{"id":11069,"date":"2015-08-11T07:31:53","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T12:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=11069"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:07:53","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:07:53","slug":"berger-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=11069","title":{"rendered":"From Hollywood to physics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Casey<\/a>
Casey Berger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Right after graduating from Boston University with a degree in film and television production, Casey Berger packed up and headed out west with aspirations of becoming a film producer.<\/p>\n

But when Hollywood turned out to be a bad fit for the Columbus, Ohio native, she started looking for a different career path.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I thought about going back to school, the two things that came to mind were math and sciences,\u201d she said. \u201cThe more research that I did, I realized that I could do both if I did physics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berger\u2019s reassessment has led her to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where, this fall, she will start working toward a Ph.D. in physics<\/a> as a member of the Graduate School\u2019s<\/a> Royster Society of Fellows.<\/a><\/p>\n

She is among the incoming class of 29 doctoral students selected from around the world to receive five-year fellowships within the Royster Society of Fellows. Members of the Royster Society are selected based on their academic performance, research, work, and service and life experiences. While at Carolina, they receive financial support and participate in an active community of graduate students in programs across the campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m honored to receive it,\u201d Berger said. \u201cIt was a really big vote of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interested in quantum many-body physics, which studies the interactions of subatomic particles, Berger will be working under the tutelage of Joaquin Drut of the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n

But up until three years ago \u2014 after graduating from Boston University with a double major \u2014 Berger hadn\u2019t even taken a college science class. Although she was interested in the sciences growing up, she hadn\u2019t thought about pursuing it in college.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomewhere in middle school or high school, I got the idea that I may really like science, but I wasn\u2019t good enough to do it as a career,\u201d she said. \u201cI had a lot of misconceptions on what a scientist was. I kind of envisioned a person alone in a lab with a white coat mixing chemicals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berger was initially interested in working in the film industry as a producer. But when the job didn\u2019t live up to her expectations, she returned home to attend Ohio State University in 2012 to try her hand in the sciences.<\/p>\n

During the summer before her final year in Ohio State, Berger enrolled in a Computational Astronomy and Physics Research Experiences for Undergraduates<\/a> program at Carolina, where she focused on computational astronomy and physics. During the program, she became more interested in quantum physics \u2014 and interested in UNC-Chapel Hill.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Quantum many-body theory] really has a broad range of applications, which I like,\u201d she said. \u201cI won\u2019t just be working on one problem for the rest of my life. It is a nice border of astrophysics, nuclear physics and particle physics.\u201d<\/p>\n

While she excelled in the physics program at Ohio State \u2014 eventually graduating summa cum laude with research distinction in physics \u2014 she quickly picked up on a glaring issue: there were significantly fewer women than men in her classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy very first class at Ohio State, I went into this big lecture hall and the room started to fill up \u2014 there were about a hundred people in there \u2014 and I couldn\u2019t find any girls,\u201d she recalled. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t something that I was very much aware of until I started at OSU.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you think of scientists, you kind of think \u2018white male.\u2019 But it wasn\u2019t until I had that very visceral experience of \u2018Oh my God, if I speak up, I\u2019m representing all the women because there are only five of us.\u2019 It really puts pressure on you in a way that you don\u2019t expect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lack of women in the field led her to join the university\u2019s Society for Women in Physics as co-chair for two years and to volunteer with science outreach programs to help improve the status of women and underrepresented minorities in physics.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Berger aspires to become a professor as a means to mentor and provide more outreach, but in the meantime she hopes to work with high school students to engage them in science and encourage them \u2014 regardless of gender or race \u2014 to continue in the sciences.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a difficult world to break into when you don\u2019t look like anyone who is already there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

By Brandon Bieltz, UNC Office of Communications and Public Affairs<\/em><\/p>\n

This story is part of the \u201cNew Year, New Faces\u201d series. As UNC-Chapel Hill prepares to begin a new fall semester, UNC Communications profiles some of the new Tar Heels who will be looking to innovate, educate, serve \u2013 and change the world.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Casey Berger\u2019s career path has taken her from Hollywood to UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences where, this fall, she will start working toward a Ph.D. in physics as a member of the Graduate School\u2019s Royster Society of Fellows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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