Speakers

CUWiP Keynote Speaker

Jocelyn Bell Burnell inadvertently discovered pulsars as a graduate student in radio astronomy in Cambridge, opening up a new branch of astrophysics, work recognised by the award of a Nobel Prize to her supervisor.

She has subsequently worked in many roles in many branches of astronomy, working part-time while raising a family. She is now a visiting academic in Oxford and the chancellor of the University of Dundee, Scotland. She has been president of the UK’s Royal Astronomical Society, in 2008 became the first female president of the Institute of Physics for the UK and Ireland, and in 2014 the first female president of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She was one of the small group of women scientists that set up the Athena SWAN scheme.

She has received many honors, including a $3 million Breakthrough Prize in 2018. The public appreciation and understanding of science have always been important to her, and she is much in demand as a speaker and broadcaster. In her spare time, she gardens, listens to choral music, and is active in the Quakers. She has co-edited an anthology of poetry with an astronomical theme, Dark Matter; Poems of Space.

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Bethany Johns is Deputy Director Public Policy, Interim Acting Director at the American Astronomical Society. Dr. Johns obtained her Ph.D. and Masters in Physics from Clemson University with an emphasis in policy studies and a B.A. in Physics from Kenyon College.

Dr. Yaireska (Yari) Collado-Vega is originally from Ponce, Puerto Rico.  She received her PhD in Space Physics from The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC with honors in January 2013.  She received both her BS and MS in theoretical physics from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, in 2004 and 2007, respectively, and a second MS from The Catholic University of America on May 2010.  She is the director of the Moon to Mars (M2M) Space Weather Analysis Office which was established to support NASA’s Space Radiation Analysis Group (SRAG) with human space exploration activities. The M2M Office also provides real-time analysis of the space environment and their probable impacts for NASA missions across the solar system.  Collado-Vega’s research focuses on the solar wind interaction with the Earth’s magnetic environment, solar energetic particle events and coronal mass ejections, X-ray imagers, and space weather effects on planetary environments. She also works on the validation of magnetospheric models and the current developments on machine learning capabilities to improve space weather analysis and forecasting.  She also conducts education and public outreach for NASA and the Heliophysics Science Division including social media events and live tv/radio interviews in English and Spanish.  She has also been a Co-Investigator in several internal funded proposals on a data mining tool development and has presented on many international and national scientific conferences.  She has been part of the NASA family for 19 years and has been working on space weather analysis since 2012.

Career Panel

Ms. Sandi Cole is a National Board Certified Physics teacher at Spring Hill High School (SHHS) in Chapin, SC. SHHS is an all choice, all magnet, public high school in School District Five of Lexington and Richland Counties. She has taught students for the last 24 years in courses including AP Physics C Mechanics, AP Physics 1, AP Physics 2, Physics Honors and Physical Science Honors. She believes all students deserve the opportunity to explore scientific concepts in a fun, inviting school environment and strives to help students find their passion for the sciences.

Dr. Gregory received her Associate Degree in Physics at Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and Undergraduate Degrees in Physics and Applied Mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. She studied Condensed Matter Physics and Biophysics at Clemson University under Drs. Ramakrishna Podila and Apparao Rao of the Clemson Nanomaterials Institute, receiving her Ph.D. in 2020. Mrs. Gregory works for the South Carolina-based molecular diagnostics laboratory and technology company Precision Genetics. She serves as the Director of Laboratory Operations and the Director of Clinical Research for both the company’s Greenville and Charleston locations, managing laboratory workflows and Precision’s clinical research trials. In her current work, Wren specializes in pharmacogenomics testing and genetic metabolic pathways research and development in perioperative medicine and mental health to spur the implementation of precision medicine in the United States. She currently lives in Greenville, SC with her husband and two young children.

Joan Marler completed her PhD in physics at the University of California, San Diego with a research project studying the low energy interactions of antimatter with ordinary matter. Right after graduate school, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow (a teaching and research position) at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. She then participated in two research Postdoctoral positions. One was at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and the other at Northwestern University. While both projects involved studying atoms and molecules at very low temperature/energy, the first explored the interaction of atoms with single photons in a cavity and the second was working toward high resolution spectroscopy of molecules to explore fundamental symmetries. She has given presentations in 7 different countries and has more than 25 publications on her work.

Workshop Speakers

Erin Crites is a fourth-year graduate student at North Carolina State University where she studies photothermal heating in polymers as a NSF Graduate Research Fellow. She is interested in the use of light as a tool to interact with our world, and works on modifying polymer properties using visible light (something accessible, and thus convenient for future processing technology). She enjoys going to conferences and meeting the physics community (including at CUWiP 2018!). Outside of physics, Erin enjoys spending time outdoors, petting dogs, and learning obscure skills like how to make chainmail or how to bookbind.

Ms. Sharon Dye, MSc, MBA is a Product Manager at Elekta, a leading innovator of precision radiation therapy solutions, where her focus is on software systems that plan, adapt and control treatments for cancer patients.
Previous career roles are IT project management and supply chain consulting at Cisco, product development at GE Healthcare, and a clinical Medical Physicist at St. Bartholomew’s and the Royal London Hospital, UK.
She is a graduate of University College London, Master of Science in Radiation Physics, and has an MBA from University of Bradford at NIMBAS Utrecht, the Netherlands. She is a member of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM).

Bri Hart (she/her) is a Senior Program Manager for Diversity and Careers at the American Physical Society. In this role, she leads programs that support equity, diversity, and inclusion in the physics community, including the National Mentoring Community (NMC). Bri’s background includes managing programs to create space for historically marginalized folks within the higher education and non-profit sectors, including women and gender minority students, first generation college students, and students who have been ethnically and racially minoritized. Prior to joining APS, Bri managed a mentoring program for first and second year women and gender minority students in STEM majors at NC State University. Bri identifies as a Black Feminist and is committed to utilizing an intersectional lens to center the voices and experiences of Black women in her work.

Yara Maayah is a graduate student in Biomedical Physics at East Carolina University. After earning her BS in Physics with an emphasis in Biophysics from Cal Poly Pomona, she attended San Diego State University where she earned her MS in Medical Physics and completed research investigating the DNA damaging effectiveness of ionizing radiation. She aspires to use her passion and knowledge of physics to find clinical solutions in cancer treatment. As a founder of the Women in Physics group at San Diego State University, she is passionate about physics outreach work that makes science accessible to all, as well as encourages minorities to pursue their scientific interests. 

Dr. Katelyn (Kate) O’Dell is an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the United States Department of Energy. In her role she supports the demonstration of clean energy technologies at-scale to accelerate a net-zero economy in the United States. Prior to her current role, Katelyn conducted interdisciplinary scientific research on the health impacts of wildfire smoke which has been featured in The Washington Post, CNN, and elsewhere. Katelyn holds a PhD and MS in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University and a BS in Physics from the College of Charleston. 

Dr. Torres-Albà is Postdoctoral Fellow at Clemson University. She obtained her PhD in Astrophysics from the University of Barcelona, in Spain, in 2019. Her research interests are mostly in the field of high-energy astrophysics. During her PhD she worked in particle acceleration in AGN jets, the contribution of AGN to reionization, and detecting hidden AGN in galaxies with very high star formation rates. She currently focuses on using X-ray spectroscopy to study extreme obscuration around supermassive black holes.

Ms. Gabriella Wheeler Fox is a fourth year graduate student in Computational Neuroscience at the University of Chicago. She uses two-photon imaging and statistical physics inspired analysis tools to study how interactions between different cell classes in the brain underlie motor learning. Outside of the lab, Gabriella enjoys reading, writing, and exploring local playgrounds with her toddler.

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Sharetta Bufford is the Director of Recruitment and Inclusive Excellence in the College of Science and a Learning Sciences PhD candidate in the College of Education at Clemson University. She founded and directs the College of Science Mentoring and Inclusion Collaborative (COSMIC), where she designed and teaches courses on professional development for mentors and sense of belongingness for mentees. Bufford’s contributions have helped improve the GPAs, retention rates, and graduation rates of traditionally under-resourced students, and she has seen many students successfully matriculate into and graduate from professional and graduate schools.

Dr. Nicole Martinez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences at Clemson University and also holds a Joint Faculty Appointment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory within the Center for Radiation Protection Knowledge. Dr. Martinez’s current research focuses on dosimetric modeling and the behavior and effects of radiological contaminants in the environment with applications ranging from risk assessment to biosensing. She is vice chair of Committee 4 of the International Commission on Radiological Protection and is also a member of the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements.

Madeline Clyburn is a third-year graduate student at Clemson University where she conducts research in computational astrophysics with her advisor, Dr. Jonathan Zrake. Her research is focused on the prediction of electromagnetic signatures from unequally-massed massive black hole binaries. She is also the president of Clemson’s Graduate Student Organization, so she enjoys planning fun, physics-related events (including Clemson’s 2024 CUWIP). Outside of physics, Madeline spends time with her puppy on hikes, reading, painting or hanging out with friends.

Erin Crites is a fourth-year graduate student at North Carolina State University where she studies photothermal heating in polymers as a NSF Graduate Research Fellow. She is interested in the use of light as a tool to interact with our world, and works on modifying polymer properties using visible light (something accessible, and thus convenient for future processing technology). She enjoys going to conferences and meeting the physics community (including at CUWiP 2018!). Outside of physics, Erin enjoys spending time outdoors, petting dogs, and learning obscure skills like how to make chainmail or how to bookbind.

Yara Maayah is a graduate student in Biomedical Physics at East Carolina University. After earning her BS in Physics with an emphasis in Biophysics from Cal Poly Pomona, she attended San Diego State University where she earned her MS in Medical Physics and completed research investigating the DNA damaging effectiveness of ionizing radiation. She aspires to use her passion and knowledge of physics to find clinical solutions in cancer treatment. As a founder of the Women in Physics group at San Diego State University, she is passionate about physics outreach work that makes science accessible to all, as well as encourages minorities to pursue their scientific interests. 

Danielle Markowski is a fourth-year graduate student at Clemson University in the Atmospheric Physics group. Her research is focused on quantifying day-to-day variability in the bottomside ionosphere. She is also a graduate student employee for Los Alamos National Laboratory where she looks at the effects of thunderstorms on ionospheric variability using HF propagation and VLF waveforms from lightning discharges. Danielle has also been a part of two NASA sounding rocket missions where she was able to travel to Alaska and Norway.

Garima Rajguru is a second-year graduate student at Clemson University – Department of Physics and Astronomy. She works with Dr. Marco Ajello. Her research interest is in high-energy Astrophysics, specifically the study of blazars. She is a Graduate Student Government (GSG) Senator of Clemson University, representing the Department of Physics and Astronomy. As a GSG senator she is also involved in the GSG committee – Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, further boosting her motivation to help organize the Clemson’s CUWiP 2024. In her free time, Garima likes to create science memes, listen to music and read detective and thriller novels

Roshani Silwal is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Appalachian State University. She is an experimental atomic physicist, and works with ion traps: trapping and performing spectroscopy of highly charged ions. She completed my Ph.D. degree from Clemson University in May, 2018 and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at TRIUMF in Canada until December, 2019 post graduation. Currently, she is teaching undergraduate level physics and continuing research with ion traps at App. State.

Ava Webber is a second-year graduate student at Clemson University where she studies Astrophysics. She researches gamma ray production and emission from galactic star-forming regions with Dr. Marco Ajello.  She was also President of the Women in Physics group and a member of the CUWiP LOC at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In her free time, Ava enjoys listening to 80’s music, painting, cooking, and spending time with friends. 

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Robyn Curtis has been a fellowships advisor since 2008. A historian by training, her path to this profession was not a straight line, but she loves to say “fellowships advising is the job I never knew I always wanted.” Before coming to Clemson to open the Office of Major Fellowships in 2018, she established the Office of Nationally Competitive Awards at the University of Southern Mississippi. She has served on selection committees for many national competitive programs. In 2022 she received Clemson’s Frank A. Burtner Excellence in Advising in recognition of her dedication to student development. She enjoys helping students find opportunities to do things they never imagined were possible. The lightbulb moment when a student is able to articulate their goals and explain why a fellowship is a great fit will never get old. Robyn is the current Vice President of the National Association of Fellowships Advisors as well as the President of Clemson’s chapter of Phi Kappa Phi. She is the lead advisor for all awards which require university endorsement or nomination as well as for most opportunities which are open to juniors and seniors, such as the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the Fulbright US Student Program.

Tessa Byer has served as the University Ombuds at Clemson University in Clemson, SC, since August 2021.  She has provided mediation, training, and conflict coaching in many contexts, including divorce, workplace, family, religious, landlord/tenant, permanency, harassment prevention, and small-claims.  In 2020, she founded The Resolved Approach, which provides affordable mediation and conflict resolution services to individuals and organizations.  Tessa has a Master of Arts in Coexistence and Conflict Resolution and a Master of Community Planning.

Bri Hart (she/her) is a Senior Program Manager for Diversity and Careers at the American Physical Society. In this role, she leads programs that support equity, diversity, and inclusion in the physics community, including the National Mentoring Community (NMC). Bri’s background includes managing programs to create space for historically marginalized folks within the higher education and non-profit sectors, including women and gender minority students, first generation college students, and students who have been ethnically and racially minoritized. Prior to joining APS, Bri managed a mentoring program for first and second year women and gender minority students in STEM majors at NC State University. Bri identifies as a Black Feminist and is committed to utilizing an intersectional lens to center the voices and experiences of Black women in her work.

Abigail is currently a Transient Analysis Engineer at GE Hitatchi Nuclear.  She has experience in both private and government consulting in the Nuclear industry.  Abigail graduated from Clemson University with a B.S. in Physics and a minor in Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences in 2020.  She is also a 2019 alumna of CUWiP, where she remembers networking with encouraging industry professionals and getting advice on building her resume; she would love to help the CUWiP class of 2024 do the same!