Blog posts

#WomenonWednesdays: Elizabeth Pasatembou

Today we’re really excited to bring you an interview with Elizabeth Pasatembou, a PhD student in the High Energy Physics group!

Describe your path into physics, what kickstarted it?

Growing up in a small town in Cyprus, I did not have any connection with science, let alone physics. I grew up being a very curious child, always exploring my surroundings, asking a lot of “whys”, and generally loved learning new things, curious about what could be beyond the small town I was raised in. I commuted to the “big city” for high school and was lucky enough to have great science teachers who sparked my interest in science. I did not consider a career in physics, or barely knew what that was, until I started my physics GCSE. I will be forever grateful to the first physicist I have ever met who happened to be my physics teacher who believed in me and inspired me to continue my physics journey. I never felt like an outlier in his classes, being one of the very few girls and that was very encouraging. The more I studied physics the more I loved it and decided to pursue physics, moving to an even bigger city, London to follow my dreams. I am now a first generation graduate having graduated with an MSci degree in Physics and an MSc in Space Science and Engineering from UCL.

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#WomenonWednesdays: Katie Marrow

This week for #WomenonWednesdays we spoke to Katie Marrow, a first-year PhD student in the Plasma Physics group and University Challenge contestant for Imperial.

Describe your path into physics, what kickstarted it?

I’ve wanted to be a physicist since I was about 9. I was very interested in space so had toyed with the idea of becoming an astronaut, but then I heard about the LHC and decided a particle physicist was much cooler. This ambition persisted to the point that several years later I persuaded my family to go on holiday to Geneva so that we could visit CERN. Once I came to university, a combination of my first-year research project and UROPs made me realise that I really love plasma physics and I want to go into experimental research. Now I’m lucky enough to be starting a PhD in plasma at Imperial in October.

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#WomenonWednesdays: Meriame Berboucha

This week we talked to Meriame Berboucha, a PhD student in the Plasma Physics group currently based at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in California.

Describe your path into physics, what kickstarted it?

During my A levels I was taken to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Didcot for a medical physics masterclass and I fell in love with the subject – I was interested in helping others and I loved physics and maths and it seemed like the perfect subject for me.

Even though I had written my personal statement for medical school already, I scraped it a few months before the deadline, to apply for physics degrees at university. At the time I felt like I was taking a gamble and my parents wanted me to do medicine, but deep down I really enjoyed physics and that is what I wanted to do. I owe a lot to my physics A level teacher though for really making me feel included in the class and not ‘weird’ for studying the subject. I then became the first woman at that school to take physics onto higher education.

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#WomenonWednesdays: Trinity Stenhouse

For our first Women on Wednesdays this academic year, we’ve talked to Trinity Stenhouse, a third-year student on the MSci Physics with Theoretical Physics course. She’s also currently Vice-President (Activities) of the RCSU and is involved in the IC WNBiP committee!

Describe your path into physics, what kickstarted it?

I’ve always been interested in how things work, but I’ve also always had really broad interests. For me, physics was a way to understand how, fundamentally, everything works.

I was also really lucky to have a teacher at my high school who took me under his wing and taught me physics content well above A level. He saw that I was always bored and doodling in lessons so gave me a project to do investigating dynamical theories above the standard model that could explain the Higgs hierarchy problem. I got really invested in it and spent a lot of time researching theories. This helped me recognise my passion for research and establish that I would like to do a PhD one day in particle physics.

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Physics is for everyone

The Women in Physics Society stand against the recent comments from the government’s social mobility commissioner, Katherine Birbalsingh. Her unsubstantiated remarks have absolutely no scientific backing and are at odds with the wealth of scientific research that shows physics is for everyone, regardless of background, race, or gender.

In addition to highlighting the outstanding women physicists at Imperial, including our own Head of Department, the President of Imperial College has also provided evidence to the government to counter the social mobility commissioner’s damaging comments.

As a society, we will work tirelessly to showcase the incredible women working in the department, and to create an environment where all physicists can achieve to the best of their ability.

CUWiP 2022

If you follow us on Instagram, you might have seen the stories from three of our members who shared their experience of the Conference for Undergraduate Women and Non-Binary Physicists, celebrated this past April in Glasgow. Here’s what they had to say!

Bilgesu: My name is Bilgesu and I am a third year physics student at Imperial College London. This year I attended the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) in Glasgow. This is an annual event and it has allowed me to meet some amazing women who are at various stages of their physics career.

The conference included workshops, panels and talks on various topics including academia, careers and industry. I gained a lot of insight into what physics graduates to after their degree and what motivates different people in the field. The careers fair allowed me to learn about different research opportunities outside of academia.

I also had the opportunity to present my poster on the research I completed last summer on Dropout Selection with Lyman Break Galaxies. Getting to discuss my work with others and receiving feedback on my poster was a great experience. I also got to learn about research other attendees had been working on through summer research and their Master’s projects.

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Our first outreach experience!

Amaya is a second-year student on the MSci Physics programme and the current social media officer for the Women in Physics society at Imperial. She comes from a state school in rural Spain and has an interest for outreach work and motivating other students from non-traditional backgrounds to pursue STEM. 

Su Ann is a fourth-year student on the MSci Physics with Theoretical Physics programme and the current secretary for the Women in Physics society. She is from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and is passionate about the diversification of Physics. 

Outreach Talk at Avanti House Secondary School

A few weeks ago, a first-year Physics student reached out to the Women in Physics society to ask if we gave talks at schools, as her old secondary school’s Physics Society was very interested in hosting a talk about women in physics. We had never given a talk as a society before, but we replied and this past Wednesday 16th March we were fortunate enough to give our first one at Avanti House Secondary School in Stanmore, North London. 

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#WomenonWednesdays: Su Ann Lim

For our final Women on Wednesdays interview of the term, we’ve talked to Su Ann Lim, a fourth-year student on the MSci Physics with Theoretical Physics course, who is also Secretary of WiP!

Introduce yourself! What do you like to do outside of physics?

My name is Su Ann and I am currently a 4th year undergraduate in the Theoretical Physics course. I’m also the Secretary for the Women in Physics committee this year and I feel so lucky to be part of a community of strong, intelligent women. I come from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and getting the chance to live and study in London for the past 4 years has been amazing! There’s such a wide variety of people here, especially Imperial, so it’s been really nice getting to meet people from so many different cultures. Some things I do when I’m not struggling over my problem sheets are bouldering, listening to k-pop, reading and watching anime!

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#WomenonWednesdays: Jessie Durk

This week for the series we interviewed Dr. Jessie Durk, Research Associate in the Physics Education Group at the Department and Vice-President of our very own Women in Physics Society!

As a little introduction, what of Physics do you specialize in?

I specialise in physics education, which involves educational psychology, social/cognitive science, and data analysis, as well as knowledge of physics itself to be able to research how students learn different physics topics, and the most effective ways to teach and assess students. I’m currently working on the Strengthening Learning Communities project which aims to improve students’ sense of belonging in the department.

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#WomenonWednesdays: Julia Stawarz

Today’s interview is with Dr. Julia Stawarz, a Royal Society University Research Fellow in the SPAT group, working in space plasma physics.

As a little introduction, what area of Physics do you specialize in?  

I work in the field of space plasma physics using measurements from spacecraft to study the dynamics of a number of different plasmas in near-Earth space – mainly the fast flow of hot plasma that expands from the Sun (known as the solar wind) and the region of space influenced by Earth’s magnetic field (known as the magnetosphere). Some of the spacecraft that I work with are NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale and Parker Solar Probe missions and ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission (the magnetometer for which was built here at Imperial!). Using this data, I focus on studying some of the fundamental processes that operate in a plasma, including plasma turbulence (the highly-nonlinear, seemingly chaotic dynamics of the plasma) and magnetic reconnection (the sudden release of stored magnetic energy in the plasma into the charged particles), both in terms of understanding how they influence the interaction between the Sun and the Earth and understanding the fundamental physics that may be applicable to other plasmas throughout the Universe.  

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