Speaker
Description
Universities and national labs in North America have, in recent years, increased the level of activities supporting and promoting diversity in the field of physics, bringing together minority groups for educational and inspirational conferences, discussion panels and summer camps. In this work, I summarise different types of programs I have been involved in (both as the main organiser and as a volunteer) over the past 5 years.
Two summer camps have been organized targeting girls attending local schools from age 10-18, where each camp provided diverse activities such as lab visits, design projects, scientific/presentation skills workshops etc. The goal of these camps was to provide a general overview of what it is like to pursue science as further studies, where all volunteers in the camps were current physics students/researchers/professors and assisted campers throughout the camp.
CCUWiP (Canadian Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics) 2018 welcomed over 100 participants of all genders in Canada. The speakers came from diverse backgrounds, including NASA engineers and medical physicists. The conference focused on what it means to be in a minority group pursuing a career related to physics: life outside of academia/work, social expectations, the importance role models etc. The goal, successfully fulfilled, was to provide tools and raise awareness on the road ahead in a physics career.
Furthermore, small efforts include diversity panels and round-table discussions were regularly organised at my home university (Queen’s University, Canada) to raise and encourage discussions among students and researchers on various topics such as dealing with stress and gender/racial imbalance in physics.
Overall, schools and labs in North America put a large amount of effort into increasing diversity in physics. I hope to extend these efforts and implement the ideas inspired by previous experiences to the Nordic countries.
