Hall C Graduate Student Wins 2008 Blewett Scholarship

Hampton University graduate student and Hall C user, Ya Li, was one of three women awarded the American Physical Society’s M. Hildred Blewett Scholarship for 2008. Over her shoulder are photos of her children.

Hampton University graduate student, Ya Li, was one of three early-career women to be awarded the American Physical Society’s M. Hildred Blewett scholarship this year. Blewett, a particle accelerator physicist who died in 2004, was passionate about her field and wanted to help women scientists who had delayed their studies and careers for family reasons.

Li certainly fits that bill: The mother of three – Jacob, 4; Owen, 2 1/2 and Yealiya who is under a year old – chose to stay home for two years to be with the children rather than completing her Ph.D.

Her husband, Tim Southern, whom she met at Jefferson Lab, is a crew chief for CEBAF operations in the Accelerator Division. Since he works rotating shifts, it was nearly impossible for the couple to find and finance adequate childcare. The $18,000 she received from the scholarship is paying for that, and has allowed her to focus on her research.

"This has changed our lives," she said with a smile. "With no family nearby to help out, I’d been feeling really overwhelmed."

Li grew up in Wenzhou, China, and received her undergraduate degree in physics and master's in condensed matter physics from Tongji University in Shanghai. She first came to the United States in January 2001 to continue her work at the University of Houston, where she had a position as a research assistant and completed a second master's, this one in medium energy physics.

"Physics and math have always come easily to me," she recalled. "There was no single event that set my course. I just took to it naturally."

Although she learned English as a second language in China, using it in conversation when she came to the U.S. proved challenging. "The good thing was that in Texas many speak fairly slowly," she said.

She first came to Jefferson Lab in May 2003 to work on experiment E00-108, Duality in Meson Electroproduction, in Hall C under the auspices of her advisor, Ed Hungerford. She found a welcoming and supportive environment.

"Rolf Ent and Hamlet Mkrtchyan were wonderful about helping me get started," she noted. "I had no knowledge in this specific area, and they really held my hand all the way through."

Ent and Mkrtchyan encouraged her to continue pursuing her Ph.D. and to return to JLab after each of the one-year leaves she took with her first two children. "I was going to quit, but I really love physics. They gave me such encouragement and support."

By the spring of 2007, Li had talked with Thia Keppel, JLab/Hampton University, who, she said, "took her in." In fact, it was Keppel who told her about the Blewett scholarship.

Li is currently working with Hampton University Professor Eric Christy finalizing her analysis of a Hall C experiment that measured the nuclear dependence of the nucleon's longitudinal structure function.

She expects to finish her Ph.D. by summer 2009 and hopes to find a post-doc position to continue her work.