Graduate Student Working Group aims to promote success for future leaders

A new Graduate Student Working Group being started through Alabama’s Future Technologies & enabling Plasma Processes (FTPP) coalition will help build relationships and promote success among the students statewide who will become the skilled workforce of the future for plasma technologies.

The fledgling group is set to meet once monthly and is being led by Katherine Davidson, a doctoral candidate in space science at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) who studies ionosphere-thermosphere interactions in the auroral region of the atmosphere and is from Woodstock, Ga., and Jared Powell, a doctoral candidate in experimental plasma physics at Auburn University who is from Tecumseh, Mich.

goals for success

“Graduate school can be pretty tough, and especially during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, it can feel a little isolating,” Davidson says.

“We envision this group to serve two purposes,” she says. “The first is to build relationships between graduate students of various institutions, so that we can discuss some of the struggles that come with being a graduate student and come up with solutions and provide support for one another. The second is to expand our knowledge of research in the field of plasma physics, which will come from invited talks from senior scientists and student presentations.”

Powell says he also has another goal in mind.

“The third goal is to serve as a place to gain access to information and resources that are typically harder to find – things like graduate student health care, scholarship and fellowship resources and what to do once you graduate,” he says. “Information on topics such as these can be extremely important, but in my experience can be difficult to find, so I’m hoping this group can help bridge that knowledge gap.”

developing a plasma workforce

Students in the working group will come from FTPP’s 10 member universities. Led by The University of Alabama in Huntsville, under a $20-million-dollar grant from the National Science Foundation, FTPP is positioning Alabama as a Southeastern plasma technologies powerhouse by developing a plasma workforce and conducting and commercializing plasma research for applications in agriculture, manufacturing, space science, space weather prediction and more.

For Davidson and Powell, establishing connections among Alabama students who are matriculating to become new leaders in plasma physics is top of mind.

“I think collaboration and connecting with other people is very important, especially in science,” Powell says. “One of my favorite parts of attending any conference is getting to meet the other graduate students.”

But conferences are widely spaced on the calendar, so students only get that strong connection once or twice a year, he says.

“We want this meeting group to alleviate that problem by allowing students to meet much more frequently,” Powell says. “We hope to foster an environment where students feel comfortable to talk, collaborate and support each other.”

Davidson says project leads from each institution will be invited to discuss their research, so that the faculty members can meet the students from different institutions as well, adding another point of connection.

“For career development, we plan to discuss topics such as fellowship and scholarship opportunities, grant writing, presentation skills and networking at conferences,” she says. “Outside of technical career skills, we also plan to discuss topics like healthcare and mental health in graduate school, and imposter syndrome in plasma physics.”

support matrix

The fellowship will provide a unique matrix of support, Powell says.

“Because plasma physics is currently a relatively small community, you end up seeing the same people at every conference or seminar you attend, so making connections can be very helpful,” Powell says. “We also plan on having some career development-focused meetings, where people at various stages of their careers and on different career paths in academia, industry, etc., will offer advice and guidance on navigating the early career stages.”

Both from inviting speakers to discuss these topics and from sharing experiences, the students in the group will learn a lot about having a career in plasma physics, as well as growing as plasma physicists themselves, Davidson says.

“I can’t wait to see all the good that will come out of it!”

Please email Kat Davison (ktd0008@uah.edu) and Jared Powell (jcp0090@auburn.edu) for more information.