BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — In what physics faculty are labeling a rare case, nine female physics students from Illinois Wesleyan University attended a conference last month at Fermilab in Batavia, a national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics.
The CU*iP (Conference for Undergraduate Women and Gender Minorities in Physics) supports undergraduate women and gender minorities in their pursuit of physics by providing opportunities to attend professional conferences, access valuable information about graduate school and career paths in physics, and connect with peers across various stages of their academic journeys.
The IWU students who attended the conference are chemistry and philosophy major Fabi Rangel '28, physics and art major Ahnnika Hess '27, physics and mathematics major Wanda Lindquist '26, business, physics and quantitative finance major Selina Dai '27; computer science major Tiyala Holton '28, chemistry and physics major Nisha Ajana '28, physics and mathematics major Gianna Malabanan '27, physics and computer science major Dulcinea Cabreda '28 and physics major Anna Beckman '26.
“[The conference] allows our physics students to see other women and gender minorities in physics in leading roles, up on stage, as keynote speakers, as respected professionals, as mentors and as guides,” said Professor and Chair of Physics Narendra Jaggi. “As a result, it reinforces their own identity as a physicist. In terms of retention, that matters a lot.”
The conference consisted of lab tours, various talks, a poster presentation, career and graduate school fair and parallel sessions about topics in physics. The lab tours were of the Muon Campus, the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, and the Neutrino Campus, which also included a 2x2 prototype of DUNE (Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment).
The talks given by Andrea Ghez, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2020, and Young-Kee Kim — who is a professor at the University of Chicago, scientist at Fermilab, and 2024 President of the American Physical Society — were a highlight for Wanda Lindquist '26.
“We also attended smaller lectures in various areas of quantum and particle physics, and got to talk one-on-one with Fermilab scientists,” she said. “It's inspiring to see scientists who love their work, and interesting to see so many labs with cutting-edge technology.”
Lindquist also attended the conference as a first-year student when it was held at Argonne National Laboratory. She said that experience equipped her with motivation to continue her education “as a young woman in a STEM field,” ultimately completing quantum research at Argonne.
Maintaining a strong and diverse cohort of physics students beyond the first year of college can be challenging, especially with female physics students, said Lindquist.
“My hope is to get students involved with interesting and exciting things early on. I'm especially happy that four first-year physics students came along (this year),” she said.