Search Results for: USC

The Big USC News You Haven’t Heard…

So here’s some big USC news that you’re probably not hearing about elsewhere. I think it’s the best thing that’s happened on campus for a long time, and it’s well worth noting. As of today (4th August, when I wrote this), there’s a Trader Joe’s on campus!

It opened (relatively quietly) today and I stopped by on my way home to pick up a few things – something I’ve fantasized about doing for some time. It’s a simple thing but it’s also a major thing in my opinion. Leaving aside the fact that I can now sometimes get groceries on the way home (with a subway stop just a couple of blocks away) – and also now more easily stock up my office with long workday essentials like Scottish shortbread and sardines in olive oil, there’s another reason this is big news. This part of the city (and points south) simply don’t have as many good options (when it comes to healthy food) as other parts of the city. It is still big news when a grocery store like this opens south the 10 freeway. In fact, away from over on the West side (where the demographic changes significantly), there were *no* Trader Joe’s stores south of the 10 until this one opened today**. (Yes, in 2017 – I can wait while you check your calendar.) I consider this at least as significant (if not more) as the Whole Foods opening in downtown at […] Click to continue reading this post

On CU@USC Tonight

By the way, I’ll be on the local TV show CU@USC tonight (6:30pm – live), talking about things like communicating science, science and film, and of course the USC Science Film Competition that I run that I’m trying to let students and faculty know about as much as I can. (Perhaps we’ll talk about other topics as well. We shall see.) I’ll also be joined by Simon Wilches-Castro, a student who was in the competition two years ago. He did the lovely animation for the film on fractals, called Yaddda Yadda Yada.

If you watch (live stream here), I hope you enjoy it!

Here’s the film: […] Click to continue reading this post

USC Science Film Competition 2013 – Results!

There’s a news article out about the results of the USC Science Film Competition that you might like to read. It is by Susan Bell and it is in USC Dornsife News here. In there, you’ll find interviews with one of the winning teams of students, as well as with me. I talk about my reasons for running this competition each year and what I hope to achieve. (Photo courtesy of USC Dornsife.)

The showcase and awards ceremony, held on January 23rd, was a success, and it was a pleasure to meet with many of the students who participated, and feel the buzz of excitement in the room. Thanks everyone who participated, including the panel of judges for their hard work. Once again, the Anton Burg Foundation supported the competition (funding things like the large prizes I had the pleasure of giving away) and we’re all very grateful for that.

Ok, well of course you want to know the outcome, right? Well, here goes. I’ve included the titles and membership of the interdisciplinary teams below, along with […] Click to continue reading this post

C. Tyler’s Visit to USC

Last night I went to a nice event as part of the Visions and Voices series. It was an interview of (perhaps conversation with is a better way to describe it) writer and artist Carol Tyler by Henry Jenkins, who is a professor here at USC in the Annenberg School of Communication (check out his excellent blog here). C. Tyler is well known for her work in the comics and graphic novel world (or graphic book, if you prefer) particularly in the underground comics movement. She is one of the most well known memoirists in this medium, telling the story of her family life, and in particular a great deal of her father’s retelling of experiences in war, and its effects on him, her, and her family. It was good to go along and listen to her talk about her journey in producing the three books that came out of that project (“You’ll Never Know”), other projects, and a little bit of her personal history as a writer and artist. (See Henry Jenkins’ post about her here, and her own website here. Many of her books are published by Fantagraphics.)

I met and spoke with her last year (update/correction: two years ago) very briefly (she certainly won’t remember), since a few of us (including her) were waiting in the lobby of the LA Times building for the LA Times Book Prizes ceremony to start. She was a nominee in the graphic novel category. We talked for a few minutes and then went in. I remember being struck by […] Click to continue reading this post

USC Science Film Competition – A New Year!

…And here we are again! I’m launching the second year of the USC Science Film Competition as of, well, a few seconds ago. Please go to the website to learn more. You’ll find a collection of links at the very end of the main page, along with a slide show, talking a bit about last year’s successful inaugural competition. I’m hoping for a competition at least as exciting and interesting (er, in all the good ways!) as last year.

If at USC, spread the word, please! I especially need faculty to help encourage […] Click to continue reading this post

Announcing: Science Films USC!

Ok, so here is the announcement I promised last week. Science Films USC! It is a film-making competition! The first of its kind at USC, I think. Right now, all there is to say is that we welcome teams of USC students from Cinematic Arts, Communications, Science, Engineering, and beyond, to enter the competition. They will present a short film that explains and/or illustrates a scientific concept, principle, or issue, for a wide non-expert audience. The first prize will be $2500. Yes, we are giving a serious prize for what we hope will be a serious competition with some wonderful entries. We’ll have a film festival in January, some prize-giving, and maybe some interesting people connected with the film world at the award ceremony. Of course, we’ll have it early in the award season, in January.

You can learn more at sciencefilms.usc.edu and for those of you who can’t bear to be away from facebook for long, also at facebook.com/sciencefilmsusc.

By August 31st, we will announce the details of the eligibility requirements, rules, and opportunities for those who are not well-resourced to get a small grant to help out with developing their film.

Teams, said I? Yes. As you know from many of my posts here and the work I’ve done in the past, I think that the future of better presentations of science in the media and entertainment, etc, is to get communicators and scientists working together and […] Click to continue reading this post

A Farmer’s Market at USC

(hollywood farmer's) market day basket of cvjFantastic news! There’s going to be a farmer’s market on campus at USC. The first one is on Thursday this week, and rumour has it that it is expected to be monthly! If anyone has more information about this, please let me know in the comments or by email. (Right, enlargeable image of one of the results of my weekly visits to the Hollywood Farmer’s Market. More here.)

Here’s the announcement for Thursday: […] Click to continue reading this post

Candace Partridge: Women in Physics at USC

Rather than just sit around and wring our hands about the severe underrepresentation of women and minorities in science and engineering, it’s worth getting out there and trying to do things to help make a change. Here at Asymptotia, I describe things of that nature from time to time. At other times, I like to just shut up and listen, since (for example) it is also important to hear about the opinions and experiences of a range of different people who are trying to make their way in some aspect of these fields.

candace partridgeToday we have a guest post from Asymptotia regular commenter Candace Partridge (clickable image on right). Candace is doing an undergraduate degree in Physics at the University of London (Birkbeck College), having come to study the subject at this level rather later than is traditional, and having studied other subjects, and worked professionally in another career. This gives her an unusual perspective, and one that is of considerable value. Candace attended the Women in Physics conference that was held at USC in January, and of which I spoke earlier. She tells us a bit about it below, along with some thoughts about her own path in Physics. There is some overlap with an article she wrote for Inkling, but Candace has expanded on several aspects for her post here.

-cvj

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Ahhh…what’s better than a trip to LA? How about a travel grant to get to LA to attend the 2nd annual Undergraduate Women in Physics conference held at USC? Most students view MLK Day as a sort of bonus extension the to holidays, a way to ease back into the usual routine. However, for 50-odd physics students, this long weekend was a chance to make the journey to USC to meet other female (and a few male) physics students.

Of course, where I’m now from (London), we don’t get MLK day off. In fact, I was only on native soil because I had cleverly timed a three-week trip to visit my parents in Mississippi to coincide with this conference. After all, once I’ve flown 5000 miles, what’s a couple of thousand more? No problem! I landed in LAX to bright and sunny weather but with a cold wind blowing out of the north, heralding the arrival of that cold wave that destroyed the citrus crops and brought snow flurries to Malibu. It was far colder in LA than in London that weekend.

This was my first trip to a physics-related conference, and I was a wee bit out of the target demographic. See, I am still a lowly undergrad — I say ‘still’ because here I am a woman pushing thirty who is barely halfway through her BSc as opposed to the young striplings a full decade younger than myself. Also, I was the only attendee from overseas…kind of. But I am happy to mix with people of all sorts, especially other women like me who are studying physics because, let’s face it, some of us are still feeling a little alone over here.

So I’m a female mature student, which in undergrad physics makes me a bit of an […] Click to continue reading this post

A Return (Again)

About two years ago I wrote a post entitled “A Return”, upon moving to Princeton for a year (I was a Presidential Visiting Scholar at the Physics department). I reflected upon the fact that it was a return to a significant place from my past, where I’d been transformed in so many ways. Princeton was the first place I visited (not counting airports) in the USA, the location of my first postdoctoral appointment (at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS)), and its was there that I did a deep enriching dive into the hubbub of Theoretical Physics, at one of the very top places in the world to do so.

Coastal view from UCSB campusAfter that, I moved West, to Santa Barbara, where my next postdoc position was at the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), now called the KITP. I was very lucky to be able to go from one top place to another, and (as I’ve recently talked about in a BBC interview here) additionally, my field was in a delicious turmoil of activity and discovery. I was able to be a part of the maelstrom (the “Second Superstring Revolution”, and all the gifts it gave us, including better understanding of the role in quantum gravity of extended objects beyond strings (such as D-branes), the physics of quantum black holes, the tools to unlock the holographic nature of quantum gravity more generally (through AdS/CFT), and so on. (I’ve blogged about many of these topics here, so use the search tool for more.)

I’ve been known to say that Princeton was the place where I found my physics voice (Edward Witten was a key guide at that time). Well, to continue the theme, Santa Barbara (with its wonderful research group made up of people from both the KITP and the wider Physics Department) was the place where I started to learn how to use that voice to sing (with the guidance of Joe Polchinski (who sadly passed away a few years ago)).

Well, as you may be guessing after that long introduction, I’m doing “A Return” again, but this time not with some boxes and suitcases of things for a year’s stay: I can now announce that I’ll be leaving the University of Southern California (USC) and (as of 1st July 2023) joining […] Click to continue reading this post