JPhys50 – Celebrating women in physics

By Tom Miller on March 8, 2017

As part of International Women’s Day 2017, we are delighted to present a selection of papers written by female rising stars in physics today:

Lara Anderson is an Assistant Professor of Physics and Affiliate Professor of Mathematics at Virginia Tech. A Rhodes Scholar, she completed her PhD at the University of Oxford under Professor Philip Candelas. Her research investigates interconnected questions in geometry and particle phenomenology in string theory. Dr. Anderson’s recent focus has been on compactifications of heterotic string theory, M-theory and F-theory. Her work is supported by the National Science Foundation. She is also an advocate for women and minorities in physics and has worked for many years on science outreach in schools and communities in the US and the UK.

New evidence for (0,2) target space duality Lara B Anderson and He Feng 2017 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 50 064004

Marta De Luca graduated in Physics in 2011 at Sapienza University of Rome and obtained the Ph.D. in Materials Science in 2014 in the same University. During the Ph.D. she investigated the optical and magneto-optical properties of semiconductor nanowires, for which she was awarded the “Piero Brovetto Prize” by the Italian Physical Society. Currently she holds a Post Doc position at the University of Basel, where she investigates phonon engineering in low dimensional systems. Such manipulation aims at boosting the thermoelectric properties of low dimensional materials in order to convert the waste heat into electricity.

Addressing the electronic properties of III–V nanowires by photoluminescence excitation spectroscopy M De Luca 2017 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 054001

Since 2015, Myfanwy Evans has been an Emmy Noether Research Group Leader at the Institute for Mathematics, Technische Universität Berlin, researching geometry and topology in soft matter physics. Her background is in Geometry, including 2D hyperbolic geometry and 3D networks, knots and tangles. Myfanwy Evans studied mathematics at the Australian National University, where she obtained a PhD in 2011 from the interdisciplinary Department of Applied Mathematics, with a thesis on entangled structures in soft matter, titled “Three-Dimensional Entanglement: Knots, Knits and Nets”. From 2011-2014 she was a Humboldt fellow at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Theoretical Physics.

A geometric exploration of stress in deformed liquid foams Myfanwy E Evans et al 2017 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 29 124004

Susanne Fenz studied Physics in Würzburg and Heidelberg. Her phd work with Kheya Sengupta and Rudolf Merkel at the Research Centre Jülich focused on biomimetics of cell-cell adhesion. Later she moved to Leiden University to work with Thomas Schmidt as an NWO and Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow to explore single-molecule fluorescence microscopy in the context of chemotaxis and cell-free protein expression. Since 2012 she heads a junior research group in the field of biophysics at the Biocenter of the University of Würzburg where she is working with Markus Engstler. Her current interests include biomembranes, super-resolution microscopy, and African trypanosomes.

Live-cell super-resolution imaging of intrinsically fast moving flagellates M Glogger et al 2017 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 074004

Rachel Grange graduated in Physics at EPFL in 2002 and obtained her PhD in ultrafast laser physics at ETH Zurich in 2006. During her post-doc with D. Psaltis, she worked on nonlinear bioimaging with Perovskite nanoparticles. From 2011 to 2014, she was group leader at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. Since January 2015, she is assistant professor at the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich. Her laboratory investigates the optical behavior of nanomaterials for developing applications in optoelectronics or imaging. In 2016, she received an ERC starting grant to work on strategies to enhance optical nonlinearities in oxide nanomaterials.

Generation and tunable enhancement of a sum-frequency signal in lithium niobate nanowires Anton Sergeyev et al 2017 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 044002

Daniela Kraft is an Associate Professor in Soft Matter Physics at the Huygens-Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory at Leiden University, The Netherlands. She obtained her PhD from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, before joining the Center for Soft Matter Research at New York University, USA, as a postdoctoral researcher. In 2013, she moved to Leiden, where she established her own group. Her research focuses on self-assembly in soft matter systems, such as anisotropic colloidal particles, lipid vesicles, emulsions, and viruses. Dr Kraft has been awarded a Rubicon and a VENI fellowship from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research and has recently received tenure.

Automated tracking of colloidal clusters with sub-pixel accuracy and precision Casper van der Wel and Daniela J Kraft 2017 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 29 044001

Kristie Koski graduated from the University of Wyoming with a B.S. in Physics and Chemistry. She attended graduate school at the University of California: Berkeley followed by a postdoctoral position at Arizona State University and at Stanford University. She recently moved from Brown University to UC Davis. Her research focuses on 2D materials and on Brillouin spectroscopy. Dr Koski has received the NSF CAREER Award and is funded by the Office of Naval Research. When not doing science, Dr Koski is an adrenaline junky known for surfing massive waves, rock-climbing, and driving her over-powered muscle car way too fast.

Polytypic phase transitions in metal intercalated Bi2Se3 Mengjing Wang and Kristie J Koski 2016 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 28 494002

Selma Mededovic Thagard is an associate professor of chemical engineering at Clarkson University. Thagard received her BS degree in chemical engineering from the University of Zagreb and her Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Florida State University. Her areas of interest lie in experimental investigations of fundamental plasma chemistry in multiphase plasma environments and applications of plasma for water treatment. Thagard is the recipient of the Tau Beta Pi Faculty Award, NSF BRIGE award, Kristin Craig Memorial Faculty Award, and Omega Chi Epsilon “Professor of the Year” award. She serves on the Editorial Board of Plasma Chemistry and Plasma Processing.

Plasma-based water treatment: development of a general mechanistic model to estimate the treatability of different types of contaminants Selma Mededovic Thagard et al 2017 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 014003

Beatriz Olmos Sanchez is currently a Lecturer at the University of Nottingham, and part of the newly created Centre for the Mathematics and Theoretical Physics of Quantum Non-Equilibrium Systems (CQNE). She went to Nottingham to work as a postdoc after obtaining my PhD at the University of Granada, Spain, in 2010 and since then secured three personal competitive Fellowships awarded by the Ramon Areces Foundation, the University of Nottingham (Anne Mclaren Fellowship) and the Royal Society & EPSRC (Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship). Her research is focused mainly on non-equilibrium quantum systems and quantum interfaces between light and an atomic ensemble.

Far-field resonance fluorescence from a dipole-interacting Ryan Jones et al 2017 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 50 014004

After studying in Croatia, Australia and Germany, Ana-Sunčana Smith became a professor for theoretical physics at the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, where she has led the Group for Physics Underlying Life Sciences (PULS) since 2010. In 2013, she was also appointed senior scientist at the Institute Ruđer Bošković in Zagreb, Croatia. Her scientific efforts focus on deepening our understanding of non-equilibrium systems by means of theoretical statistical physics. She applies this understanding in a biophysical context looking for determinants of interactions of cells with their environment, and the interplay between biomechanical and biochemical signalling.

Lattice Boltzmann simulations of the bead-spring microswimmer with a responsive stroke—from an individual to swarms Kristina Pickl et al 2017 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 29 124001

These were commissioned as part of J. Phys. 50’s Emerging leaders/talents special issue series. For more information about these excellent special issues, please visit the following pages:

Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical

Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics

Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter

Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics

Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics

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