Feb. 11th 2021 : Celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science
The Centre celebrated the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on 11 February with a series of social media posts featuring remarkable women who study or work in the Dark Matter Centre.
These included:
· CDM student Madeleine Zurowski from the University of Melbourne. Madeleine works in the field of dark matter as an experimentalist, involved in building the first dark matter detector in the Southern Hemisphere.
“I enjoy working in STEM because I love the kind of problem solving and critical thinking it involves. I’ve always liked solving puzzles, and getting answers to fundamental questions. The field also seems to attract other people who think the same way, so whether we’re working through some unyielding code or troubling maths, or pondering the latest cryptic crossword, there’s always good company who can help you think outside the box,” she said.
· CDM PhD student Emily Filmer from the University of Adelaide is working with the ATLAS esperiment in both the 4-top physics analysis and with the Inner Tracker hardware development.
“I love working in STEM because there are always new problems to solve! We are learning more about how our universe works every day, and it is humbling to be able to contribute to that,” she said.
· CDM Research Associate Dr Michaela Froelich from the Australian National University’s role encompasses a wide variety of activities in environmental chemistry, nuclear physics and astrophysics. Her research programme focuses on actinides in the environment and their applications using Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS), an atom-counting technique. She is currently investigating radioactive contaminations on detector surfaces to help with the search for Dark Matter. Contributions from e.g. lead-210, potassium-40, uranium and thorium are the most relevant as they can limit the sensitivity of rare-event searches or low-background measurements.
“I enjoy working in STEM because I always liked the broad variety and diversity of research fields and topics. I have always had (and still have) a passion for chemistry, which brought me into STEM, and I could have never imagined studying any other discipline. I now work across a number of multidisciplinary fields closely tied to physics and also engineering – which really keeps things interesting and my passion alive. I feel very fortunate to work with my colleagues in person and with my research community as a whole, and actually never considered that being female could or should be a barrier," she said.
PhD student Grace Lawrence from Swinburne University of Technology uses detailed supercomputer simulations of galaxies like our Milky Way to probe its dark matter content and predict how we will be able to detect dark matter on Earth.
“STEM gives me the opportunity to explore the big questions about our universe. Solving problems, discovering new things and using amazing technology along the way, there are endless possibilities!" she said.
· CDM postdoc Dr Zuzana Slavkovska from The Australian National University received her PhD degree in Physics in 2018 at Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany, where she was a member of the Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics Group. Her main research focus is on how heavy elements in stars are produced. Within the ARC CoE for Dark Matter particle Physics she is a member of both the Metrology and the Direct Detection Team. Her current focus is on developing methods for impurity estimation in detector materials.
“I enjoy the diversity of work in STEM, from planning projects through to hands-on work in the laboratory, the long night shifts running the accelerator and the analysis of data, and the discussions with colleagues both in the department and at conferences. I also really like how scientists around me are very passionate about their research, which makes me feel that I chose the right field!" she said.
· CDM Director Professor Elisabetta Barberio from the University of Melbourne hopes to convey the excitement and significance of her research to young people and is particularly keen to be a positive role model for young women.
“We often think that physics research is a purely male field, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The ATLAS at the Large Hadron Collider experiment was led for a long time by a woman, and many large Dark Matter experiments (sucha as SABRE) are led by women. The discovery of new fundamental phenomena has inspired people to engage with physics. We need to funnel this excitement and encourage young women to see the kinds of things they can achieve,” she said.
CDM Professor Nicole Bell’s research lies at the intersection of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology, with particular interests in dark matter, neutrinos and matter-antimatter asymmetries. At the Dark Matter Centre, she leads the Theory Program and is the University of Melbourne Node Manager. She is also the Vice President of the Australian Institute of Physics.
“One of the things about my job is that I get to indulge my interest in maths, but also to study the big, fundamental questions about the universe,” she said.