Session K15: Dr. Willie Hobbs Moore: Celebrating 50 years of African-American Women PhDs in Physics

Welcome and Willie Hobbs Moore Reflections

The first African-American woman to receive a PhD in physics was Dr. Willie Hobbs Moore. The session celebrates 50 years of black women PhDs by highlighting their outstanding achievements in research, education, and community engagement. 

After a brief welcome by APS Past President Jim Gates, Donnell Walton will share his reflections on his brief, wondrous friendship with Hobbs Moore, which ended in 1994 with her untimely death. Walton will provide an introduction to some of her achievements and close with the impact Dr. Hobbs Moore had in his life–as recently as 2021.   

Welcome and Willie Hobbs Moore Reflections

The first African-American woman to receive a PhD in physics was Dr. Willie Hobbs Moore. The session celebrates 50 years of black women PhDs by highlighting their outstanding achievements in research, education, and community engagement. 

After a brief welcome by APS Past President Jim Gates, Donnell Walton will share his reflections on his brief, wondrous friendship with Hobbs Moore, which ended in 1994 with her untimely death. Walton will provide an introduction to some of her achievements and close with the impact Dr. Hobbs Moore had in his life–as recently as 2021.   

Observation and Detection of African American Women in Physics

There are relatively few African American women with doctoral degrees in physics.  This talk aims to highlight the existence of these physicists, review the challenges in identifying them, and discuss strategies to improve diversity and inclusion

efforts.    

STEM Community Education & Engagement

How do we keep our students interested and receptive in learning the concepts that we are teaching in physics? How do we get racial minority communities engaged in STEM fields? The lack of positive exposure to science in racial minority communities at an early age impacts their perception of STEM fields as boring and nerdy. This could impact how a STEM education may not be presented in a way to make its application to them apparent. The result being a paucity of students from communities, racial/ethnic groups that have been minoritized. This presentation will present ways in which to bring astronomy to underserved communities, particularly children, so they can see how science and math can be fun if taught properly. St. Albans Under the Stars (SUTS), a community outreach program will be described and how to promote fun science projects in underserved communities, and assist in college readiness initiatives through a series of workshops designed to actively engage the student while "learning at play". A twelve-point checklist will help any community organizer develop and use data to maximize the impact on the community and possibly the world. You will learn how monitoring and evaluation can be accomplished through advocacy, communications and culture, periodic surveys, a database, etc. To engage your students, you have to show passion for the discipline by making teaching and learning a joy for both you and your students. My motto has always been: play, create, build.   

The Emergence of Superconductivity in Inhomogeneous Systems

Superconductors are exciting materials for basic physics and applications because they conventionally exhibit zero-resistance and zero-dissipation (i.e., no energy loss). In contrast, unconventional superconductors—including high-temperature superconductors and hybrid superconductor-normal (S-N) systems relevant to quantum computation—combine superconductivity with dissipative normal metal-like states. Yet dissipation has been difficult to control and parametrize. In this talk, I will discuss electrical transport experiments on inhomogeneous superconductor-normal metal systems, and discuss the onset and ground states of superconductivity in these systems. In particular, I will show how superconductivity is established in granular normal-superconducting systems via a "rare-region" or extremal-grain process. These results are relevant to how superconductivity is established in low-dimensional or disordered systems, and in general help determine the role of dissipation in superconducting materials.   

Panel on Representation in Physics

In this panel, we will discuss matters relating to representation in physics. We typically discuss underrepresentation, through symmetry, we will kick off this discussion by considering groups that may be overrepresented in the field and the implications to STEM education and careers.

Panel Speakers:

Gerceida Jones, Nadya Mason, Jami Valentine, Donnell Walton (Moderator)​​​​​​