SPS Zone 10 Report 2026

Meeting: April 17-29, 2026

Location: Conway, AR

Host: University of Central Arkansas

Reported By: Branden Lee

Chapters in Attendance:

• Arkansas Tech University
• Hendrix College
• Louisiana Tech University
• Rhodes College
• University of Arkansas - Fayetteville
• University of Central Arkansas
• University of Mississippi
• University of Southern Mississippi

Number of Attendees:
63 were registered for the meeting and 63 were in attendance. Not everyone who registered was in attendance, but this was balanced by extra attendees.

Meeting Description:
The Zone 10 meeting started in the Conway Corporation Center for Sciences at 5:00 PM on Friday, April 17^th, where students were given time to file in, register for the meeting, and talk with other students. At 6:00 PM, the Sigma Pi Sigma induction ceremony for two UCA students began in the Griffin Planetarium. The induction ceremony ended at around 7:00 PM, and students moved back to the lobby to enjoy dinner and play board games until the night ended at around 10:00 PM.

The next morning started at 9:00 AM, breakfast was provided through Aramark, purchased through SPS and department funding, in the Lewis Science Center lobby. Students who had not been there the previous night were able to register and poster presenters were given the opportunity to set up their posters. After breakfast, students transitioned to LSC100 to hear the welcome address from Dr. Addison. Following the welcome address, Dr. Lusk and Catherine Prabish presented important information about the zone, including voting and SPSCon 2028, and they encouraged all the chapters to use the meeting to get to know others, and to use it as a “steroid shot” for individual chapters as they go back to their campuses.

Following the National Zone Council presentation, students began to present their posters and art at 10:00 AM in the CCCS lobby. After 30 minutes, students moved back into LSC100 to listen to some of the student research talks. Once the first session of research talks concluded, a UCA alumni guest speaker, Grace Zimmerman, spoke about her experiences through graduate school and working on a few NASA space missions, and she answered questions that students had for her. Lunch then followed Grace’s talk, also provided by Aramark through SPS and department funding, with the final 15 minutes being taken to take a group photo.

After lunch, a final round of poster presentations and student research talks occurred. Included in the second session of talks were a couple chapter talks, one showing off a demo and the other talking about how their chapter functions. The meeting ended with closing remarks by Dr. Clardy who reminded students about SPSCon 2028 and encouraged holding fundraising events to get there. Dr. Lusk then thanked everyone that helped with the meeting and for everyone who attended.

Recommendations for Future Zone Meeting Planning:
A crucial part of the success of this Zone 10 meeting was starting early. Even though we started planning early in October/November of last year, there were times where that still did not feel like a good enough head start. Another aspect that ensured the meeting’s success was the delegation of responsibilities between the SPS officers. Delegating responsibilities not only prevented overwhelming the officers, but it also kept the officers and the zone meeting organized. One mistake that we made was allowing students to register too close to the zone meeting. Due to this mistake, we had to quickly change the food order as more students registered than we had predicted. We recommend setting a due date for registration forms well before the zone meeting, enough to provide the time to order an accurate amount of food.

Agenda:

Narrative:

Friday, April 17^th:
The meeting began at five o’clock as students from all over the zone began to arrive on campus and enter the Conway Corporation Center for Sciences. All students were welcomed into an environment where no matter their differences, everyone was united through a similar interest in physics. Newcomers were greeted with the registration table as they entered, where they could pay their $5 registration fee, and pick up some free SPS swag and informative flyers for their own chapters. Some students were interested in UCA’s campus, so volunteers offered informal tours of some key interesting spots on UCA’s campus. It was a sociable hour as students trickled in, finding familiar faces and meeting new ones. The buzz of conversations across the room made the meeting come to life.

As six o’clock approached, the tone of the evening changed to a ceremonial one as all Zone 10 students present were invited to attend the Sigma Pi Sigma induction ceremony of two deserving UCA students. Everyone filed into the Griffen Planetarium, and once everyone was settled, Dr. Lusk began to present the history, traditions, and prestige of Sigma Pi Sigma. Students listened as they began to feel the weight of what the honor society represents, learned its legacy of academic excellence, and learned the great service it provides to the physics community. The two highly accomplished inductees were welcomed into the honor society, becoming a meaningful moment for not only the inductees, but also the audience as they understood what it means to be recognized as a member of Sigma Pi Sigma.

After the ceremony concluded, the rest of the night turned towards the fellowship of the SPS students in attendance. Pizza was provided through the registration fee, along with a spread of homecooked food and treats by Dr. Lusk. Students enjoyed eating dinner together, further conversating with old and new connections from other chapters. Afterwards, there was plenty of time spent playing board and card games. Various activities occurred at once in the building, including a game of UNO, a tradition carried in by one of the visiting chapters, an almost unruly game of spoons, and even a game of Magic the Gathering. Chapters left as they pleased as the night ended around ten o’clock.

Saturday, April 18^th:
The Zone 10 meeting opened at nine o’clock with a brief time for people to talk and have breakfast and coffee. At this time, people who hadn’t already done so Friday were coming to the registration stand to get their name tags and some of the remaining SPS swag, the spherical cow stickers being a popular grab. People spoke amongst each other, some recollecting the events the night before. Once everyone was settled, we opened with the welcome address from the Dean of the College of Science and Engineering, Dr. Addison. In the welcome address, Dr. Addison spoke on the importance of making connections and networking in the physics community, explaining how we as physics students should be taking advantage of events like this to meet new people and learn about what research they have been doing, to broaden our understanding and create new potential opportunities for ourselves.

Dr. Addison’s welcome was immediately followed by the National SPS Council presentation. In this presentation, Dr. Lusk and Catherine Prabish thanked everyone for attending the meeting, informed the chapter about the importance of voting in the zone elections, and encouraged students to use the meeting to meet new people and take the meeting’s energy to their home chapters. Once the council presentation was concluded, everyone moved back to the lobby of CCCS and the first session for poster presentations began. The hall was lined with posters covering many different topics and even an art display. Members were free to walk around and see the research other students have been working on and ask questions. The posters covered a large range of subjects, such as proton-proton collisions, designing 3-D printed materials, and even creating floating volumetric displays. It was a very lively moment seeing how everyone expressed great interest in other students’ work and wanting to learn more. It appeared that everyone was quite engaged in the small talks occurring throughout the halls.

Shortly after, students moved back to LSC100 and the student research talks began. These were more in-depth coverings of research that students have been working. There was a total of four talks during this time, starting with Elizabeth Goreth and her research on monitoring and modeling blazars where she showed observational data that she attained in her multiple trips to the Perkins Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Next was Joy Skaggs who covered the question of the logical consistency of mathematics by explaining the five axioms that are the foundation of mathematics and why it always seems to work. Sallie Ann Schmidt presented her research on finding a way to make polypropylene plastics recyclable through a solvent immersion annealing approach. The final person to present was Suyog Badal who showed his work on developing interactive tools to simulate work done at the NOvA experiment by creating modules with sample data to help students gain a realistic understanding of the process in particle physics.

From here, we transitioned to a zoom meeting with our guest speaker. Our guest speaker was Grace Zimmerman, a UCA alumni and current researcher at the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. In her presentation, Grace talked about her experiences throughout graduate school at the University of Maryland and her work at John Hopkins University on several NASA space missions. She went into detail about her impressive contributions to those missions and emphasized the importance of her experiences getting her to that position. She finished her talk by answering questions from curious students. Her talk inspired us to keep pushing forward, to set high goals, and to work hard towards those goals.

By the time Grace finished her talk, it was time for lunch. A baked potato bar with various other stews, salad, and drinks were provided by Aramark catering. The LSC lobby was buzzing with casual, good-hearted conversation. During the last fifteen minutes of the lunch break, students and faculty were welcomed to join a group photo out in front of the Conway Corporation Center for Sciences building to showcase the Zone 10 meeting. The unexpected frigid temperatures outside allowed for a fun, lighthearted environment as everyone eagerly waited for the photos to be complete so that everyone could all go back inside to continue with the planned events. A volunteer took two main photos while outside, a simple photo of everyone smiling, and a fun photo of everyone doing the right-hand rule.

After the photos, the next planned event was a second round of student poster presentations and art exhibits. Walking through the posters, one could see all the hard work and thoughts put into every single research poster and art piece. This event seemed to be a favorite for all the students, with this being one of the only planned events that went over the expected time limit, which is not a surprise seeing how this event was planned to allow a space where everyone could connect on similar interests and learn new topics from fellow students.

Immediately following the poster presentations and art exhibit were the SPS chapter talks. The first SPS chapter talk came from Hendrix College, where they did a unique physics demonstration with a harmonic pendulum. The students from Hendrix brought out their impressively sized, handmade pendulum and showed the attributes of a harmonic pendulum, along with the wave-like movement that the pendulum exhibited once put into motion. After doing the demonstration, the Hendrix chapter allowed any other interested student to come down and try to simulate the wave motion with the pendulum.

The next SPS chapter talk was by Rhodes College, who had an excellent presentation showcasing all the events and activities that their SPS chapter held throughout the year. One memorable event that the SPS chapter went over was the pumpkin drop that they would do around Halloween. Rhodes College’s SPS chapter also provided fun ideas for future meetings and demos that other SPS chapters could take inspiration from. Rhodes College’s presentation certainly encouraged other chapters in Zone 10 to go all out with outreach, fun events, and fundraising.

After the SPS chapter talks, the last student-based event was the rest of the student research talks. These talks were very informative, and covered a large range of science, from cave modeling, presented by Charlotte Boehme, to exploring the topological defects in Janus bilayers, presented by Taksh Patel. The student research talks were also a fan-favorite among the attendees, mostly because it allowed these students to showcase all of the years and hard work put into these research projects. Some of the presenters were seniors, so this event was the last time they got to present their undergraduate research in front of an audience.

The last event of the meeting was the closing remarks by Dr. Shannon Clardy. Dr. Clardy talked about the importance of having zone meetings and talked about future SPS events, including the next Physics and Astronomy Congress. Dr. Clardy also went over how she wanted everyone to fill out their chapter reports, expressing great importance, and to participate in the SPS elections.

Overall, the Society of Physics Students Zone 10 meeting was an astounding success that showcased the hard work and dedication of every single volunteer and attendee. It was fun and rewarding to see so many students show up from all over the zone, and it was incredible to see everyone engage with one another about shared interests and research projects.

Pictures: