FOEP at the March and April Meetings 2018

FOEP sponsored workshop at the APS March Meeting: Finding your scientific voice

FOEP again sponsored workshops at the APS March Meeting for postdocs and students to improve their communication skills. Participants learned best practices for communicating scientific results to an audience in the 10 minute talks typically given at the meeting during two 3-hour workshops. These workshops also help improve communication to the general public. FOEP intends to sponsor these workshops again at the APS March Meeting. FOEP is also looking into a possible workshop on written communication at the April meeting.

FOEP at the 2018 March Meeting

Joe Niemala (ICTP) discussed the planning and execution of the International Year of Light celebration. Jorge Cham described the origin of his PhD Comics and web-based comic and video on the discovery of the Higgs Boson. Sam Sampere (Syracuse U.) and Tatiana Erukhimova (Texas A&M) described building outstanding outreach programs from a university physics department. Clara Moskowitz, Senior Editor for Scientific American, talked about how to publish articles in her iconic magazine. This year’s talks displayed the breadth and diversity of efforts from using historical figures like Marie Curie to inspire STEM interest, to high-end video production inspired by the long-running University of Minnesota Physics Force shows, to examining the intersection between Lakota cosmology and particle physics! All of the APS Forum Contributed talks are considered non-technical talks so they can be given in addition to your technical science presentation at the same APS meeting. The Executive Committee strongly encourages you to volunteer to speak and to come to these sessions. Creative ideas can only disseminate if we share our stories.

Cham book signing line

Line for Jorge Cham's book signing at the March meeting

Staged play reading at the March Meeting

FOEP once again joined with Brian Schwartz (CUNY) and other APS units (Forum on the History of Physics, Forum on Physics & Society, Committee on the Status of Women in Physics, and the Division of Astrophysics) to sponsor a staged reading of a play for APS members and the general public. This year Brian was joined by Smitha Vishveshwara (University of Illinois) to present a reading of the play Silent Sky by the International City Theatre of Long Beach CA. This play is based on the true story of 19th-century astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt and her personal journey at the Harvard Observatory in the early 1900’s – a time of history-making scientific ferment but also a time when women’s substantial contributions to science were suppressed or overlooked. The reading was informative and entertaining and made even more so by the talkback discussion with the play actors and a historian-scientist after the staged reading.

FOEP’s invited session at the April meeting

The April Meeting invited session brought together speakers all doing very different types of outreach. The sessions started with Renee Horton of NASA who had just finished her term as president of the National Society of Black Physicists. She discussed her graphic novel series, Dr. H Explores the Universe, and her work with Unapologetically Being, Inc., a nonprofit devoted to advocacy and mentoring of those interested in a career in STEM. Her talk was inspiring, and she took time to answer audience questions about the best way to foster inclusion in STEM. Lucianne Walkowicz, the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology in the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress and noted TED speaker, discussed ways to bring science to people where they are instead of asking them to come to science. Her Galaxy Ride, a 300-mile science bike ride from Adler Planetarium to St. Louis, brought pop up science experiments to local communities along historic route 66. Rebecca Thompson discussed ways to use pop culture to teach physics in two different directions. She discussed how to make story forward comics that also teach physics and how to use existing pop culture phenomenon such as Game of Thrones as a jumping off point to physics. If you weren’t at the talks you missed some fabulous GoT clips. The session concluded with Sam Sampere of Syracuse University talking about successful demo shows. He provided tips on how to put together a successful show, how to reach out to local TV stations to showcase your demos and he demonstrated how to build a few of his favorites. If you are headed to either March Meeting or April Meeting make sure to check out the FOEP sessions!

Free beer and snacks for FOEP members at the APS Happy Hour hosted by Becky Thompson

Every year at March Meeting FOEP in conjunction with the APS Outreach Department hosts a happy hour (free drinks!). The goal is to get people at all levels, from undergrads to tenured professors to public engagement professionals, together to talk about their work and build relationships. The event started as a way to build a community of outreach mini grant recipients but has grown far beyond that. This year the event was hosted at Prank Bar and featured great conversations and a few new collaborations. The event drew roughly 75 physics outreach enthusiasts this year and was mostly limited by space not interest. The “make your own throwie” station was almost as popular as the amazing buffalo cauliflower. If you are attending 2019’s March Meeting be sure to look for information on the happy hour. If you are looking for collaborators or just a group to geek out on demos with, this is the place.