Meet the speakers for the 2024 Tulane University APS CUWiP experience!
Dr. Saundra McGuire, PhD
Dr. Saundra Yancy McGuire is Professor Emerita of Chemistry and Director Emerita of the Center for Academic Success at Louisiana State University. Prior to joining LSU, she spent eleven years at Cornell University, where she received the coveted Clark Distinguished Teaching Award. Her best-selling books Teach Students How to Learn and Teach Yourself How to Learn were published by Stylus Publishing. The Parents’ Guide to Studying and Learning was released in January 2022. She has delivered keynote addresses or presented workshops at over 500 institutions in 47 states and fourteen countries on six continents.
Dr. McGuire’s most recent accolades include being listed in 2023 as one of the Top 100 Learning Influencers by Eduflow, being named a 2022 Louisiana Legend by Louisiana Public Broadcasting, being listed in the 2020 edition of Marquis Who’s Who in America, receiving the 2019 Commitment to Excellence in Academic Support Award from the Commission for Academic Support in Higher Education, and induction in 2017 into the LSU College of Science Hall of Distinction. She is an elected Fellow of the American Chemical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Council of Learning Assistance and Developmental Education Associations. She received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring in a White House Oval Office Ceremony.
Dr. McGuire received her B.S. degree, magna cum laude, from Southern University in Baton Rouge, LA, her master’s degree from Cornell University, and her Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, where she received the Chancellors Citation for Extraordinary Professional Promise.
She is married to Dr. Stephen C. McGuire, the James and Ruth Smith Professor of Physics Emeritus at Southern University. They are the parents of Dr. Carla McGuire Davis and Dr. Stephanie McGuire, and the doting grandparents of Joshua, Ruth, Daniel, and Joseph Davis.
The link to her presentation can be found here.
Dr. Kimberly Foster, PhD
Dr. Kimberly Foster (formerly Turner) became the new Dean of the Tulane University School of Science and Engineering on August 1, 2018.
Following her PhD, she moved to UC Santa Barbara, where as an assistant professor, she began a laboratory effort focused on understanding and exploiting nonlinear dynamics for a wide range of microscale sensors. She became Associate Professor in 2004, and Full Professor in 2008.
Foster has always worked on research that falls at the boundaries between fields and has many research collaborators worldwide. She has over 175 refereed publications in journals including Nature and PNAS. Her research has been featured on TV shows, NPR (Canada), and many international publications. She has mentored 21 students to completion of PhD’s, and her interdisciplinary research has been funded by NSF, ARMY, AFOSR, DARPA, as well as the Keck Foundation. She is an elected Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, is on the founding Editorial Board of Sensors Letters Journal, and on the editorial board of Microelectronic Engineering journal.
Kimberly Foster’s current scholarly research interests include nonlinear microelectromechanical systems, micro/nanoscale mechanics and biomedical technology development.
In her role in the School of Science & Engineering at Tulane, she
is committed to fostering a culture of convergent learning and research, including increasing research opportunities for students, creating a culture of lifelong learning, and embracing the intersection of the science and
engineering disciplines.
Dr. Gabriela González, PhD
Gabriela González
Gabriela González is a Louisiana State University Boyd Professor of physics and astronomy searching for gravitational waves with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, LIGO, team funded by the National Science Foundation.
Born in Córdoba, Argentina, González attended the University of Córdoba to pursue her “Licenciatura” (similar to a M.Sc.), graduating in 1988. She moved to New York to pursue her Ph.D. at Syracuse University, obtained in 1995. She was a staff scientist in the LIGO group at MIT, joined the faculty at Penn State in 1997 and moved to LSU in 2001.
Dr. González has received awards from the American Physical Society, the American Astronomical Society and the National Academy of Sciences and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the US and Argentinian National Academies of Sciences. She has been a member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration since 1997, served as spokesperson from 2011-2017, and participated in the international announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves in 2016. Her group Her group is very involved in the instrumental characterization and calibration of the data collected and reducing noise sources in the data-taking Science Runs performed by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC).