Fields Notes 18.1 | Page 7

FEATURED 53rd Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference October 20-24, 2017 • Carleton University Organizers: Ben Hansson and Waqar Muhammad (Carleton University) The Canadian Undergraduate Physics Conference (CUPC) is an annual event run by students in partnership with the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP). It was first held in 1965 by McGill University and the University of Toronto. CUPC has since grown into the largest undergraduate physics conference in North America, having been hosted in nine provinces by over 20 different institutions. The 53rd CUPC gathered over 220 undergraduates from across Canada, and over 300 participants in total. The conference featured four plenary lectures, 128 student talks, 52 posters, 16 laboratories at Carleton and the National Research Council, and 32 institutions attended the Graduate Fair. Dr. Lawrence Krauss (Arizona State University) gave the feature lecture on the recent LIGO – VIRGO gravitational wave discovery and its implications, Dr. David Sinclair (Carleton) discussed his involvement with SNOLAB and the history of neutrino experiments, Dr. Sangeeta Murugkar (Carleton) talked about applications of biophotonics to medical physics, and Dr. Rowan Thomson (Carleton) spoke on computational models for radiotherapy. Student talks were on a wide range of topics, from astrophysics to biophysics. The CUPC recognized the top three presenters from each category, and the CAP awarded a medal to the top student presenter overall, Aaron Lyon (Simon Fraser). Finally, the CAP’s Committee to Encourage Women in Physics awarded the top poster presentation to Holly Christiani (University of Alberta). Throughout the conference, attendees were treated to beautiful October weather and a quiet Carleton campus. The conference ran smoothly thanks to the active support of the Carleton Department of Physics, CAP, and the team of enthusiastic volunteers.  7