Yes...I am here...

Joint Conference: NSBP-NSHP

The theme: Global Competitiveness Through Diversity. That about sums it up. I'm not in the above group photo. That's just from the advertisement for this conference. I wouldn't feel comfortable taking any photos without permission anyway.

I met in-person the Diversity Administrator at the American Physics Society. We follow each other on Twitter.

I met someone who I've posted on this blog for his contributions to science in the area of Device Physics.

I met a colleague from Argonne National Laboratories that remembers me as an undergraduate student at North Carolina A and T.

I spoke to many students and college recruiters (that goes on at a lot of these conferences). I listened to a doctoral candidate describe his research in carbon nanotube as it relates to third harmonics. I conversed with an undergraduate from the University of Washington whose name is "Barok" (Ethiopia) from other spellings: "Barak" (lightning) and "Baruch" Aramaic: blessed, as is the Ethiopian meaning.

I felt the passage of years as I met friends from graduate school and gentlemen that achieved their degrees as close as Harvard and as far away as Cambridge (England). I was in the semiconductor industry, then out, now in. It struck me: like lightning.

It gives me a sense of hope and comfort that we are here, that our contributions to society are in the frontiers of science, engineering, technology, mathematics and problem-solving. As I spoke to every person, exchanged business cards and saw the same wonder for knowledge in each face, I realized I was viewing my own reflection.

Science: a: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method, b : such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena : natural science

Physics: a science that deals with matter and energy and their interactions. Latin physica, plural, natural science, from Greek physika, from neuter plural of physikos of nature, from physis growth, nature, from phyein to bring forth
First Known Use: 1715

As Langston Hughes said: "I'm Still Here," and the better for it.

been scared and battered.
My hopes the wind done scattered.
Snow has friz me,
Sun has baked me,

Looks like between 'em they done
Tried to make me

Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'--
But I don't care!
I'm still here!