Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) is a three-day regional conference sponsored by the American Physical Society (APS) held every year for undergraduate physics majors. Some of the conference goals are to assist undergraduate women in physics with attaining peer support, gaining valuable information about applying to graduate school, and the opportunity to talk about their undergraduate research, to name a few.
Princeton University was one of the venues from CUWiP 2017 that, in partnership with the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab (PPPL), hosted over a hundred physics majors mainly from the mid-Atlantic region of the US. Physics majors from RU-N and NJIT were in attendance to see what they could learn from the conference.
Workshops that students could attend included: Hot Topics in Physics, Science Communication, Everything No One Tells You About Applying to Grad School, Combatting Imposter Syndrome & Bias and Developing a Growth Mindset, Out in STEM, Being an Ally, Mental Health, Making a Splash on the Job Market, Entrepreneurship, Negotiation and Other Professional Skills, and Developing a Personal Work-Life Balance Plan.
Students also toured university research labs, including the Princeton Plasma Physics Labs, geoscience, observational cosmology, ultracold atomic physics, biophysics, condensed matter experiment, and soft living matter labs. The photo to the left shows students looking at plasma created in the lab.
Plenary talks were given by Prof. Meg Urry, the Isreal Munson Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Director of the Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Prof. Katja Nowack, an experimental condensed matter physicist from Cornell University. The keynote talk was given by Prof. Nergis Mavalvala with MIT in a live broadcast sent to all CUWiP sites about her research in instrument development for interformetric gravitational-wave detectors and her work on the Laser Interferometric Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) which observed for the first time the ripple in spacetime of gravitational waves.
Students were also given break time which our RU-N and NJIT students used to practice Modern Physics problems on the blackboards available for students to use in McDonnell Hall.
Finally, a poster session with hors d'oeuvers was scheduled so that attendees could discuss research they are working on at their universities, answer questions anyone may have, and trade ideas.
There are conferences held every year at various universities throughout the country so start planning your visit to CUWiP 2019 today! Applications are now open. Women and men are both encouraged to apply. Check the external APS website for more information.
