Sage Thomas ’25, Maja Teofilovska ’26, and Annick van Blerkom ’26 received the “Top Presenter” award at the American Physical Society (APS) Global Summit in Anaheim, Calif., last month.
Other authors included Ph.D. student Sarah Spielman; Karleigh Bath ’25; Juniper Bauroth-Sherman, Nicolaus Chlanda, Hannah Conley, Philip Conte, Aidan Kirk, and Thomas Carroll Ph.D. ’06 from Ursinus College; and Bryn Mawr Professor of Physics Michael Noel.
Their poster was titled, “Density Dependence of Thermalization Among Nearly Harmonic Ladders.”
Physics students Yiling Hou '26 and Yingxiao (Thea) Liao '26 also presented at the summit.
Past met present at the conference as Katharine Burr Blodgett, class of 1917, was featured in a talk entitled “Quantum Education: A Marathon or Sprint?” by Emily Edwards from Duke University. Thomas and Teofilovska were both recipients of the 2024 Katharine B. Blodgett fellowship.
Each tenured and tenure-track faculty member of Bryn Mawr’s Physics Department runs a robust and engaging research program, which gives our majors the opportunity to gain valuable laboratory and social skills for navigating potential future careers in science, particularly one that is heavily under-represented by women. The research areas include atomic, molecular, and optical physics, condensed matter physics and nanomaterials, plasma physics, biophysics, and string theory. The major also has the opportunity to complete the A.B./M.A. degrees in physics, in addition to connections to a number of combined degree programs in engineering, allowing those interested in such fields to complete multiple degrees in an accelerated fashion and get a jump-start on careers in engineering.
In recent years, Bryn Mawr College has graduated an average of nine physics majors per year, approximately three percent of each class. This is nearly 50 times the national average for women graduating with undergraduate physics degrees in the United States. Historically, Bryn Mawr has been among the top schools including both liberal arts and research-level universities, for producing physics graduates and generating a pipeline into graduate physics work or physics/science-related fields outside of academia. Physics alumnae/i have gone on to a wide variety of careers including physics professors, medical professionals, and researchers.