Session Z06: FOEP & FIP

Introductory Educational Materials for Multi-Messenger Astrophysics

Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (MMA) is an emerging field that requires interdisciplinary collaboration. Primarily, a link between astronomers/astrophysicists and computer scientists is essential to promote the low latency communication and data transmission necessary for MMA. SCiMMA, Scalable Cyberinfrastructure to support Multi-Messenger Astrophysics, is one example of such collaboration. As part of SCiMMA's outreach effort, we have developed publicly available demos of data visualization and manipulation, focusing on cross localization. We utilize Hopskotch, a SCiMMA product, to import messenger data in real time with low latency, and provide examples on what can be done with the product and the data. We aim to make these materials applicable for even a High School level python class.   

Do female physics students benefit from informal physics programs they facilitate?

Gender bias, reduced sense of belonging, and lower physics self-efficacy are among the challenges faced by female students who choose to study physics. Prior studies focusing on this underrepresented group have examined the experiences and impacts of formal educational settings, leaving the impact of informal physics programs as a relatively overlooked area. In this study we took a first step, narrowing our focus to explore the relation between facilitation of informal physics programs and female students' physics identity, persistence, mindset, and worldview. We analyzed survey responses (32) and interviews (11) collected from undergraduate and graduate female students at a large, land-grant university. Our results, based on self-reported data, showed a statistically significant shift in confidence of choice of major after facilitating informal physics programs. Analysis of interviews indicated a positive effect of facilitation of informal programs on female student interest and motivation with regards to the

field of physics, improved performance and competence beliefs, and the development of characteristics indicative of a growth mindset.   

Virtual Interaction with Gravitational Waves to Observe Relativity (VIGOR)

The discovery of gravitational waves (GWs) by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration has captured the public imagination, but it can be challenging for non-scientists to visualize the effects of GWs and how they depend on the properties of their compact-binary sources.  We have developed Virtual Interaction with Gravitational waves to Observe Relativity (VIGOR), an interactive simulation of binary black holes (BBHs) and the GWs they emit.  Users can manipulate the BBH total mass, mass ratio, and orbital separation, then observe how these changes affect the amplitude, frequency, and polarization of the emitted GWs through the tidal distortion these waves induce in a test mass located at variable distance and orientation with respect to the BBHs.  This provides significant insight into the tensorial nature of GWs and the connection between GW emission and detection.  VIGOR was developed using the Unity video-game engine, providing high-quality 3D graphics and portability across a wide range of computing platforms.  It was exhibited pre-pandemic at the Women in Physics summer camps at the University of Texas at Dallas and is now freely available to the public at https://vigor.utdallas.edu.   

The Princeton Physics Ambassadors Program

The Princeton Physics Ambassadors program is an equity, diversity, and inclusion focused graduate recruitment initiative led by graduate students in Princeton's Physics Department. Its activities include public-facing informational webinars, one-on-one correspondence with students applying to graduate school, and the Prospective Physics Ph.D. Preview (P4) program, a multi-day workshop focused on giving early undergraduates a detailed picture of graduate applications, research, and life. Ambassador bios, activities, and resources are publicly available at https://phy-ambassadors.princeton.edu/. In this presentation, we will highlight the successes and failures of the Ambassador efforts to date, emphasizing the impact of the program through data and feedback collected from its initiatives.   

Mentorship to Combat Loneliness, Bridge Opportunity Gaps, and Fight Underrepresentation in STEM Disciplines

This work describes the structure and outcomes from the first year pilot of the National Society of Black Physicists and Harlem Gallery of Science Mentoring Program, a culturally sustaining, virtual mentoring program for adolescents from underrepresented communities. The program originated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program’s goals: combat students’ feelings of loneliness, build a community, bridge opportunity gaps, and help address underrepresentation within STEM disciplines.

     This program connects underserved New York City adolescents with mentors who “reminded them of themselves”; meaning, the mentees are matched with university student mentors who share similar interests and sociocultural identities. Various superordinate (subordinate) themes were identified amongst mentee outcomes: social-emotional support (support with mental health, and family-like bonds and inclusivity), building paths to academic and professional success (demystifying success, and skills for success), and supporting connections to STEM (nurturing interests in STEM, and seeing oneself in STEM careers). The program shows great viability to be continued and replicated beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, and to continue to foster the interest and skill of underrepresented groups in physics and STEM.   

Gender Inequity, the Physics Meritocracy and the Need for an Intersectional Lens

Gender equity continues to elude the physics profession world-wide despite many efforts over a couple of decades now to mitigate inequity and null the gender gap. While the evidence suggests complex multiple  and culture-specific factors drive the gender gap,  the gap in  numbers is only the most visible symptom of gender-based discrimination. Measures to address the problem will be effective  and long-lasting only if they go byeond addressing  just the gap in numbers by confronting the structural and systemic drivers of inequity. This  implies, inter alia, interrogating the notion of merit, and scrutinising measures to enhance equity, diversity and inclusion  with an intersectional lens. In this talk point to several strands of evidence  to substantiate these claims.   

The Simons-NSBP Scholars Program

The Simons-NSBP Scholars Program is a unique summer research program for undergraduate members of the National Society of Black Physicists. It started in the summer of 2020, and after two years it has some quantifiable successes. This talk will describe the program's goals, what's been done to meet those goals, and how close it has come to meeting those goals. If time permits, the future of program will be discussed.   

The Interaction between Grades and Social Comparison Concern within a Course

In order to understand more about the student experience in our physics courses, we investigate the evolution and associations between exam grades and Social Comparison Concern (SCC) among students in an introductory calculus-based physics course. SCC is a scale measuring the concern over one's own ability or performance relative to others and has previously been found to be moderately correlated with grades.  We find evidence that exam scores partially mediate changes in SCC scores, and in turn, SCC scores partially mediate changes in exam scores, though the mediation effects are somewhat small, around 10% of the total effects between grades and SCC. We also find that while SCC scores are correlated with exam scores, they are only very weakly correlated with non-exam grade components, indicating that exams, and not other graded assignments, are driving the changes in student concern. Further, we find that women and Black and Hispanic/Latinx students, report higher levels of SCC, prompting questions about how this may relate to systemic inequities and lead to observed grade disparities. Overall, the results provide evidence for a dynamic feedback loop in which SCC may either negatively or positively interfere with student performance on exams.