Workshops, Panels and Speakers

UTSA Laboratory Tours
Leader: Kathryn Mayer, University of Texas at San Antonio
Participants will have the opportunity to learn about UTSA Physics research and facilities in areas of Materials Physics, Biophysics, Astronomy, Astrophysics and Computational Physics. Highlights of this tour include a visit to our telescopes, biophotonics imaging core facility, and Kleberg Advances Microscopy Center (KAMC) which feature Helenita, an aberration-corrected Jeol ARM 220F electron microscope with a spatial resolution of 78 picometers.

Air Force Research Laboratory: How I got here and what I do
Presenter: Dr. Hope Beier, Air Force Research Laboratory, Ft. Sam Houston
Dr. Hope Beier has been a Research Biomedical Engineer in AFRL’s Optical Radiation Bioeffects Branch since November 2012. She serves as a principal investigator for efforts using advanced optical techniques to investigate the effects of directed energy (laser and radio frequency) on biology. In this talk the audience will learn about physics research opportunites within the Department of Defense and learn specifically about the Electromagnetic Bioeffects Research at the Air Force Research Laboratory.

You have options! Preparing for a successful career with your physics degree
Presenter: Prof. Toni Sauncy, Texas Lutheran University
There have been increasing calls to grow the size and diversity of the Science, Technology,Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce over the past decade. Many physics departments focus on preparing students for entry into advanced physics or astronomy degree programs rather than on preparing the over 40% of graduates holders who will enter the workforce directly following graduation. Students with physics degrees are successful in a wide range of career pathways, but navigating your physics background toward the job of your dreams can present some challenges. The American Institute of Physics Career Pathways Project* has resulted in a number of resources designed for students, faculty mentors and departmental leadership that can help physics students and departments to more effectively prepare their students for the STEM workforce. This talk will be interactive and require audience participation.
*funded by National Science Foundation-Project No. 1011829.

Panel: “Graduate School and REUs”
Moderator: Maria Medrano, UTSA Graduate School
Panelist: Joanna Perido (University of Texas at San Antonio), Samantha Franklin (University of Texas at San Antonio), Sarah Vines (University of Texas at San Antonio), Dulce Urbina-Romero (University of Texas at San Antonio), Alexis Catala (University of Texas at San Antonio)
Obtaining research experiences early during your undergraduate studies can be a challenge but it can be a stepping stone to many opportunities in the future such as acceptance to a graduate program. This panel discusses how to find research opportunities and graduate programs which are right for you as well as how to write the best application, what to be careful about, what to put emphasis on, what are the most frequently occurring mistakes students make on their applications and much, much more for both undergraduate research experiences and applying to graduate school.

Conversation with Ginger Kerrick
Moderator: Marilyn Moore (University of Texas at San Antonio)
Get to know Ginger Kerrick who earned bachelor's and master's degrees in physics from Texas Tech University and is the first female Hispanic flight director at NASA. She pursued her dream of working at NASA since she was 5 years old. The audience will have an opportunity to learn her story in her own words. Questions will be answered from across all the 2016 CUWiP sites. View her story here.

Panel: Non-Academic Careers
Moderator: Yan Li, Ph.D., American Physical Society
Panelist: Haley Rico (Verify Markets), Laura McMaster (Rackspace), Angela Boulineau (Rackspace), Cynthia Lima (UTSA, Dept. of Education), Diana Strickland, Ph.D. (Southwest Research Institute)
Students with degrees in physics have succeeded in a wide range of academic and non-academic careers. This panel gives the audience a chance to learn about professional physicist with working in a wide variety of non-academic fields.

Gender Issue in Science
Presenter/Moderator: Niescja Turner, Ph.D., Trinity University
Panelist: ReAnna Roby, Ed.M. (UT-San Antonio), Eleanor Close, Ph.D. (Texas State)
The search for evidence of a science gender gap has been provided by numerous research studies which have evaluated the population of professionals in the academic fields of science and engineering, as well as surveys focusing on students’ perceptions of these subjects. Overwhelmingly, research has supported the conclusion that there are no biological, neurological, or genetic factors that explain scientific gender disparity. Rather, a combination of elements combine to make it more difficult for women to train for and maintain a high-achieving scientific career. These factors include social stigma of the sciences as “masculine”, institutional bias in the scientific community, and pressures related to starting a family. Although women scientists continue to be underrepresented in various professional levels, this panel seeks to share experiences of many women who have established rewarding and successful careers in science.

Advisor/Mentor/Sponsor: What’s the Difference?
Moderator: Elizabeth Ann Nalley, Ph.D., Cameron University
Panelist: Ashley Hicks, M.S. (University of Central Arkansas), Brandy Vincent, M.S. (Jackson State University), Brian Yust, Ph.D. (University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley)
The Advisor, Mentor and Sponsor are considered the “three must haves” to success in life. Students will hear from panelist about their experiences of finding an Advisor/Mentor/Sponsor as they navigated through graduate school and/or careers.

Panel: “Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask”
Moderator: Adrienne Luspay-Kuti, Ph.D, Southwest Research Institute
Panelist: Sarah Vines (University of Texas at San Antonio), Samantha Franklin (University of Texas at San Antonio), Clarissa Vazquez (University of Texas at San Antonio), Reanna Roby (University of Texas at San Antonio)
This panel will be hosted by students and is for designed as an open forum for audience driven questions and topics such as “What I wish I knew when I first started graduate school”; “How did you find the best research advisor?”; “Managing the pressures of graduate school or a career”, and other issues of interest.

Challenges Facing Women Physicists: How They Overcame Them
Speaker: Prof. Ruth H. Howes, Professor Emerita of Physics and Astronomy, Ball State University
Even today, women seeking careers in physics face obstacles which their predecessors have overcome. This talk presents an overview of these obstacles and the strategies women physicists have used to overcome them in the past. Changes in the climate of physics for women will be discussed. Finally some strategies that each of us can use now to succeed in a man’s world will be presented and illustrated with stories of women physicists active in the 1940s and 1950s.

How the survive, no... wait... THRIVE, as a non-traditional career-trajectory Physics major
Speaker: Dr. Christina Richey, Senior Scientist, Smart Data Solutions, LLC
While my degrees are in Physics, my career path has included teaching, scientific research, program management, administration, and even side work in dealing with harassment. This talk will highlight how I jumped from a liberal arts undergraduate college, to a B-tier research University, to a postdoctoral fellowship at NASA, to becoming a contractor at NASA Headquarters and will include advise for anyone looking to have a career outside, or even inside, the box.

SwRI Laboratory Tours
Leader: Dr. Phil Valek (SwRI Space Science) and Sarah Vines (UTSA/SwRI, Graduate Student)
Participants will have the opportunity to learn about cutting edge research in planetary science, space physics, and instrumentation being conducted in the facilities at Southwest Research Institute. The tour will lead groups through several laboratories used for the development and testing of new plasma detectors and spectrometers that are currently, or will be, on NASA and European Space Agency missions. Instruments developed and calibrated in these labs include the JADE suite and UV spectrograph on Juno, the Heavy Ion Sensor (HIS) that will be flying on Solar Orbiter, Alice and SWAP on New Horizons, HPCA on Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS), and several CubeSats and instruments for sounding rockets.
SwRI Labs:
Instrument Development and Calibration Lab
Electron Calibration Chamber, Ion Calibration Chamber, Ultraviolet Radiometric Calibration Chamber
High Energy Particle Lab
Energetic Plasma Instrument Calibration Lab
Optics Lab and Ultraviolet Reflectivity Calibration Chamber
Instrument Integration and Assembly Lab

The Art of Negotiations: How To Add Value and Get to YES
Presenter:Prof. Dave McComas, Southwest Research Institute and Dr. Dan Cooper
Negotiations occur and many levels and in many different ways. They are a key part of your job if you are working at a University, in industry, and even in your home and personal life. This workshop will follow the research-based method of the Harvard Negotiation Process and focus on how to add value, expand the pie, and get to YES in negotiations with those around you.

Productivity Is Not Just Quantity of Output
Presenter: Prof. Fran Bagenal, University of Colorado
Most professional careers involve multiple jobs and over-demand of time. How to prioritize? When to say yes to service work, how to say no? How to set achievable goals - and then achieve them? How to balance immediate low-level demands of your attention with long-term high-priority goals?

Career and Family
Presenter: Prof. Patricia Reiff, Rice University
In former days, most educated women who wanted to have a career chose school teaching… it was accepted and allowed the teacher to be near her children and off when they were off. Others chose nursing, while only a few braved male-dominated fields such as college teaching, medicine, or industry. Today’s high powered academic environment where 50 to 60 hour work weeks are expected make juggling family and career much more difficult. Fortunately many Universities have on-site child care, have extended tenure clocks for childbirth, and spousal hiring policies that make it possible if still not easy. In this workshop we will discuss ways to negotiate the tenure process while keeping family and sanity. We will also discuss other non-academic jobs that are suited for women physicists.