Bri Hart
Monday, October 24, 2022
Mentorship
Bri Hart (she/her) is a Diversity Program Manager for the American Physical Society. In this role, she organizes, develops, and improves programs that support equity, diversity, and inclusion in the physics community, including the National Mentoring Community (NMC) and STEP UP. Bri’s background includes managing programs to create space for historically marginalized folks within the higher education and non-profit sectors, including women and gender minority students, first generation college students, and students who have been ethnically and racially minoritized. Bri is committed to utilizing an intersectional lens to center the voices and experiences of Black women in her work.
Dr. Michael J. Williams
Monday, October 24, 2022
Partnership
Dr. Michael J. Williams is from Philadelphia, PA, USA and is an alum of all exclusively historically black colleges and universities: he earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics in 2009 from Morehouse College, a Master in Science in Materials Science in 2012 from Fisk University, and a PhD in Optics from Delaware State University in 2018. His research was the investigation of the linear, nonlinear, and fluorescent characterization of various nanodiamond suspensions using well-established characterization methods and techniques. He has served on several committees within international optics organizations promoting new leadership in optics and photonics and highlighting the essential need for racial equality, diversity and equity. Currently, he is an Applications Specialist for Boston Electronics in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. In 2021, Dr. Williams was given the distinguished honor of being named an OPTICA Ambassador and is using his platform to speak out against anti-black sentiments within the optics community as well as promote the newly christened OPTICA Amplify Scholarship for black optics scientists and the Amplify Black Voices in Optics campaign.
Dr. Yolanda Ohene
Monday, October 24, 2022
Partnership
Dr Yolanda Ohene is a neuroimaging scientist, STEM communicator and co-founder of the Minorities in STEM network.
Currently a Postdoctoral Researcher within the Neuroimaging group at the University of Manchester, Yolanda holds a PhD in Medical Imaging from UCL (2019), a Masters in Plasma Physics from Ecole Polytechnique, France (2014) and an MSci in Physics from Imperial College London (2013). In 2019, she was awarded the Institute of Physics Bronze medal for outstanding contribution to physics by an early career researcher, celebrating her work in the development of a new MRI technique.
She has also spoken at some of the biggest UK science events including Cheltenham Science Festival (2021, 2017, 2016), Einstein’s Garden at GreenMan Festival (2019), and New Scientist Live! (2017). Yolanda is has spoken on BBC Tomorrow’s World Live, is a speaker for Maths Inspiration, and regularly gives talks for schools. Yolanda was the recipient of the British Science Festival Award Lectures (2021) and is also is one of the founding members of The Blackett Lab Family, a collective of UK Black physicists committed to helping make academia a more inclusive place.
Dr. Midhat Farooq
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
Curating Narratives for A successful Career
Midhat Farooq is a Seniors Careers Program Manager at the American Physical Society. Within this role, she develops career and professional development programs and resources for students and early career physicists. Midhat’s favorite part of her role is interacting with students and staying connected to the physics community.
Midhat holds a PhD in physics from the University of Michigan, where her research focused on building an optical magnetometer for a particle physics experiment.
Stéphane Kenmoe
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Entrepreneurship
Stéphane Kenmoe is a physicist by training. He got his PhD from the Max Planck Institut For Iron Research in Düsseldorf, Germany. He is a habilitation candidate at the Faculty of Chemistry at University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany where he works on heterogeneous catalysis in the liquid phase. He is also a science popularizer on TV and on social media, a science writer and novelist. In 2020 he produced the movie ‘’Science in the City’’ (Science dans la Cité) in Cameroon. He is very active in capacity building in Africa, in networking for the promotion of early career African scientists and for connecting science and society. He has won many awards for his engagement, among which the 2020 Diversity Prize for Academic Leadership at the University of Duisburg-Essen and the Falling Walls award for science Engagement in 2021.
Dr. Kathryn Walters-Conte
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Entrepreneurship
A DC native, Dr. Kathryn Walters-Conte studied evolutionary and computational biology at The George Washington University. For ten years she was faculty at American University where she taught genomics, science communication, and biotechnology. She eventually became the Director of STEM Partnerships and Innovation, was the Principal Investigator for the university’s NSF ICorps program, and was an American University Center for Innovation member. Kathryn is now the Head of Innovation at the American Physical Society, where she manages new program initiation, execution, and evaluation using innovation strategies.
Dr. Trina L. Coleman
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Entrepreneurship
Dr. Trina L. Coleman has a career that spans nearly 30 years across education, science, information technology and higher education administration. As CEO & President of Coleman Comprehensive Solutions, LLC, an education and IT consulting and services firm, Dr. Coleman has created an online course platform, STEM Skills, (get.stemskills.online) to help bridge math and science deficiencies for middle and high school students, as well as for adults seeking knowledge for careers in technical fields. She is passionate about exposing Black students to STEM programs of study; particularly students at HBCUs. Additionally, Dr. Coleman conducts STEM camps for younger kids that do a deep dive into the meaning and relationship between each letter in S.T.E.M. Dr. Coleman’s STEM programs and branded STEM apparel have been featured in U.S. News & World Report and NY Magazine. She is also the host of Beyond the Classroom on HBCU Smart TV and HBCU Nation Radio. Dr. Coleman holds an M.S. in condensed matter physics and a Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics, both from Hampton University where she also completed her undergraduate studies in physics.
Professor Sonia Contera
Thursday, October 27, 2022
Books by Scientists: Balancing Sci-Comm and your CareeR
Sonia Contera is professor of biological physics in the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford and one of today’s leading nanotech pioneers. She lives in Oxford, England. She is the author of Nano Comes to Life: How Nanotechnology Is Transforming Medicine and the Future of Biology. Twitter @SONIACONTERA.
Professor Jimena Canales
Thursday, October 27, 2022
Books by Scientists: Balancing Sci-Comm and your CareeR
Jimena Canales is a writer and faculty member of the Graduate College at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She was the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the History of Science at the University of Illinois and associate professor at Harvard University. She is the author of The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time, Bedeviled: A Shadow History of Demons in Science, and A Tenth of a Second. She lives in Boston. Twitter @_Jimena_Canales