Dr. Nina Abramzon is an associate Professor of Physics at the California Polytechnic University Pomona Department of Physics and Astronomy. Her research interest is in plasma physics, spectroscopy, and physics education. She graduated from Bar Ilan University in Israel with a B.S. in physics and holds a Ph.D. in experimental Atomic and Molecular physics from City University of New York. Before joining Cal Poly Pomona she was a visiting faculty at Sarah Lawrence College and a postdoctoral fellow at JILA/University of Colorado, and at Stevens Institute of Technology. She has extensive experience mentoring minority and female students, and has been involved with programs to recruit and retain women in the STEM disciplines both at Cal Poly Pomona and on a national level. At Cal Poly Pomona she has been active in female and minority student recruiting, advising, and research mentoring. She has been part of the Women’s Education Equity Act, a project aimed at achieving greater equity in STEM education and promoting equity for women. She was also an associate on the ADVANCE grant, an NSF program to advance and increase the participation of women in academic STEM careers. On the national level, she has been involved with both APS and AAPT. She has been a member of the APS Committee on the Status of Women in Physics since 2013.

Ed Bertschinger is Institute Community and Equity Officer (ICEO) and Professor of Physics at MIT. He has been on the faculty of MIT since 1986 and was head of the Physics Department from 2008 until his appointment as ICEO in 2013. He is a theoretical astrophysicist whose research focuses on cosmology and gravitation. He received his BS in Physics from Caltech and his PhD in Astrophysical Sciences from Princeton. Ed and his research students (from high school to postdoctoral) study the physics of dark energy and dark matter as well as fundamental theories of gravity and spacetime. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and has received the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Helen B. Warner Prize of the American Astronomical Society, and the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship.

Ed is passionate about teaching, mentoring, and the promotion of equity and inclusion in academia. His contributions in these areas have been recognized at MIT with the Buechner Teaching Prize, the Outstanding Freshman Advisor Award, and the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Leadership Award, and outside MIT with the Luis Walter Alvarez Award for the Advancement of Latinos in Science from the SACNAS-SHPE-MAES STEM Consortium and the Outstanding MAEStro Award from MAES (Latinos in Science and Engineering). Ed serves on the Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and blogs for Women in Astronomy.

Geraldine L. Cochran earned her bachelor’s degrees in physics and mathematics and her master’s degree in teaching with a specialization in secondary school physics from Chicago State University. Cochran earned her Ed.S. and her Ph.D. in science education and curriculum and instruction, respectively, with a cognate in physics from Florida International University. Cochran is currently the Associate Director of the Multicultural Center for Academic Success (MCAS) at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). This position affords Cochran the opportunity to engage in two activities for which she is very passionate, working with STEM students and engaging in education research and program evaluation. Prior to this position, Cochran was the program coordinator for RIT’s Center for Advancing Science/Mathematics Teaching, Learning, and Evaluation (CASTLE). At CASTLE, Cochran ran a learning assistant program for STEM students in the College of Science. The LA program is an experiential program designed to recruit students with strong STEM backgrounds into K-12 teaching by providing instruction in pedagogy and teaching experiences early in the academic career. While at CASTLE, Cochran also served as the assistant director for a math-modeling focused summer experience for middle school girls, SMASH. Education research and diversity in STEM, particularly physics, have been ever present in Cochran’s teaching, research, and service. Cochran has taught science, mathematics, and education courses at the elementary, high school, and collegiate levels for a variety of student populations including prospective, preservice, and inservice physics teachers. Cochran’s research has always been in physics education; she has investigated student understanding of Newton’s Laws, alternative student conceptions in geometrical optics, inservice teachers’ understanding of kinematics, student pre-instructional ideas about cosmology, prospective physics teachers’ development of reflective practice and views on pedagogical content knowledge and expertise in teaching. Cochran is a past chair of the Committee on Minorities in Physics for the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and is the current chair of AAPT’s Committee on Women in Physics. Cochran regularly volunteers at local middle schools and hopes that these middle school students will be both prepared and supported in pursuing both studies and careers in STEM, if they choose, regardless of their race, ethnicity, language, gender, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status.

Anne J Cox, Professor of Physics at Eckerd College earned her B.S. in physics from Rhodes College and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Virginia In 2004, she was awarded Eckerd’s Robert A. Staub Distinguished Teacher of the Year Award. Her current research explores the impact of interactive computer technology on student learning of physics. She is a contributing author of Physlet Physics for introductory physics courses and a co-author of Physlet Quantum Physics for upper-level courses. She is active in the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) serving as the past President of the Florida Section, past Chair of the Committee on Women in Physics and currently serves on the Education Technology Committee and as the Florida Section Representative. She has served on the editorial board of the American Journal of Physics and as an Associate Editor of ComPADRE (a national digital library for physics teachers). For the past two summers, she has served as the academic director and lead instructor for the Eckerd College Summer Science Splash Camp, a middle school science camp funded by the II-VI Foundation.

Beth is the Executive Officer of the American Association of Physics Teachers. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree, a Master of Arts degree, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Kent State University. After receiving her doctorate, Beth was a post-doctoral fellow at the Hormel Institute at the University of Minnesota. She taught for one year in the physics department at Gettysburg College immediately following her post-doctoral fellowship. In 1989 she joined the physics department at Bucknell University as an assistant professor, attaining full professor in 2002. She was named associate dean of the faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences in 2000. As a faculty member she involved students actively in her research and ran a Research Experiences for Undergraduate site. In 2006, she was appointed as Provost, Dean of the Faculty, and Professor of Physics at Illinois Wesleyan University. As provost, Beth initiated a strategic curricular review and revitalized departmental reviews to enhance academic programs. At AAPT since 2011, Beth provides leadership on a number of physics education initiatives including providing professional development opportunities for high school teachers of physics, supporting physics educators in higher education through workshops for new faculty and topical conferences, and the PhysTEC project to increase the number and quality of high school physics teachers. As a long time member of AAPT, she enjoys working closely with many members to improve physics teaching and learning at all levels. She has assisted AAC&U Project Kaleidoscope in developing STEM faculty leaders and CUR to incorporate undergraduate research into the curriculum. Beth’s current interests include the structure and function of phospholipid membranes, physics education research, and increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in physics.

Jessica Galbraith-Frew is currently a PhD student in Physics at the University of Utah. She attended Michigan Technological University (MTU) and received her bachelor’s degree in Physics in 2009. She then continued at MTU, and received her master’s degree in Physics in 2011. During her masters, she studied the diffuse gamma-ray emission from the galactic plane. Currently, Jessica's research interests relate to the connection between stars and planets, and in particular their chemical composition. During her career, Jessica has taken an interest in issues facing women in STEM fields, focusing primarily on Physics. As an undergrad, Jessica attended the Midwest Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) conferences in 2008 and 2009. In 2011, she helped start a Women in Physics & Astronomy Group (WomPA) at Utah, and has been its coordinator for 3 years. Recently she helped organize the 2014 Rocky Mountain CUWiP. Jessica is actively involved in the department and community through Astronomy outreach projects. In her free time she loves to read fantasy books, watch movies, and play games.

Leslie Kerby is a Ph.D. student at the University of Idaho in Nuclear Engineering. She completed her BS in Physics in 1998 and then paused her science career to focus on raising her children. Following a divorce over a decade later, she re-entered science to support herself and her five children. Her research is in applied nuclear physics. She has partnered with Los Alamos National Laboratory to upgrade parts of the spallation reaction models used within the transport code, MCNP6, for her dissertation. While at LANL she has participated in Atomic Women. She completed her Masters in May of 2013. She was awarded the American Physical Society M. Hildred Blewett Fellowship in 2013-2014, one of only three female physicists across the US to be so recognized. In addition, she was a Roy G. Post Foundation Scholarship recipient in 2013, and most recently was chosen by the American Nuclear Society as a John and Muriel Landis Scholar (2014).

Dr. Elaine N. Lalanne earned a BA in Physics from Wellesley College in 1994 and a PhD from the joint department of Applied Physics from New Jersey Institute of Technology/ Rutgers University-Newark in May 2003. Her current research as a Physicist with the US Navy encompasses underwater acoustics and sensors. Previously, she was a research scientist at UMBC investigating quantum cascade structures and lasers using femtosecond Mid-IR source. Dr. Lalanne has actively supported diversity in STEM by being a recruiter for the NSF-ERC Center for Mid-InfraRed Technologies for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE). She has also supervised summer research activities of MIRTHE REU (undergraduate) and RET (high school physics teacher) students during her tenure at UMBC. She is a member of Optical Society of America (OSA), American Physical Society (APS) and National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP).

Christine O’Donnell received her bachelor’s degree in astronomy and physics in May 2013 from the University of Virginia (UVa), and she obtained a Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree in May 2014 from the Frank Batten School of Leadership & Public Policy at UVa. In Fall 2014, she will start her Ph.D. in astronomy at the University of Arizona. Christine has worked on a variety of astronomy research projects, including low mass stars with excess infrared emission, exoplanet transits, and young stellar objects. In addition, she is interested in science education, outreach, and policy. For her MPP thesis, Christine chose to work with the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and write a policy analysis to address the physics gender gap at the college level. She investigated different strategies to reduce the gap and provide more support to female students, and she developed recommendations for how to prioritize these strategies and how to implement them. She plans to continue pursuing both her astronomy research and science communication interests during her Ph.D.

Dr. Sara Petty's research includes galaxy evolution, particularly observations in the ultraviolet to the far-infrared wavelengths. She is currently a research scientist in the Department of Physics at Virginia Tech (http://www.phys.vt.edu/people/petty.shtml). She is involved with several projects and is part of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer extragalactic science team. In her efforts to increase diversity in physics, she is heavily involved with the undergraduate population at VT. She currently mentors four undergraduates in independent astrophysics research. She has developed a new course for VT on the topic of black holes, which is intended to be a bridge to science for sophomore level students.

Dr. Sujatha Sampath is an Assistant Research Professor at University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee (UWM) and an Adjunct Professor at Arizona State University (ASU). She is a two-time recipient of the Blewett fellowship from the American Physical Society. She received her Ph.D in Condensed Matter Physics from the UGC-DAE (University Grants Commission-Dept. of Atomic Energy) Consortium for Scientific Research, in India. Her Ph.D thesis was on understanding percolation of structural rigidity in glasses and its effect on thermodynamics and kinetics through glass transition. Dr. Sampath moved to USA with a Post Doctoral position at the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). At ANL, she focused on the phenomenon of Poly-Amorphism in structurally disordered technological materials, using Neutron and Synchrotron X-ray Scattering techniques. Her publications have appeared in top journals, including PRL and cover of APS Science. Dr. Sampath also researches on Energy Storage Materials, characterizing nanostructure and hydrogen dynamics using facilities at at ANL, ASU, NIST and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After post-doc, she moved as a Research Scientist in a joint appointment between ANL and ASU. Her current research is in Biomimetics, studying Hierarchical Structure in Spider Silk and Synthetic Biopolymers. She started the x-ray fiber-diffraction program for the spider-silk project at ANL for the ASU group. Work with a collaborator in this study was recently featured on the PBS-NOVA series ‘How to make Stuff Stronger’. In UWM, she uses Infrared and Electron based Imaging techniques. She has taught Physics courses to undergraduate Physics majors and minors as a lecturer in UWM. Having personally juggled with the ‘two-body’ problem and a career break due to family reasons, she is interested in exploring pathways for re-entry and retaining highly talented women physicists, who otherwise drop out of the pipeline. Dr. Sampath has mentored female graduate students in different groups through her career. She is often asked, “what do scientists actually do?” and enjoys explaining her research to family, friends and the public. She participates in science outreach activities in local institutions like the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee. In her free time, she likes to paint, read, go hiking and birding with her husband.

Susan Seestrom has been Associate Laboratory Director for Experimental Physical Sciences at Los Alamos National Laboratory since 2006, and was Associate Laboratory Director for Weapons Physics from 2004 through 2006. Prior to that she has held various management and research positions at Los Alamos. Dr. Seestrom’s research in nuclear physics ranges from studies of nuclear structure with medium energy probes to studies of the weak interaction using neutrons. Most recently, Dr. Seestrom led efforts to develop a source of ultra-cold neutrons (UCN) at Los Alamos. This work culminated in a worldleading UCN source at Los Alamos and the first measurement of the beta asymmetry in neutron decay using UCN. During her time at Los Alamos, Dr. Seestrom has also contributed to programmatic research and has developed an appreciation for the synergy between basic and applied research at a multiprogram, multi-capability national laboratory. Dr. Seestrom is the co-author of 137 referred publications with over 1800 career citations. She was named Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1994. She has been an active member of the American Physical Society, serving in various capacities, including: Executive Committee of the Division of Nuclear Physics (1993-1994); Nominating Committee of the DNP (1995-1996, Chair 1996); Program Committee of the DNP (1986-1987,1997-1998,2004 Vice Chair, 2005 Chair); Fellowship Committee of the DNP (1997-1998); General Councilor of the APS (1996-2000); Executive Board of the APS (1998-2000); Chair Committee on Meetings APS (1999) Nominating Committee of the APS (2002-2004, Chair in 2003); Chair, Chair-Elect, and Vice Chair of the Division of Nuclear Physics (2004-2007). Dr. Seestrom has served on the Physics Programs Policy Committee of the American Institute of Physics (2000-2003). She presently is serving as Chair of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee for the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. In addition to her professional work, Dr. Seestrom is a strong supporter of math and science education and has served on the Board of Directors of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation (2003-present, President 2009-present), a small non-profit dedicated to enhancing the vitality of Northern New Mexico by investing in education, learning, and community development.

Chandralekha Singh is a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Pittsburgh. She obtained her Ph.D. in theoretical condensed matter physics from the University of California Santa Barbara and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign, before joining the University of Pittsburgh. She has been conducting research in physics education for more than 15 years. She is a pioneer in conducting educational research related to the teaching and learning of quantum mechanics. She held the chair-line of the American Physical Society Forum on Education from 2009-2013 and was the chair of the editorial board of Physical Review Special Topics Physics Education Research from 2010-2013. She has co-organized two physics education research conferences in 2006 and 2007 and was the co-chair of the 2010 Gordon Conference on Physics Research and Education. She co-chaired the first conference which brought together physicists, chemists and engineers from various engineering departments to discuss the future of materials science and engineering education in 2008. She was the co-organizer of the first conference on graduate education in physics in 2008 and chaired the second conference on graduate education in physics in 2013. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Cherrill Spencer recently retired from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory where she had been their only magnet engineer for over 25 years. During this time at SLAC she designed and made magnets for the Stanford Linear Collider, the Next Linear Collider Test Accelerator, PEPII, the Accelerator Test Facility#2 at the Japanese National Lab (KEK), the LCLS, the FACET test beamline and, lastly for the LCLS-II. Prior to 1988 Cherrill worked in industry for 9 years, designing, fabricating, and field testing microcomputer-controlled instruments and designing magnets for MRI machines. After gaining her doctorate from Oxford University in 1972 she did experimental elementary particle physics research as a postdoctoral research associate for 7 years. First at the Italian National Lab in Frascati and then at SLAC, working for the University of Wisconsin and then Florida State University. Cherrill earned her B.Sc in Physics from London University in 1969. Cherrill has been deeply and actively involved in encouraging girls to start on the path to a STEM career and in mentoring and public outreach activities since 1978. She served on the Board of Directors of the Expanding Your Horizons Network continuously for 30 years from 1981 to 2010. She has been an active member of the Association for Women in Science since 1979 and developed the still on-going Palo Alto AWIS chapter's mentoring program in 1992. Her outreach to the general public activities include starring in an episode of the PBS TV show "Real Science!"; a 2-page illustrated profile in a Grade 6 Science textbook and her story of having her first baby at age 46 is featured in a widely read women's health magazine. She got pregnant and had said baby while serving on the American Physical Society's Committee on Education from 1993-95.

Kathryne Sparks Woodle received her B.A. in Physics from Grinnell College in 2007 and is currently completing a Ph.D. in Physics at Penn State University. She primarily works on detecting very high-energy emission from gamma-ray bursts with the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory. HAWC is an extensive air shower detector built at 4100m in Sierra Negra, Mexico. Woodle has been the President of both her undergraduate Women in Physics group as well as President of Penn State Physics and Astronomy for Women. In addition to participating in numerous educational outreach activities, Woodle chaired the local organizing committee for the 2014 American Physical Society’s Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) at Penn State. In 2014, she won the PSU Graduate Student Service Award and the Achieving Women Award from PSU’s Commission for Women for her work promoting the advancement of women in science through CUWiP and leadership in the Penn State Chapter of Graduate Women in Science. Woodle has also mentored under-privileged high school students during six-week intensive research experiences that work in conjunction with the federally funded Upward Bound program. She was also honored in 2009 with the Dean's Climate and Diversity Award, which is presented to college community members that have championed a supportive community environment in the PSU Eberly College of Science. Following this, Woodle served on the Climate and Diversity Graduate Student Initiative Subcommittee to work on student and faculty advisor relations. Faculty members, staff, and fellow graduate students worked together to develop new guidelines for the Eberly College of Science in an effort to clarify expectations between advisors and advisees and make clear the rights of both.

Born in Paterson, New Jersey, 1964. B.S. (Chemistry) 1985, B.S. (Physics) 1986, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Ph.D. 1990, Indiana University; Research Associate 1991-92, Michigan State University; Assistant Professor 1993-98, Associate Professor 1998-2002, Professor since 2002, Regents Professor since 2007, Associate Dean since 2004, Texas A&M University. Nuclear Physics Program Director 2000-2002, National Science Foundation. Oak Ridge Associate Universities Junior Faculty Enhancement Awardee 1993, GE Foundation Faculty for the Future Award 1993, NSF National Young Investigator 1994, TAMU Center for Teaching Excellence Scholar 1995, Sigma Xi National Young Investigator 2000, TAMU University Faculty Fellow 2000, Women’s Progress Award 2002, Associate of Former Students Distinguished Award for Teaching – College Level 2008, Outstanding Mentoring Award, Women’s Faculty Network 2010, ACS Francis P Garvan - John M Olin Medal 2010, Associate of Former Students Distinguished Award for Teaching – University Level 2012. Fellow, American Physical Society; Fellow, American Chemical Society, Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science. Research experience in nuclear reaction mechanisms and radioactive beams.