (we all passed when a machine akin to a metal-detector indicated ‘CLEAN’ above our heads) and were able to see some cryogenic machines that looked like something out of a movie with liquid nitrogen spilling out the top. SPS also sponsored a free lunch for us along the tour, and I wanted to give a huge thank you to SPS, NIST, and everyone involved that let us see this incredible facility!

After we got back to the dorms after a long day, I was also able to see one of my friends from home who goes to GW. I have not seen her since we were in High School three years ago, and it was really lovely to catchup and rekindle our relationship! I absolutely have this internship to thank for sparking up conversations with a friend group that I may not have heard from again after the separation of college and COVID, as we already have plans to see each other again in our hometown. Taylor, Saksham, and Ben also joined us to make some cookies, which is always a huge win in my book.

On Friday, Brad Conrad was kind enough to come to the GW physics building after work to come give us all a career talk! He honestly discussed everything from grad school tips to directly entering work after undergraduate school. The talk was honestly extremely helpful and eye-opening, as many of us are rising seniors and entirely unsure of what we want to do after undergraduate school. I would say that the main takeaways for finding a career all start with first thinking about what you like and don’t like, including what specifically you would want from a job/school outside of the actual work (such as how much you would want to travel, what work/life balance you need, how much independence you need in work, etc). Then, to only go for a PhD if you really know that you love something, and if you’re going to go to grad school, then take the application process very seriously and apply to a minimum of 10 programs with letters that have been tailored to the specific program, to schools where there are at least three possible professors that you would be interested in researching with. Schools do usually pay for you to get a physics degree, but you need to pick somewhere to go with a culture that supports your needs. If applying for jobs, apply for a job every week or every two weeks, and above all make sure to network and use your connections because around 80% of the jobs needed are already filled by this method when they are posted. The AIP website also has some extremely useful resources, including a list of where bachelors physics graduates go after graduation and career tips. There are also a lot of helpful graphics of salaries based on majors and jobs (https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-salaries-college-degrees/ ), but that also really depends on how important salary is to you as an individual, and money really isn’t everything at a certain point : )

Afterwards, Brad and a two fantastic physics professors from GW came to catch up at Quigleys happy hour two blocks away. Dr. Alexander J. van der Horst and Dr. Evangeline J. Downie were kind enough to join us, and even give us a short tour of the incredible physics history of the college (such as the desk where the Big Bang was discovered, steps where Niels Bohr gave his speech, etc). Both of the GW professors were wonderful company, and I really appreciate the opportunity to get to know such incredible researchers! I had heard of the work that they have done in astrophysics and nuclear research before meeting them, and it is honestly both an honor and inspiring to be able to casually chat with them.

Being nearly 100 degrees of inferno, Saturday brought with it a beach day! Ten of us organized excessive amounts of snacks and games to being back to Sandy Point Beach, where we had been a few weeks prior. We borrowed a cooler from ACP (thanks Brad) and took off with frisbees and plans to swim... until four of us got stung by jellyfish the first time we went in the water. Everyone is alright, just sporting some new jellyfish rashes and swelling, but we most definitely spent the rest of the day out of the water. The size of the shallow water jellyfish do not pose threats if you get a quick sting, but they sure aren’t anything that any of us would recommend hanging around! We may not have enough time left in this internship to go on another one of our group trips, so I have been appreciating the time that we have together like this as much as possible.

After the beach, a lot of the interns came to meet my friend from home and some of her friends. It was a lot of fun combining everyone together, and I’m glad that I got to see her again before she left DC the next day!

On Sunday, despite the heat advisory deeming that the ‘feels like’ temperature was a *minimum* of 100 degrees Fahrenheit, I took myself out on a long walk. I explored the Dupont farmers market and some of my favorite neighborhoods to walk in; there are some absolutely beautiful embassies and houses around Kalorama, especially if you’re a fan of gawking at real estate prices. Afterwards, Janessa and I got to just hang out and get some work done before the other interns joined for another movie night. It was a very successfully rejuvenating Sunday in my books, after a fantastic week of friends and free events! Though I don’t yet have much planned for the upcoming week, I am very much looking forward to having free time to catch up on some work and enjoy whatever time I have left with the other interns.

See you next week!

Week 9: Speeches, Smithsonians, and a Snack Surplus

As per tradition: this blog post is being written in consignment (Janessa and I’s room), while a bunch of the interns are hanging out and sharing potluck food on Sunday night. Everyone is joking and getting their fill of some delicious food (even though we are all pretty much using up random things that we have left and cannot ship home, which means that there are large quantities of soup and spaghetti); I am most definitely going to miss this, and it is most definitely setting in that it truly is the last week. This past weekend was our last one together, where we have really been cramming in as much as we can to spend time together and soak up the city. Though I miss my friends and family at home, I honestly don’t know how I’m going to go back to my tiny, rural school after the city experience and wonderful friends that I have made. I will absolutely be writing more about the end of things in next week’s final post—and am currently trying to avoid that thought completely.

At work this week, I did the same as last week in terms of finishing up all of my projects! The many different projects that I bounce between are as follows:

For the two teaching guides: I finished up both Katherine Clerk Maxwell and Émilie du Châtelet’s lesson plans! These are both for the grades kindergarten through second grade, and have all of the potential lesson plan elements such as biographies, activities, worksheets, extension activities, supplementary materials, handouts, connections to Common Core Standards, etc. It was most definitely a learning curve to figure out how to actually teach kids, and learn how to simplify complicated physics topics down to younger audiences. However, I had a blast, and am particularly fond of

du Châtelet’s lesson—I think it was much easier and more fun to be creative with her lesson plan because it was the second one that I worked on and I already had some idea of the age group’s prior knowledge as well as more experience with what a teaching guide entails.

For the three outreach articles: First, I finished my article for Ex Libris Universum! Though it is not posted as of yet, I will link to the article next week, as soon as I finish setting up my authorship account for the NBLA blog. I also got most of the way through my Katherine Clerk Maxwell article, which I have switched to be posted on the AIP History Newsletter, rather than Physics Today (PT). This switch is because of a request from the editors, where I am now writing the du Châtelet outreach article on media misrepresentation to likely be posted in PT rather than Katherines. I also have expanded the scope of both of these articles, despite the (extremely) little time that I have left in this internship, and am really just making it so that I am going to have a very busy week, and might not be able to finish my goals by the end of this internship (we have SPS obligations all day on Thursday and Friday, so I really only have three days to do all of this). Katherine’s article is now going to extend further past invisible technicians and partners of scientists to touch upon the ‘file drawer problem’ AKA ‘publication bias’ in journals and any media surrounding research. This issue is basically summarized as a source’s preference to publish new and exciting findings, rather than publish recreated findings or null hypotheses. For example: because I did not end up being able to find much new information on Katherine, and there wasn’t a heroine underdog story relating to her, journals/media would then not want to publish the findings. Rather, they would want new and exciting content, even though this is very rarely the case in research and it means that research findings are often misrepresented. I will write information on how to access the article in next week’s blog post if you are interested to learn more about this massive issue in science, and in Katherine’s life!

For the extra project: I also started picking back through Katherine and Émilie’s Wikipedia pages, to see what they are missing, and edit them as best as I can to accurately represent these two amazing women! The pages are not all that bad, but they are lacking sources and most definitely need an update.

For the other internship things: I have been working on my final symposium presentation, and have begun attempting to memorize and practice the 8 minute talk with my mentors! They have been wonderfully patient and supportive through every step of this process, and have continued to show how great they are by taking time out of their day to practice with me, give me presentation pointers, etc. It is always nice to have a second (or third) (or fourth) pair of eyes on your work!

On Monday, we also had the amazing opportunity to have a virtual talk Dr. Renee Horton from NASA! She is a truly remarkable woman, and went out of her way to relate to us, give advice, and entertained any questions that we had for her. She will be back to speak at PhysCon in October 2022, and I am very excited to have another opportunity to talk with her and hear anything at all that she has to say. Dr. Horton is an extremely accomplished researcher that has been through just about anything that life can throw at you and came out extremely successful, happy, and motivated with her work. There is more information about Dr. Horton, as well as her experience of being the first African American to graduate from the University of Alabama, her book, and her organization linked here (https://www.reneehortonphd.com/about.html ) and I would highly recommend reading about her! She is truly someone that will go down in the history books, and a name to take note of.

On Thursday, we were also all given the opportunity to do a virtual resume workshop with Dr. Midhat Farooq of APS Careers. She not only gave us some amazing tips, but also walked us through the process of creating a skills-based resume, and gave us lots of opportunity to connect with her and take advantage of her connections! This, coupled with Brad’s career talk from week 8 and the other APS online recourses have genuinely been informative and helpful with both how to narrow down what I want to do after I get my degrees and with how to actually get there. Though I am not completely sure, I think that I am likely going to apply to a few possible graduate programs and apply to mainly jobs after graduation. The skill of creating a personally tailored skills-based resumes is essential, and I really appreciate Dr. Farooq’s willingness to help us through the process and make herself available to us down the line.

Next, for the week of cramming activities in an attempt to do it all before we are dramatically ripped away from this program and our friends:

On Monday after work, I took a long walk to look at some more of the embassies and upscale neighborhoods that I discovered last week, to dream about the beautiful homes there. We joined together for yet another movie night in consignment (our room) to watch the movie, chat, an make plans for the last full week of the internship.

Then, on Tuesday I took an outdoor yoga class in the park (which was fantastic apart from the man that harassed the class, as is far too common), and stopped by a cute outdoor movie showing for a bit, where there was a live DJ playing music and some free snacks. Afterwards, everyone was doing the Dungeons & Dragons campaign in my room! We shared many laughs, spontaneous dances, and finally got out of the (hypothetical) cave that we had been stuck in for weeks. This past week at work, Joanna had also told me about her incredible D&D character. I will leave the description to her, but her Che Iguana character is a fantastic tribute to Joanna’s creativity, and comes with a whole backstory and pamphlet that all started after Che was abandoned as a tiny lizard in Victorian London... Joanna Behrman is one of my mentors, and she is both an amazing advisor and a wonderful person. Despite having a great deal of work to do this past summer, she and my other mentors have taken time out of their busy lives to help me with anything that I have needed, and share important stories (‘important’ meaning Audrey’s dreams of having a pig as a pet, D&D characters, pictures of the squirrel that my vet sister nursed to health that I got to help take care of, etc). This coming week I will absolutely be sharing the incredible character with the other interns for our last session.

Then, Wednesday brought with it another potluck! This week’s theme was ‘breakfast for diner,’ and we all ate WELL. Some of the musically-inclined interns also brought their instruments and voices over after to play some tunes and hang out; I have to say, we have an absolutely talented group! After the potluck, I also took a peaceful walk around the monuments and Kennedy canter to watch the planes and listen to the bugs that come out at night; though I have been at the monuments for many sunsets, this was the first time that I have been able to hear the bugs and frogs at night. I used to call these nighttime sound effects ‘peepers’ as a kid, and it was refreshingly nice to hear them again—I take great comfort to falling asleep to them at home, and though I absolutely love the city, I didn’t realize how much I missed them.

On Thursday, after the resume-building workshop, we ventured to the Wharf for another outdoor movie night by the Potomac. The Wharf is a fantastic place to explore, and the movie was super cute (it was the Goonies)... and then the downpour started. We watched the storm come in during sunset about halfway through the movie—it was a deep red coming in, and the deluge took its sweet time giving us a show before it actually hit us. We chose to brave it and take a hefty shower rather than scatter with the rest of the crowd, and it was hilariously worth it.

Taylor and Lucy showed me their go-to remote work spot on Friday at the welcome center. If any future interns are reading this and also work partially hybrid—it is a great location with big windows, and the Panera inside the lobby makes the whole place smell like freshly baked bread. If you ask me, working to the smell of a fresh bagel and coffee is a truly great motivator.

Afterwards, a couple of the interns went out to dinner while Janessa and I had our own ‘date night’, and we had another great game night full of laughter (where I was successfully able to get rid of the rest of my snacks, which I have been trying to use up since they can’t come back on the plane with me). It is honestly really fun that we are all still learning new things about each other, even if it is disheartening to realize how little time we have left to get to know each other while we are all in the same time zone.

Saturday was another exploration day! We went to a few of the Smithsonian museums, just picking a general direction to walk in and seeing where we ended up (which ended up being the main building, Asian Art, Modern Art a few sculpture gardens). The method of walking aimlessly to see what there is to see is always a good one, especially when it comes to the Smithsonian area. Our favorite exhibit of the day was in the Museum of Modern Art—there were some really interestingly unique exhibits there about trauma and societal threats that were unlike anything that I have seen before (they were very dark, creative, and poignant).

On Sunday morning, we went out for some amazing crepes and had plenty of sweet or savory options to choose from (note to future interns--- Crepeaway that is about a 10 minute walk from New Amsterdam, has cheap savory and sweet crepes, and is open until 4am on Fridays and Saturdays). As a sidenote, it was hotly debated if the savory crepes were akin to being ‘French quesadillas,’ and if a savory crepe was better than a quesadilla. It was fairly split; I prefer the crepe option but I am also biased with a French family, whereas Janessa absolutely has some words to say about that. Afterwords, we took our last walk past the White House together on our way to explore some more Smithsonian museums afterwards- and it did not escape me how odd it was to be having ‘lasts’ already (last walk by the White House, last opportunity to see the Smithsonian’s, etc). We went through both wings of the Gallery of Art, absorbing as much as we could as fast as possible. Later that night, we closed off our final weekend in DC with another potluck to use up whatever food extras that we will not be able to ship home. We also worked on our list of advice to pass along to the future interns, as there was one left for us. It feels pretty crazy to be in the position of writing advice, and realizing that we do, in fact, have lots of tips for the city, our jobs, and suggestions for the next round of interns. It feels like we just got here, and it is strange to think of ourselves as semi-experts on what we’re doing and navigating the city. It’s odd that DC is a place that many of us have started calling home rather than a new and crazy place— I’m thrilled to have this experience, and will most definitely be writing more on this next week in my final blog post. Everyone’s notes to the future interns are also super cute and sweet, and I hope next year’s group appreciates them : )

See you next week for the final post (which is something that I hate typing),

Week 10: Gratitude, Goodbyes, and Getting Struck by Lightning

I am writing this blog post in a very different place from all of my other editions— from my home in Massachusetts. It feels almost as though the internship never happened being back here— it was an abrupt change back to my previous life as if I never lived in DC, and it feels odd.

To start— I will give an overview as usual about work this week! It was pretty much a massive rush to try to get all of my multiple projects and loose ends tied up, while also attempting to pack and prepare for our final symposium presentations. On Friday, we had our last official day together as interns for the final symposium. At this event, we all presented our work over the summer, got interviewed, shared an amazing lunch, and enjoyed eachothers company one last time as we mingled with mentors, friends, and family. Everyone looked professional and did a truly wonderful job presenting their projects! I am truly imporessed with the work everyone did an appreciated the differences between each of our individual experiences. The 2022 reat job everyone :)

I published a couple of things, and worked on many more to be published in the next few months! Here are some of the projects that I worked on:

• My Ex Libris Universum post about my research experiences of Katherine and Emilie: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/ex-libris-universum/research-underrepresented-voices-primary
• Katherine Clerk Maxwell’s teaching guide & color mixing: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/physics-history/teaching-guides/katherine-clerk-maxwell-and-color
• Émilie du Châtelet’s teaching guide & gravity: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/physics-history/teaching-guides/gravity-emilie-du-chatelet
• A bit of outreach that my mentors posted (there were & will continue to be more) (thank you!!): https://twitter.com/AIP_Library/status/1555260539433009153?s=20&t=VEo7smZvb-TQqdl8u4jQfQ , https://twitter.com/aip_history/status/1554843459021950978?s=20&t=VEo7smZvb-TQqdl8u4jQfQ , https://twitter.com/AIP_HQ/status/1558087409853677568?s=20&t=VEo7smZvb-TQqdl8u4jQfQ , https://twitter.com/aip_history/status/1556645974780559361?s=20&t=VEo7smZvb-TQqdl8u4jQfQ
• Katherine Clerk Maxwell’s Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Clerk_Maxwell
• Émilie du Châtelet’s Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Émilie_du_Châtelet

I will also have two more projects that will be published this year! This will include:

• An article in the AIP History Newsletter about Katherine, invisible technicians in science, and credibility. This will be published in the November edition: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/history-newsletter
• An article in the AIP History Newsletter about Katherine Clerk Maxwell’s family in relation to their dog Toby (which is a truly peculiar story), to be published in the November edition: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/history-newsletter
• An article on Physics Today about du Châtelet as an example of women’s misrepresentation in media, relating to her sexual affairs being misconstrued and hilighted more than her intellectual pursuits because of her role as a woman. This will be published around November as well: https://physicstoday.scitation.org/journal/pto

This does mean that I will have much more work to do in the coming months in order to publish both of them, but I am excited and thrilled to have the opportunity to ‘put my name out there’ in so many ways through this internship! Thank you so much to my mentors for making this possible, and pushing me to publish so many different things. I really appreciate it, and absolutely loved the opportunity.

This leads me to my next point, which I will keep brief for the sake of space in my far-too-long blog posts. My mentors and the SPS office have been nothing short of incredible. They have been extraordinarily patient, supportive, and helpful as I have learned how to do history research— even if this did consist of me finding barely more than what was on Katherine’s Wikipedia page after weeks of searching through all of her husband’s personal correspondence (which I learned is, in fact, what much of archival research involves). Everyone was constantly available and happy to chat and entertain whatever I had to say, and I really could not have done any of this without their support.

Again— I definitely do not take my experiences for granted, and recognise how lucky I am to have such wonderful people around me! Special thanks to Corinne, Audrey, Joanna, and the entire NBLA and CHP staff for welcoming me onto their team, inviting me to their events, and being open to any questions. The SPS officers were also far too generous to us, helping us with anything at all, and going above and beyond to include us in their communities... insert Brad handing me Oreos and notes over office barriers with a yard stick, Andrew always being available for a chat, and Kayla & Mikayla hosting picnics and enduring the pain of organising all of us. The rest of the employees at the CHP that I met were all just lovely— just to name a few, I had some wonderful conversations with Vanessa, Jack Hehn literally gave me the entire idea for my work on du Châtelet and my actual thesis, and everyone with the Foundation really gave me a glimpse into what my potential career could involve.

Sincerely, I am endlessly grateful to everyone and did not have a single bad experience. I will absolutely miss this <3

Next, aside from the professional aspect of this week, it was absolutely crazy trying to tie up the ends of an internship, make and practice presentations, contract separation anxiety from the other interns, as well as pack up the whole room and boxes for the next interns.

Monday was the last D&D session. We took this one on foot, playing outside of the Lincoln monument during a beautiful sunset. Taytay did a fantastic job with the campaign, and we are planning on trying to continue playing virtually to stay in touch.

This week, my dad was also in town for work! This meant that on Tuesday I got to stop by his hotel after work, and we walked around the city for a bit before I picked up Janessa from her Hamilton show, and the two of us got to enjoy a quiet night together while getting organized for the week.

Wednesday brought even more fun after work; I met my dad and his coworkers for dinner, pawned off a small suitcase on him to bring home (a real lifesaver), and then met some friends at the Wharf to watch a life outdoor band! I do wish that I had taken more advantage of the wharf area while in DC as there really is so much to do there, and the sunsets are always beautiful. We had a delicious crepe night after we got back as well— in our attempts to spend as much time together as possible and use up any remaining food we had.

Thursday after work I did very nearly almost get struck by lightning... that sure was interesting. I was the last one at CHP, and had waited an additional 40 mins for severe thunderstorms to pass and let me make the walk to the metro from work. I thought that there was a pause in the storm and started the trek home, which quickly turned into a run because of the sheer volume of lightning rods striking the ground around me and the height of my hair standing strait up. I’m not sure I have ever been so genuinely scared for my life, lightning did strike the ground about 30 feet from me, and learned that a few people were killed by lightning strikes that same day. I got lucky to get this internship in the first place... and then I got lucky again by not being struck that day.

I ended up in this predicament it was the last night with all of the interns, as some with cars were set to leave on friday night, and I didn’t want to miss it. So, we spent a long time packing up boxes for incoming interns as well as our own suitcases, and sharing whatever food we had left to use! We had another transient snack potluck with any scraps that could make something together, with nachos, pizza, cheese, and lots of frozen food. Thank you so much to everyone who helped with the boxes!

On Friday after the presentations, delicious lunch, and great conversation, Brad came out to GW to pick up some boxes and join us for our last-ever weekly Happy Hour. We went to get some final $5 tots from Quigleys, and celebrated Brad’s belated birthday with a card (a note to future interns: Brad’s birthday is August 2nd). Those of us that hadn’t left yet stuck around together for a bit on Friday night, reluctant to leave.

Saturday was travel day. Janessa left at 4am (Saksham and I woke up to say a farewell, and promptly go back to bed), and 4 of us left to head in the direction to go into the airport later that day. We made our rounds knocking on some doors to say goodbye to whoever was left, and then had a hilarious time getting through the airport... my airline got switched, Lucy got a full pat-down, and both of Saksham’s bags got held up. He had to have full bag checks, and did his laundry on the floor real quick before we moved out of security. Saksham and my flights were also both delayed to roughly the same time, so we got to hang out and get lunch together for a few hours before saying the last sad goodbye of the internship... and then it was officially over.

On a personal note, I want to thank all of my mentors, the SPS officers, and the interns for all of their kindness and patience throughout this experience! Everyone that I met in personal and professional settings have been absolutely wonderful and more than willing to reach out and make connections. I have most definitely made some lifelong memories and friends this summer, and am genuinely a little heartbroken to have to leave.

Thank you to the interns for making this experience what it was— we literally did something every single day during the ten weeks, getting to know each other, the city, and trying any new opportunity that we had access to. Thanks to everyone for entertaining my ‘I have never lived in a city and want to do everything possible’ mindset, and joining me on this fantastic adventure!

I am thrilled to have had such fun and learned such wonderful things from all of the people around me. I won’t forget this, though I wish I could forget the hundreds of ice cream truck’s jingle that yelled ‘hello’ around the city every 75 seconds. That ‘hello’ will most definitely echo in all of our minds and hearts forever....

Thank you so much everyone <3