#umass physics

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

science and harassment, girls working together thereof

today i found out that because i was open about one of the dudes in my physics classes harassing me repeatedly over freshman year, 

@grimnismal shared that story on the UMWA radio station during one of our prof’s shows, 

inspiring the other girls in my class to band together to form a study group and multiple classwide fb groups to share solutions & textbooks, collectively raising their grades bc we were the only ones who coordinated study sessions etc

and then during my gap year they formed a Women & Minorities in Astro & Physics club

so really, me getting harassed and being shocked and confused about it has formed us all into a group, a Squad if you will that is actively working to make this campus a better place for not-men to work and study physics & astro across multiple graduating years

this is literally all the work of @grimnismal who now basically runs three clubs and is the high priestess of all things astro & physics on campus 

meanwhile, the dude who harassed me has been kicked out of two labs (i mean politely asked to not return) and his once-powerful clique has shrunk to like three people???

this is like the ending of legally blonde i stg

SO UH SPEAK THE FUCK UP AND BITE BACK/BAND TOGETHER AGAINST SEXISM IN SCIENCE BC THAT’S THE ONLY WAY THINGS WILL EVER CHANGE FOR THE BETTER

[umassphysics]

UMass Physics Graduate Student Petite Profile: 

Nathan Bernard

Undergraduate Institution:

University of California at Los Angeles

Research:

I am a part of the Experimental Particle Physics group at UMass and a member of the ATLAS experiment at CERN where I search for the displaced decays of Z bosons under the Exotics group. Vector like quarks and general gauge mediated supersymmetry are two models that might exhibit such a signature. When couplings in these models become small enough, it gives rise to long-lived particles that will be missed by conventional searches. Maintaining sensitivity to these regions of parameter space requires dedicated searches such as ours. Additionally, I work on the reconstruction of muon segments (the building blocks of an ATLAS muon track) and other muon software.

Recent Books:

The last two I read were "The Man in the High Castle" and "Ubik", both by Philip K. Dick. He is a huge inspiration to my own writing. I love his ability to bring the reader into vivid alternate realities, and then collapse that reality down around them.

Favorite Coffee Shop:

The Esselon Cafe in Hadley. Their maple lattes are great it is a good place for brunch as well.

Favorite Travelling Destinations:

This is a hard question. Being a native Californian, I love beaches. Some of my favorite were in Puerto Rico and Mallorca. I also love Paris. It is a great place to practice my poor French, eat good food, and visit galleries/museums.

Hobbies outside of research:

I really love creative activities. In particular, I enjoy painting, writing fiction, and playing guitar/singing. I think when working in academia, it is important to exercise your creative side.

Favorite Music/Bands:

I like a lot of music from the 80's and 90's: The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Smith's, Pearl Jam, Noir Desir to name a few. I change it up when I am working out and listen to heavier bands such as Megadeth and Pantera to get my adrenaline flowing. I even found that listening to country music when I was living in Europe somehow helped with bouts of homesickness.

[umassphysics]

UMass Physics Graduate Student Petite Profile: 

Sheema Rahmanseresht

Undergraduate Institution:

Sharif University of Technology

Research:

RNA has many functions; one of them is regulatory function which often happens through RNA loop-loop interactions. In these processes, transiently bound proteins usually modulate the structure and function of RNA. Stability and flexibility of the resulting complex and the structural transformations that often ensue from intermediate states, modulates the function of RNA. I implement single molecule FRET (Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer) and other fluorescent techniques such as FCS (Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy) and lifetime measurements to study conformational changes of RNA loop-loop complexes before, during, and after binding proteins. This research gives better understanding into the relationship between conformation and function of RNA complexes.

Your go-to science themed movie and television show:

"A Beautiful Mind", and "Infinity" which is not a great movie but I liked it since it's about Feynman!

Favorite Coffee Shop:

Amherst Coffee and their Lattes!

Hobbies outside of research:

I fill my spare time with working out and playing tennis - of course I enjoy watching Djokovic's impeccable tennis. From time to time I also bake chocolate cake and fruit pie to give me a break from research!

Favorite Music/Bands:

My taste is diverse, depending on my mood, I listen different kinds of music, but I guess I'm more inclined to British rock and indie like Anathema, Blackfield, and Radiohead. I also listen to classical and traditional Iranian music, among them singers such as Homayoun Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri are my favorites

[umassphysics]

Physics grad students Jess McIver and Dan Hoak help to keep us all safe from the ripples in spacetime, aka gravity waves, that are bombarding us from every direction at all times.

[umassphysics]

Meet Reginald - UMPbot's new visitor friend!