APS Launches Summer Webinar Series

Farah Dawood and Midhat Farooq

We are experiencing unprecedented hardships in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of us are working from home or are under restricted working conditions. Experimental science has been temporarily suspended because laboratories are shut down, and much of the computing power that typically drives theoretical research has been reassigned to monitoring and modeling the pandemic. During this time, APS is working on initiatives to continue to support our members.

We launched the Summer Webinar Series on May 13th in an effort to help our student and early career members continue to advance professionally. The first three webinars are directly related to the APS response to the pandemic. We kicked off the series with a webinar entitled Building your Professional Path during COVID with over 200 participants in attendance. Crystal Bailey (Head of APS Career Programs) discussed APS career resources, best practices for virtual networking, and how to build an online presence using LinkedIn. In our efforts to assist international students, we planned a webinar entitled International Students & the APS Response to the Pandemic for May 19th. Francis Slakey (APS Chief Government Affairs Officer) and Amy Flatten (APS Director of International Affairs) discussed the resources that APS has in place for international students during this time. We plan to round up May with Adjusting Lab Practices During a Pandemic on May 28th, a panel discussion organized by FGSA and FECS and co-sponsored by APS. Six physicists representing universities and national laboratories from across the country will talk about how they are continuing to be productive in research, while still adhering to social distancing guidelines and best safety practices.

To help us plan topics of future webinars, we surveyed FECS and FGSA members last month about professional development opportunities of interest. The results of the survey were used to design a series of webinars and workshops that we are planning to host this summer. Some of the topics that will be covered are:

• Differences in Physics Career Opportunities Across Sectors
• Discovering Careers Off the Beaten Path
• How to Obtain a Position in Industry
• Preparing and Interviewing for a Faculty Position (research- and teaching-focused)
• Tutorials for Authors and Referees (conducted by APS Journal Editors)
• Grant Writing
• Mentor/Mentee Training
• Project Management

For more information on the Summer Webinar Series and to view recent webinars, please visit go.aps.org/summer-webinars. Here, you can find information on upcoming events and links to past events. To receive the most up-to-date information, you can also sign up to join the mailing list for the Summer Webinar Series. We value your input, and if there are topics that you would like covered, please email us at dawood@aps.org or farooq@aps.org and we will do our best to accommodate your requests. Please join us for the Summer Webinar Series!

We sincerely hope that you and your loved ones are safe and well during this time.