Officers

President

Julia Hinds (she/her)

Julia is the President of WaMPS, and she oversees WaMPS such as organizing events, acting as a liaison with other organizations and MSU, and soliciting volunteers for officer positions. She is a fourth-year graduate student, enjoys running, knitting, and traveling. Her research is looking at physics beyond the standard model, which is done using the ATLAS detector at CERN.

Secretary

Amelia Doetsch (she/her)

As the WaMPS secretary, Amelia keeps a record of all meetings. She is a second year graduate student. Amelia enjoys hiking, creative writing, and vegan baking & cooking. Her research is in experimental nuclear physics and involves the study of transitions between different nuclear states.

Mentoring Co-Chair

Roy Salinas (he/him/his)

Roy is one of the Mentoring Coordinators of WaMPS, and runs the mentoring programs for WaMPS during the summer, fall, and spring semesters. Some of the many things he enjoys entail exercising, reading biographies and science fiction, basketball, and listening to tons of different genres of music. He is a third year physics PhD student in experimental nuclear physics currently focused on lifetime measurements of exotic nuclei.

Website and Social Media Administrator

Tracy Edwards (she/her)

Tracy is the Website and Social Media Administrator for WaMPS and is responsible for maintaining the website and promoting events. She is a 3rd-year grad student with a research focus in nuclear physics and radiochemistry. Tracy enjoys binge-watching crime shows in her free time, learning how to cook from YouTube videos, and being a cat mom to Lilo and Stitch!

Public Engagement Coordinator

James Huffman (he/him)

James is a Public Engagement Coordinator for WaMPS. He helps to coordinate and facilitate public outreach events to help spread the enjoyment of science and encourage the next generation of science all-stars. James is a 3rd year graduate student who enjoys playing guitar, traveling, and skiing, and is passionate about all things space and science. His research in nuclear astrophysics at FRIB hopes to help explain the origin of the elements and improve current detector design.

Weekly Gathering Space Organizer

Bill Good (he/him)

Bill is the Weekly Gathering Space Organizer for WaMPS and is in charge of organizing and maintaining the WaMPS Weekly Gathering Space. He is a first-year graduate student who enjoys music, mixed martial arts, and spending time with his cats. His research studies the strong nuclear force using a computational formulation of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) called lattice QCD.

Vice President

Carissa Myers (she/her)

Carissa is the Vice-President of WaMPS, and she organizes WaMPS’s meet the speaker events and provides extra supports the other officers. She is a fourth-year graduate student, who enjoys working out, reading, and traveling. Her research area is within physics education research, and she is investigating how and why self-efficacy, or one’s confidence in their abilities to execute a task, changes over time.

Treasurer

Ian Morris (he/him)

Ian is the Treasurer of WaMPS, and he manages the budget and provides reimbursements for WaMPS-related expenses. He is a second-year graduate student who enjoys coaching his undergraduate debate team, working out, and traveling. His research area is experimental condensed matter physics, and he is investigating novel vacancy centers in diamond for implementation as qubits.

Mentoring Co-Chair

Georgia Votta (she/her)

Georgia is one of the Mentoring Coordinators of WaMPS, and runs the mentoring programs for WaMPS during the summer, fall, and spring semesters. She enjoys baking, biking, exercising, and playing the trumpet in her free time. She is a second-year physics graduate student in experimental nuclear physics, and specifically studies the properties of neutron-unbound nuclei.

Public Engagement Coordinator

Bryan Stanley (he/him)

Bryan is a Public Engagement coordinator for WaMPS. He organizes science engagement events, collaborating with community partners in developing public science programming. Bryan is a 4th-year physics graduate student passionate about public engagement and community building around science. He works in the Physics Education Research Lab, studying informal physics, which means physics learning that does not take place in a classroom setting (ex. demo shows, public talks, open houses, etc.)

First-year Liaison

Pratik Kafle(he/him)

Pratik is the first-year liaison officer for WaMPS and is responsible for facilitating communication between first year graduate students and WaMPS. He is a 1st year grad student with a research focus in high energy physics. Pratik enjoys playing soccer and hiking.

Undergraduate Liaison

Sara Sawford(she/her)

Sara is the Undergraduate Liaison for WaMPS and is responsible for communicating the wants and needs of the undergraduate students to WaMPS. She is a second-year undergraduate student studying physics and mathematics with a research focus in high energy physics. In her free time, Sara enjoys baking, gymnastics, and reading anything science fiction.