Category: Physical Sciences

Finding a Passion for Physics and Virtual Reality Headsets

Haxhi Pantina: "To this day, I still like reading about stars and the universe, but quantum mechanics, quantum optics, and quantum information contain the largest part of my daily routine."

/ September 7, 2021

My Career Path Following Water from the Mountain to the Sea and Across an Ocean

Jeeban Panthi: "My professional and personal journey to understand water continues to unfold, and I was a part of a multi-year collaborative research project on climate and water in Nepal."

/ July 8, 2021

Crisis After Crisis During Pandemic Field Day Experiments

Catalina Mejia: "Whether to a friend, a colleague, or another graduate student, make the small efforts to reach out and ask for support if you are in need of it."

/ March 16, 2021

The Past is the Key to the Future

Peter Puleo: "In working with them and learning about how Earth science is conducted day-by-day, I learned a lot about how to do this kind of lab work, use the scientific process effectively, and think like a scientist."

/ August 4, 2020

Ice, heat, science, and acting

Morgan Dundon: "I think we should be more accepting of our many dimensions, both academics and actors alike. In my world of materials science, there are solid materials that can exist in more than one form or structure."

/ July 1, 2020

Finding My Way into the Sandbox

Bulbul Chakraborty: "Looking back, I think I was always attracted to what challenged me.  It could be a mathematical puzzle, a song I was told wasn’t easy to sing, a book I was told I shouldn’t attempt to read because...

/ October 16, 2019

Wandering Across Fields in Science

Irv Epstein: "Reluctant to accept the result of an undergraduate’s accident over the published wisdom of senior investigators, I told him to redo the experiment under controlled conditions.  He did so, and returned to tell me that he had obtained...

/ September 12, 2019

Alice Augusta Ball: Chemical Drug Pioneer

Historians of African-Americans in science tend to focus on figures like Benjamin Banneker and George Washington Carver. But there are so many more.

/ December 9, 2018

Unsung: William Claytor

The third African-American to earn a Ph.D. in mathematics struggled his entire career against the barriers of institutional racism.

/ November 27, 2018

Barriers Are Meant To Be Broken

Taylor Richardson: "But here I am and what I know is that I want to be, no scratch that, I will be a scientist, engineer and an astronaut. I know that everything that has happened to me in my past...

/ June 24, 2018

How My PhD Training is Empowering Me

Teresa Ambrosio: "I wasn’t aware I was suffering from depression for so long and I blamed chemistry for missing out on all the other aspects of life. I suddenly realized that my whole world was my 1x2 square meter desk...

/ May 11, 2018

Science is Sharing Cups of Tea

How does one learn to lead? One learns to lead organically by watching penguins, spending days together at sea, having critical conversations, and sharing cups of tea. Because, science, belief in ourselves and others, and caring should flow and be...

/ January 28, 2018

Warm Waters and White Sand Beaches: My Journey Studying Human Impacts on the Ocean

I am a climate scientist, with one foot in the modern ocean trying to understand impacts on California species and ecosystems, and one foot in the past, probing the paleoclimate world for lessons we can learn.

/ December 23, 2017

Everything Starts with a Dream

In this camp, there were students from different ages and nationalities. We were trained for an international competition, called Rover Challenge, organized by NASA, for which we had to build a Rover and drive it on a road with obstacles...

/ December 16, 2017

When your greatest weakness becomes your greatest strength

I have a language disability and a fine motor skill deficit. As a child, I would try not to speak up in class or speak too loudly because I was afraid I would misspeak. I knew what I wanted to...

/ November 26, 2017

Art and Design Meets Science: A Reflective Conversation on Science Communication

For all its diversity, one thing is certain: like science, art and design makes its own image of the world. Both are searching for a deeper insights, for the not obviously visible, for the substantial, and how our common future...

/ October 8, 2017

The untapped genius that could change science for the better

– Jedidah Isler, Ph.D.- The transcript below the video is from a talk that Dr. Isler presented in August 2015 at an official TED conference. You can find the talk HERE. It  is included here with permission from Dr. Isler.  Great things...

/ September 1, 2017

Better Get Used to Me

– Taylor Richardson | High School Student | The Bolles School –  Speech below was delivered at the 2017 March for Science in Washington, D.C.  My name is Taylor Richardson, I live in Jacksonville, Florida where I attend The Bolles...

/ July 23, 2017

Diffraction

– Rowena Fletcher-Wood | Programme Delivery Officer at Science Oxford –  The story below by Rowena was originally published in 2014 through the Story Collider. You can listen or read it below!  When I was eighteen, I loved school and I loved...

/ June 26, 2017

Making My Way from Mountains to Mud: Part 3

– by Robin McLachlan – We teach school children that science is inaccessible and scientists are socially inept. Crazy scientists hide behind lab benches. They are disguised beneath white coats and thick glasses. Their hair is disheveled, their motivations shady, their...

/ May 24, 2017

Searching for answers as a Space Physicist

by Alessandra Abe Pacini | Space Weather Physicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab I am the youngest child in a multi-cultural Brazilian family. I am the result of an immigration wave that happened in the beginning of the...

/ May 6, 2017

Making My Way from Mountains to Mud: Part 2

 – Robin McLachlan – <> In Part 1 of this journey, I bumbled down into Crystal Cave, the rocky heart of Sequoia National Park, where my love for geology was ignited. But if this fiery relationship started way up in...

/ April 23, 2017

Finding the Strength to Succeed

– Ashley Taylor –  5th Year PhD Candidate | Department of Chemistry | Louisiana State University Science was my first love because my parents also loved science. They made sure my siblings and I were introduced to science fairs, science...

/ March 30, 2017

Making My Way from Mountains to Mud: Part 1

– Robin McLachlan – Graduate Student | University of Washington | Oceanography | Sediment Dynamics Group <> How did I make my way from mountains to mud? Well, I had just graduated high school and was celebrating my last summer before starting...

/ March 28, 2017

An expedition across the Atlantic Ocean

Stephanie Fiedler, PhD Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg An alarming sound rings through the ice-cold air as a giant crane lifts my heavy boxes. I quickly search for a way through the maze of steep staircases. My adventure on...

/ January 28, 2017