Author: Bart van Tiggelen

A young French mathematical physicist, Cécile DeWitt-Morette, founded the Les Houches School of Physics in 1951. In less than 4 years, the unique formula of the School had already achieved a worldwide reputation. At that time there were no advanced courses, equivalent to today’s Master classes, on contemporary topics such as quantum physics or statistical mechanics anywhere in France or even in Europe. Brilliant physicists were mostly in the US, among whom were many European physicists that had moved to the US after the war, including Cécile DeWitt herself. France and Europe were lagging seriously behind in the teaching and practice of modern physics. The Physics School in Les Houches attracted many top physicists to teach on a blackboard for two months in the summer period. The formula was unique, simple and efficient. With an amazing view on the Mont Blanc mountain range, far away from the laboratories and university classes, the “hanging gardens” of the Les Houches School became a place where students could interact directly with Wolfgang Pauli, Enrico Fermi, Richard Feynman, Julian Schwinger, Alfred Kastler, Nicolaas Bloembergen, Kip Thorne, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and many others over a cup of coffee. Léon van Hove, future CERN Director, actually held the first class, on quantum mechanics, in 1951. Today, 51 Nobel laureates and Fields medal winners have been teaching in Les Houches.

In bringing together the greatest physicists in the world and successive generations of young researchers in a spectacular and stimulating location, the Physics School has strongly contributed to the development of French, European and international physics. Many other Physics Schools have been created since, with essentially the same principle of providing tutorial courses on contemporary topics, combined with informal exchanges and geographic isolation. However, as recalled by Jean Zinn-Justin, one of his former directors, “the École des Houches is the mother of all modern schools of physics”. Its success has revealed the importance of training and informal discussions to the progress in physics. Created almost 70 years ago, the École de Physique des Houches has been recognised, on October 5, 2020 and upon proposition of the French Physical Society and the Direction of the School, as an “EPS Historic Site”, in the presence of all scientific authorities concerned. Before unveiling the commemorative plaque, Luc Bergé, EPS president-elect, underlined that “The European Physical Society is happy to recognise the École de Physique des Houches as one of its most precious Historic Sites, enriching the scientific cultural heritage not only of Europe, but also of all humanity.“

From left to right: A.Fontaine, L. Bergé, G. Wormser, B. Van Tiggelen, C. Salomon - Image credit: François Henry/Les Houches

Author: Antigone Marino

The Italian Physical Society (SIF) 106th National Congress was held from 14 to 18 September 2020. Due to the worldwide covid-19 emergency it was run for the first time in the SIF history electronically.

The big challenge was to organize a Congress with its scientific characteristics as much as possible in line with tradition, but with new elements possible thanks to IT tools.

The scheme of the Program followed the usual general lines. For the scientific part three levels of talks were given: General Reports were given in plenary sessions; Invited Reports were given in parallel, in seven virtual rooms, each one corresponding to the SIF topical sessions; Communications were uploaded on the conference website as recorded presentation. For General and Invited Reports all the speakers spoke live with the possibility of intervention with comments and questions from the participants. Activities related to the SIF management were also conducted online, such as the Annual Report of the President Angela Bracco, the SIF awards ceremony, and the General Assembly of Members.

The Congress numbers confirm the large and exciting participation by the community of Italian physicists. More than 1400 registrations, compared with the 500 made in the past non-virtual editions. A number that was the success of the free registration, and the possibility of participating from anywhere in the world or Italy. The set of 10 General Reports, more than 220 Invited talks in parallel sections and 600 Communications, provided more than 135 hours of streaming, and more than 500 questions.

During the Congress there was the traditional Youth Session devoted to the new generations of physicists, organized in collaboration with the Italian Association of Physics Students (AISF), national branch of the International Association of Physics Students (IAPS).

Also this year the SIF Equal Opportunities Committee (CPO) presented an original and effective initiative for the Congress. The seven virtual rooms were dedicated to seven female scientists, to give them the visibility that they often did not have throughout history. To further highlight the peculiarity of a congress taking place in a non-place, each virtual lecture hall was represented by a nice photo of a historic lecture hall of an Italian universities or research centers.

SIF is proud of how the emergency was faced, by proposing and implementing solutions aimed at carrying out our traditional and backbone activities, such as our annual Congress. Anyway, we hope that the next one can be held live.

For more information, visit the event website: http://congresso2020.sif.it/

In the last couple of years, the EPS Young Minds (YM) program committee has made a point to strengthen the collaborations between YM members, EPS Divisions and Groups, and national physical societies. As a network of students and young professionals in physics, YM has always had the goal of promoting career opportunities and growth perspectives all over Europe.

In this view, we have happily accepted the invitation to organize three special sessions during the CMD2020GEFES (cmd2020gefes.eu), the largest condensed matter conference in Europe, taking place every two years. This edition has been co-hosted by EPS and the Spanish Royal Physical Society (RSEF), so this event combines the purpose of reinforcing the relations between the YM program and national physical societies and the professional development and empowerment of the new generation of physicists.

The first session on Aug 31^st was devoted to an overview on the career perspectives within academia. Prof. Petra Rudolf gave a talk titled “A PhD is not enough”, where she gave useful suggestions and strategies to prepare for a career in academia after the PhD, while Dr. Janne Salo gave an overview of the ERC grant scheme, the evaluation procedures and future perspectives for the program.

On Sept 1^st, we hosted an open discussion with Samindranath Mitra – PRL editor, David Abergel – Nature Physics senior editor, and Bart Van Tiggelen – editor-in-chief of EPL regarding the editorial policies, the evaluation processes and the personal experiences of the panelists.

The last – in order of time – session on Sept 2^nd has been an open discussion with representatives from the industry, with different backgrounds and positions: Almudena Carrera-Vazquez from IBM Quantum, Matt Hutchings from SeeQC-eu, and Nicolas Cassinelli from nB nanoScale Biomagnetics SL.

On average, we had roughly 60 participants at each session, with a lively discussion triggered by many questions from the audience.

The great success of the event, especially given the online format of the conference, demonstrates how the community has not been discouraged by the Coronavirus pandemic, and that events devoted to the professional development of the young researchers are needed now more than ever.

The sessions have been recorded and are available on the CMD2020GEFES Youtube channel, together with the recordings of plenary and semi-plenary sessions, and can be found in the following links:

Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/CMD2020GEFES

Youtube playlists: https://www.youtube.com/c/CMD2020GEFES/playlists

Author: Luc Bergé

Hatice Altug is professor in the Institute of Bioengineering at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland since 2013. She is also director of EPFL Doctoral School in Photonics. Between 2007 and 2013, she was professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Boston University, U.S. She received her Ph.D. degree in Applied Physics from Stanford University (U.S.) in 2007 and her B.S. degree in Physics from Bilkent University (Turkey) in 2000.

At EPFL, she is heading the Bionanophotonic Systems Laboratory with around 15 talented graduate students and postdocs from around the world. Her research is focused in the field of nanophotonics and its application to biosensing, spectroscopy and bioimaging with the aim to introduce nanodevices with significant importance for fundamental life sciences, early disease diagnostics, and point-of‐care testing. Her laboratory is specialized to exploit novel optical phenomena at nanoscale and metamaterials by using nanophotonics, nanofabrication and microfluidics.

Prof. Altug is the recipient of the EPS Emmy Noether Distinction, Adolph Lomb Medal from The Optical Society (OSA), and the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. She received a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), an ERC Proof of Concept Grant, the U.S. Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award, U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Massachusetts Life Science Center New Investigator Award and the IEEE Photonics Society Young Investigator Award. She is the winner of the Inventors’ Challenge competition of Silicon Valley in 2005. She has been named to Popular Science Magazine’s "Brilliant 10" list in 2011.

Luc Bergé, President-Elect of the EPS and chair of the EPS Equal Opportunities Committee (LB), interviewed Hatice Altug (HA).

LB: Why did you choose to study physics?

HA: Since my early years in middle school I got fascinated with science subjects and encouraged by my physics teachers. I was getting curious about the scientific origin of the things that I was observing in nature, technological inventions and how machines work. In order to satisfy my curiosity and get a better understanding of science I decided to major in physics. I also knew that physics is a fundamental subject and if I studied physics I would be well equipped to get into different scientific fields more easily.

LB: Any worry to match your family life and a career in physics?

HA: Yes, it is not always easy to balance a family life and a career in physics. For example, travelling is important for a scientific career in order to attend or organize conferences, participate in consortium projects, committees or visit other universities. But, travelling also requires time and sometimes I find it challenging to accommodate it with family duties.

LB: Were you worried about finding a job in physics?

HA: There are different job options for a physicist including in academia, industry and education. I was aware that finding an academic job was more challenging than in industry due to the limited available positions. Academy is a competitive environment, irrespective of the gender, and, I knew that to get a good position it was necessary to produce high quality work which required consistent dedication and perseverance during my graduated studies. Rather than being worried I focused on my research to achieve my goals. Examples of successful graduates around me who made their ways to a faculty position gave me further confidence that I could also make it.

LB: What has been the personally most rewarding experience so far in your career and also the biggest difficulty encountered so far in your career?

HA: From my PhD times I still remember the excitement and joy I had when my experiments finally worked after many trials and failures. I also remember the happy feeling after my first scientific paper got accepted in a peer-reviewed journal. I live through the same joy and happiness with each of my PhD students every time they experience such milestones. One of the most rewarding aspects of my career is to be part of their academic journey and guide them to succeed. Currently, the main difficulty is managing the time. As you progress in career you tend to get more responsibilities, expectations, and obligations to fulfill and it gets harder to manage all of these at your best with limited time.

LB: Did you encounter any difficulty in finding funding for PhD or a post-doc position related to the fact that you are a woman?

HA: I did not feel that I was discriminated negatively in finding funding because of my gender.

LB: Any suggestion to guarantee a balanced gender representation in physics?

HA: Due to the leaky pipeline few women choose to climb in the career ladder in physics, and science in general. Young girls are interested in math and science at the start but they choose to drop it later. As one of the factors, associating the stereotypical scientist images with men cannot resonate well with young women. In this regard having more successful women physicists could serve as role models and inspire them to continue in physics. Family balance is also an important factor in the leaky pipeline and institutions should give more family support (child care, career breaks etc) to young women so that they do not give up their career.

LB: Any particular advice for a young aspiring researcher?

HA: Choose a research topic that you are most passionate about and work on a problem that you believe you can make a difference. This will give you the power, self-motivation and confidence to succeed. Also, keep your spirit of newcomer always alive as it helps to improve yourself continuously by learning new things.

LB: Do you have any female ‘physicist cult figure’ or ‘role model’?

HA: While I was in high school Marie Skłodowska Curie has been the female physicist cult figure for me. Once I started university, I got to learn other female scientists like Emmy Noether, Maria Goeppert Mayer, Ada Lovelace, Chien-Shiung Wu. At the same time, it is easier to take someone as a role model from your closer surrounding and get connected with. In my undergrad years I was the only woman in my class and there were no female professors in the physics department to look up to as an example. Still, I was fortunate to be supported by my advisors and professors irrespective of their gender and used my energy to focus on science. On a positive side, during my PhD years and also later in my career I encountered amazingly successful female scientists who continue to inspire me.

Prof. Dr. Hatice Altug

The European Physical Society aims at promoting physics, especially among a young audience. In 2020, the Society published a calendar called "Inspiring Physicists".

The idea of this calendar obviously came to me as a way to put forward the laureates of the EPS Emmy Noether Distinction and to provide examples of living and committed scientists. It shows the variety of research fields in physics and wishes to inspire the young generations in their choice of studies. The calendar also presents some famous female figures.

Furthermore, the EPS regularly publishes interviews of inspiring young female physicists. Lucia Di Ciaccio, former chair of the EPS Equal Opportunities Committee, launched the idea in 2015. These interviews can be read online.

Every month of this year, a new physicist can be discovered in the calendar. The first version puts forward ladies only, because they are often under-represented in various areas of physics (scientific school books, history books, conference speakers, scientific reference).

Our calendar was distributed to our members in Europe and worldwide. Due to the SARS-CoV-2 crisis, the development of the actions started in schools or conferences was suddenly reduced and the follow-up made less easy. However, very positive feedback already came from our members before lockdowns : distribution to physics teachers at conferences, use as educational medium to raise interest in sciences in classrooms or training schools and in an exhibition of famous women.

We hope that with the help of enthusiastic teachers and scientists, our calendar will inspire young pupils to study physics and to give them the taste of science in 2020 and beyond.

Left: the calendar cover with the names of the physicists presented inside - Right: the EPS Distinction for Women Physics is named after the mathematician Emmy Noether

More info :

• interviews of EPS Emmy Noether laureates: http://www.epsnews.eu/ and https://www.eps.org/blogpost/751263/Activities
• interviews of inspiring physicists: http://www.epsnews.eu/2018/07/eps-wishes-you-a-great-summer/
  
• EPS Emmy Noether Distinction: https://www.eps.org/?page=distinction_prize_en