Michigan State University Society of Women in Space Exploration

Happy Astronomy Day!🚀🪐✨☄️💫

Not to brag, but we rock-ed it 🚀✨

Join us to paint the MSU rock tomorrow morning! Paint supplies will be provided, and we will be meeting at the rock. We hope you can make it!

The Great American Eclipse of 2024☀️🌘
It was definitely worth the trip to see the eclipse in totality, see you again in 2044!

Dresselhaus had a 57-year career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She became the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Visiting Professor of electrical engineering at MIT in 1967, became a tenured faculty member in 1968, and became a professor of physics in 1983. In 1985, she was appointed the first female institute professor at MIT. In 1994, Dresselhaus was one of 16 women faculty in the School of Science at MIT who drafted and co-signed a letter to the then-Dean of Science Robert Birgeneau, which started a campaign to highlight and challenge gender discrimination at MIT.

As the exotic compounds she studied became increasingly relevant to modern science and engineering, she was uniquely positioned to become a world-leading expert and write one of the standard textbooks. Her groundwork in the field led to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov isolating and characterizing graphene, for which they were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize.

Dresselhaus was particularly noted for her work on graphite, graphite intercalation compounds, fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and low-dimensional thermoelectrics. Her group made frequent use of electronic band structure, Raman scattering and the photophysics of carbon nanostructures. Her research helped develop technology based on thin graphite which allow electronics to be "everywhere", including clothing and smartphones.A great part of her research dedicates to the study of 'buckyballs' and graphene focusing a great deal in the electrical properties of carbon nanotubes and enhancing thermoelectric properties of nanowires.

Throughout her career, Dresselhaus won numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, the Enrico Fermi Award, the Kavli Prize and the Vannevar Bush Award.

Sally Ride was a graduate of Stanford University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English literature in 1973, a Master of Science degree in 1975, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1978 (both in physics) for research on the interaction of X-rays with the interstellar medium. She was selected as a mission specialist astronaut with NASA Astronaut Group 8, the first class of NASA astronauts to include women.

After completing her training in 1979, she served as the ground-based capsule communicator (CapCom) for the second and third Space Shuttle flights, and helped develop the Space Shuttle's robotic arm. In June 1983, she flew in space on the Space Shuttle Challenger on the STS-7 mission. The mission deployed two communications satellites and the first Shuttle pallet satellite (SPAS-1). Ride operated the robotic arm to deploy and retrieve SPAS-1. Her second space flight was the STS-41-G mission in 1984, also on board Challenger. She spent a total of more than 343 hours in space and left NASA in 1987.

Ride worked for two years at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control, then at the University of California, San Diego, primarily researching nonlinear optics and Thomson scattering. She served on the committees that investigated the loss of Challenger and of Columbia, the only person to participate in both. Having been married to astronaut Steven Hawley during her spaceflight years and in a private, long-term relationship with former Women's Tennis Association player Tam O'Shaughnessy, she is the first astronaut known to have been LGBT. Sally died of pancreatic cancer in 2012.

We are having a fundraiser THIS SATURDAY with Rocketry and Astronomy Club at Spare Time Entertainment! Join us for a fun time at the arcade and bowling lanes while supporting these amazing MSU organizations! If you would like to go but need transportation, feel free to email us at [email protected]. We would love to see you there! ✨🪐🚀

A child prodigy, Laura was privately educated from the age of 13. She eventually defended her PhD thesis in 1732, becoming the second woman in the world to gain a doctorate. Her research work was greatly influenced by Isaac Newton.

In the same year she was awarded an honorary post at the University of Bologna as a professor in physics and was the first woman to be elected to the Bologna Academy of Sciences. Initially she was only an honorary member but later, in 1745, she became the only female member of the special Benedettini group of scientists who regularly presented their research work.

As a woman, she was not allowed to teach at the university but that did not deter her from presenting lectures and experimental demonstrations at home. Laura Bassi fought continuously to obtain equal conditions in teaching for women in Italy and across the world, in a time when academia was an exclusively male environment.

As a result of her scientific work Laura was awarded the chair of experimental physics at the University of Bologna in 1776 – the first woman ever to be given this status.

We are super excited to have Sona as our speaker for our meeting this Wednesday, March 20th at 6:30 PM in BPS 1300!

Supernovae are powerful explosions that happen in space. In the realm of cosmology, they serve as crucial cosmological probes, offering unique opportunities to probe fundamental aspects of the universe’s evolution and composition. Observations of supernovae give us some understanding of their chemical abundances and the physics of the explosion. To explore the observed spectra, there is a need to model supernovae, to better understand their mechanisms. In this talk, we will explore the different types of supernovae and the various techniques of modeling them.

We hope to see you there! 🪐✨

Bell Burnell was president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 2002 to 2004, president of the Institute of Physics from October 2008 until October 2010, and interim president of the Institute following the death of her successor, Marshall Stoneham, in early 2011. She was Chancellor of the University of Dundee from 2018 to 2023.
In 2018, she was awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Following the announcement of the award, she decided to use the $3 million in prize money to establish a fund to help female, minority, and refugee students to become research physicists. The fund is administered by the Institute of Physics.

On 28 November 1967, while a postgraduate student at Cambridge, Bell Burnell detected a "bit of scruff" on her chart-recorder papers that tracked across the sky with the stars. The signal had been visible in data taken in August, but as the papers had to be checked by hand, it took her three months to find it. She established that the signal was pulsing with great regularity, at a rate of about one pulse every one and a third seconds. Temporarily dubbed "Little Green Man 1", the source (now known as PSR B1919+21) was identified after several years as a rapidly rotating neutron star. This was later documented by the BBC Horizon series.

Happy Pi Day to all STEM lovers!

Stone was born in 1868 and completed a bachelor's degree at Wellesley College in 1890. She was among the first women to earn a PhD in physics in the United States, earning hers just two years after Caroline Willard Baldwin earned a Doctor of Science at Cornell University. Stone completed doctoral work at the University of Chicago. Her 1897 thesis, On the Electrical Resistance of Thin Films, showed that very thin metal films showed a higher resistivity than the bulk metal.

Stone taught for a year at the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore. She was a physics instructor at Vassar College from 1898 to 1906, and head of the physics department at Sweet Briar College from 1915 to 1923. From 1908 to 1914, she and her sister Harriet Stone ran a school for American girls in Rome, and later in life they ran another school for girls in Washington, D.C.
Stone was one of two women (out of a total of 836) to attend the first International Congress of Physics in Paris (the other being Marie Curie). In 1899, she was one of forty physicists (and one of two women, the other being Marcia Keith) at the first meeting of the American Physical Society, held at Columbia University.

It's that time of year again! If you are interested in purchasing a shirt, the form is in our bio and contains all the payment information. Deadline to order is Friday, March 15th!🚀

Welcome back from spring break! THIS WEDNESDAY we will be meeting and watching “The Jupiter Enigma”. We hope you enjoy this chill meeting as we ease back into school. 6:30 PM IN BPS 1300! 🪐✨

The planetarium was a blast as always, thank you to everyone who attended!✨

Join us as we voyage to the planetarium to watch “From Earth to the Universe” this Wednesday, February 21st!

Please meet in the lobby at 6:15 PM. The show will begin at 6:30 PM. We can’t wait to see you there! 🌎✨

We are excited to announce our speaker for our next meeting: Camila Monsalve Avendaño!

She is a graduate student in the Physics and Astronomy Department here at MSU. She completed two bachelor’s in Biology and Physics at Florida Internation University (FIU). At FIU, she fell in love with Physics Education Research and published research on the physics identity (how much does a person see themselves as a physicist construct) of women of color who are interested in medical career. Now, her research focuses on empowering transfer STEM students to be leaders in changing MSU to be more transfer receptive. In addition to her research, she loves to go to the gym as well as talk with friends and family.

We hope to see you there! 🪐💫

Very proud to see MSU research represented in the CUWiP poster session, congratulations on the hard work!
Go Green💚🤍

🚨MEETING ALERT!🚨
SWISE is having our first meeting of the semester this Wednesday at 6:30 pm in 1300 BPS! We would love to see you there! 🪐✨

Thank you to everyone who made an appearance at Springticipation tonight, we hope to see you all at our meeting next week!

About Allison: Joining the team as our social media chair, Allison is a first year undergraduate studying data science and astrophysics. On top of her studies, Allison is involved in other clubs including Women in Computing and Thrift Club. She is also very dedicated to her work as a research assistant in Basso Lab!

About Veronica: As a third year undergraduate, Veronica is studying engineering with a concentration in aerospace. This is her second year as a member of SWISE, and her first year as our Treasurer. Veronica is very involved in RSOs as a member of the MSU Thrift Club as well as CoRe. On top of this, she is currently a ULA for PHY 183.

About Kinza: Kinza is a second year undergraduate and is dedicated to her studies in physics and CMSE. She commits her time to several student organizations on campus including SPS, Astronomy Club, ISAB, and HSTAR. She is also a Professorial Assistant doing exciting work on LQCD!

About Dhiti: Majoring in Astrophysics and minoring in CMSE, Dhiti is excited to take on the role of Vice President for SWISE. She is a third year undergraduate and is also a member of Alpha Phi Omega. She is currently working as a ULA for PHY 182 and is doing exciting research for IceCube!

About Katelynn: This is Katelynn's fifth year as an MSU undergraduate and her fourth year as the president of the MSU chapter of SWISE. She is studying astrophysics as well as music performance for harp. She is also a member of the MSU Red Cross Club and the Women's Council. Currently she is working as a technical research assistant for the IceCube Neutrino Observatory where she builds mDOMs to refine research in the oscillation properties of neutrinos.

Come find us at Springticipation next week! Learn more about SWISE and other RSOs on campus 💚🤍

Have a wonderful stress free break! Happy Holidays and Happy New Year from SWISE!!💜

Congratulations to our wonder Vice President! Abby is graduating this semester with a degree in Physics and a minor in CMSE. After graduation, she is moving back to western New York to work as a software engineer for Xylem!
Thank you Abby for your time with SWISE and we wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors; we can't wait to see the exciting things that you accomplish!💚

We wish you the best of luck on exams! Remember to get some rest, drink water, and take care of yourself during this stressful week💚

Join us tomorrow night at 6:30pm in room 1400 of the Biomedical Physical Sciences Building for pizza and trivia!🚀