PAW+ Travel Fund Recipients

This page highlights the achievements of past awardees of the PAW+ Travel Fund.

Fall 2022

Our Fall 2022 Travel Award recipient was Shio Sakon. Here is her experience:

“Gravitational Wave Physics and Astronomy Workshop (GWPAW) (https://www.gwpaw2022.org/) is an annual workshop that addresses a large range of gravitational wave (GW) physics and astronomy science and is focused on discussions without parallel sessions. In the era of multimessenger astrophysics with GWs that involves multiple large collaborations, and in particular, at the end of 2022 when the fourth observation run (O4) of the GW detectors is starting in less than 6 months, the opportunity to share and discuss research and connect with the greater community of GW and astrophysics researchers provided me with great learning experiences and invaluable in-person discussion opportunities. My poster presentation focused on the O4 template bank that the PSU LIGO group will be using to search for GW signals from black holes and neutron stars in detector data near real-time.”

Spring 2021

Our Spring 2021 Travel Award recipient was Källan Berglund. Here is her experience:

“This award supported my participation in the 2021 Sejny Summer Institute on the Foundations of Physics (Sejny Summer Institute – Sciencesconf.org), which was enriching personally, professionally, and scientifically. I traveled to a summer house in the Polish countryside for nine days, where I was able to collaborate with ~20 other young professionals in mathematics, physics, philosophy, and computer science.

We each presented fundamental physics questions from our work and formed groups to dive into a few projects over the course of the institute. It was particularly valuable for me to step outside the narrowly-focused research community I had been immersed in and have my assumptions challenged by the alternate philosophies of each participant’s unique research background.

I connected with collaborators in various fields, which informs my ongoing research on modified black hole spacetimes. We planned the building of new mathematical tools and explored the philosophical implications of time ceasing to exist inside a modified black hole. I also collaborated on other projects, both reading up on spacetimes as emergent products of Hilbert spaces, and investigating various implementations of the quantum switch in the context of different definitions of an “event.”

The countryside was exquisite, and we enjoyed working outdoors, swimming, and kayaking. Being in a new, nourishing space allowed us to be more open to new ideas, both scientifically, and in terms of how we approach our work. This program is proof that it is not only possible, but also more enjoyable and productive to work in a healthy, relaxed environment. After working on physics most of the day, we would celebrate our time together with dance lessons, sing-alongs, and games. I have made lifelong friends and connected with an expansive professional network.

I highly recommend participating in this program, and I appreciate the support of PAW+ enabling me to attend. I was also able to visit the Marie Maria Skłodowska-Curie Museum in Warsaw on my way home!” – Källan Berglund

Congratulations Källan!

Spring 2020

Our Spring 2020 Travel Award recipient was Brett Green (though due to COVID it was delayed until 2022).

“The 2020 PAW+ Travel Award, forwarded by two years due to COVID-19, supported me in traveling to Quebec for the 2022 International Summer School on Computational Quantum Materials, where I learned about computational methods in strongly-correlated materials to understand phenomena such as Mott localization and superconductivity using a variety of scientific codes. Nearly 70 students from 13 countries participated. While in the area, I was also able to visit the University of Sherbrooke to meet with a physicist whose work formed the basis for my first project and publication.” – Brett Green

Congrats Brett!

Spring 2017

Our Spring 2017 Travel Award recipient was Parul Maheshwari.  In her own words:

“I presented my work on analyzing the logic structure of a Boolean network at NetSci2017 (http://netsci2017.net/) which is the flagship conference of the Network Science Society. The conference held at JW Marriott, Indianapolis also included International School and many Satellite Symposia and brought together researchers and practitioners from academia and industry working in various fields including physics, computer science, neuroscience, etc. My talk was featured in the “Tools and Techniques” section and was attended by 50+ network science researchers from various fields across the world.”

Congrats Parul!

Spring 2016

PAW wants to recognize the recipients of the Travel fund for Spring 2016:  Beatrice Bonga and Foteini Oikonomou!  Both of them will be using their awards to give invited talks.  Beatrice will use the funds to attend the “Peyresq Physics 21” conference in France.  She was selected as one of a handful of students to give an invited talk.  Foteini is going to attend “Next Generation Techniques in Astroparticle Physics at KICP in Chicago.  She will give an invited theoretical overview of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) and neutrinos.  Congrats to both of you!

     

Spring 2015

PAW wants to congratulate our new recipient of the PAW Travel Fund, Kelly Malone!  Kelly will be using the money to attend the Fermi Summer School in Lewes, Delaware for two weeks in the early summer.  She will learn theory and techniques relevant to the analysis of gamma ray astrophysics projects, with an emphasis on data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.  Congrats Kelly!

Fall 2014

PAW is delighted to announce that Anne-Sylvie Deutsch and Sumithra Surendralal will be the first recipients of the PAW Travel Fund Award for Fall 2014!  Anne-Sylvie will give a poster presentation at “The Primordial Universe after Planck” conference in Paris from December 15-19.  Sumithra will attend the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington, DC from November 14-19, where she will also present a poster about her work.  Congratulations to them both!

Sumithra (left) and Anne-Sylvie (right)