Physics seeks to explain and explore the mysteries of the universe. Jacqueline Williams, recent graduate and this years Lieutenant Governors Gold Medal and Governor Generals Silver Medallion recipient, embraced the many facets of the discipline by exploring physics itself throughout her jam-packed undergraduate career.
From her first year of university, Williams has tried everything from chemical physics to biophysics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics.
I really didnt know that there were so many different areas of physics, says Williams. I think a lot of my peers went into physics knowing what areas of physics they were interested in. For me, I wanted to explore what was there and see what I ended up learning. Its been a lot of fun."
Though the new alumna graduated in June with a BSc(Hon) in astrophysics, she says her days of exploring physics are nowhere near over.
The questions that physicists explore are really interesting. Even for non-scientists, there just seems to be this growing, fundamental curiosity about a lot of areas of physics, especially astrophysics and cosmology," she says. "I still dont even know what area is really best for me because Ive done so much exploring and theres so much left to look into.
Taking a chance leads to new personal passion
Williams' astrophysics degree took a somewhat unusual turn right from the beginning. In her first year, she took a required computer science course for multidisciplinary studies that focused on the Python programming language.
I was terrified going into it because I didnt know anything about coding. I hadnt done any coding at all before I got into first year, so I didnt know if I was going to be able to do it, she says.
She found herself catching on quickly, and enjoying the course. When the opportunity to do summer research involving programming came up, Williams jumped at the chance. Even though I knew nothing about web-based coding languages at all I thought Id try it out.
She started working with senior instructor Jason Donev from the Department of Physics and Astronomy for the next two summers, doing data visualization work for energyeducation.ca, teaching herself HTML and Javascript along the way.
The site, Williams says, is a resource for university students and the public to learn about energy issues. She explains, Its kind of like Wikipedia, but the information has all been checked by UCalgary. It has replaced textbooks for some courses, both at this university and several other institutions.
A rounded education from the massive to the microscopic
With an added passion in hand, Williams continued to take every research opportunity she could. The opportunity to continue doing coding work, she says, was an added appeal to her astrophysics research with professor Denis Leahy, which had her making a modelling program for supernova remnant evolution.
Dr. Leahy had already written a Mathcad program that put together several equations in the literature describing how supernova remnants evolve over time, she explains. I took the work hed already done and put it in a more user-friendly Python program where users can put in parameters about the supernova remnant and see how its evolving over time and, for example, what its radius might be or at what velocity its expanding at a certain given point in time.
That work, for which Williams had received an Undergraduate Student Research Award from NSERC, was published in The Astronomical Journal in May 2017, with Williams listed as the second author.
Testing her skills out yet again, Williams decided to try her hand at biophysics for her honours thesis in her last year. Her supervisor for the project was Pina Colarusso, director at the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases'Live Cell Imaging (LCI) Resource Laboratory.
This work saw her focus shift from studying massive supernovas to helping develop super-resolution microscopy techniques to study Weibel-Palade bodies, the storage granules of the endothelial cells that form the inner lining of the blood vessels and heart.
'It was totally different from anything Id done before'
I liked the idea of doing something that had a bit more lab work, she says. A lot of what I had been doing was coding, so it was more theoretical. Being able to do work at the lab was a great opportunity because it was totally different from anything Id done before.
Surprisingly, the work Williams had done in her astrophysics coursework tied in quite well to the microscopy research at the LCI. Microscopy has a lot of image processing involved. Astrophysics also has a lot of image processing and image analysis. Youre using similar sorts of software. My focus was on implementing the technique and exploring how it could be used to get greater detail in these images than what was previously possible with optical light microscopy.
However, she says, It was a little bit further outside my comfort zone. I thought it was really good to push myself, try doing something different, and see if that was something I would enjoy even more.
Although Williams was deeply immersed in her research, she found time to try something completely different altogether. I sang in the choir here, which you can actually take as a course! I had a lot of fun doing that the choir here sings everything from Beethoven to Adele. Its members are all sorts of people from different faculties. I had a couple other friends in there too, says Williams, who also plays violin. It can be kind of hard to fit in your hobbies during your degree but I like to do it for a break.
'Great community' and research opportunities helped open doors
While her undergraduate studies have been diverse and very busy, Williams graduated earning two of Canadas top academic honours.
She credits her supportive professors, a great community of fellow students, and her family with helping her along the way. The born-and-raised Calgarian says she felt lucky to have such a great university to attend in her hometown.
I never really felt the need to leave and go somewhere else because the programs here are already so good. I was very lucky to get all the research opportunities from the first year onward. I definitely got a lot of encouragement, and when youre working closer with a supervisor or professor you feel like youve got support going through the program, and helps you feel like youre more involved with the department. It was great to get those opportunities.
After taking some well-earned time, Williams plans to fine-tune her academic and career goals.
I want to get a bit of perspective. Its a bit of an open book right now, this upcoming year and after that. But Im excited to see what I end up doing.
Read more here: