Maya Silverman is a 4th year graduate student studying theoretical astro-particle physics. She plays an integral role in Rising Stargirls, which is an astronomy and astrobiology outreach program for middle-school girls from groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences. Maya worked as the program coordinator for the Rising Stargirls workshop over the summer, and will be leading a public educator webinar in the winter quarter. Maya says that they hope to use science and art to create enlightened future scientists and imaginative thinkers.
Rising Stargirls is an outreach program geared towards middle-school girls from groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences in astronomy and astrobiology. Using theater, writing, and visual arts, Rising Stargirls provides an avenue for individual self-expression and personal exploration that is interwoven with scientific engagement and discovery. Rising Stargirls holds creative astronomy workshops and educator webinars to train educators across the world. These workshops are created by Professor Aomawa Shields and are based on the Teaching and Activity Handbook (publicly available on the Rising Stargirls website).
Maya first learned about Rising Stargirls after taking the qualifying exams in her first year. Another grad student introduced her to Rising Stargirls, to which she then reached out to Professor Shields about getting involved. This past summer Maya coordinated the second virtual summer workshop. As program coordinator, Maya recruited, onboarded, and oversaw communications, administration, facilitation, content creation, and technical support teams. This was the first time Rising Stargirls was run by a team of over 10 people, so Maya had to implement strategies for communication within and across teams. During the workshop, she led one activity on dark matter, her own research interest. In the near future, she plans to run a public educator webinar.
There are two things Maya says she enjoys most about Rising Stargirls. The first is the community that she found through her involvement in the program. The team is composed mostly of undergraduate and graduate students at UCI, so she sees them around the department, gaining friends and a large support system. She also gets the opportunity to meet with the local communities outside of UCI. Secondly, Maya enjoys watching middle school girls discover and share their love for astronomy. She says it is both fun and rewarding to see the creativity and excitement that they bring to each activity. If you are interested in getting engaged with Rising Stargirls or plan to work with middle school students in the future, Maya encourages you to email her at msilver2@uci.edu for more information.
In addition to her efforts in Rising Stargirls, Maya is also the secretary for Underrepresented Genders in Physics and Astronomy (UNITY) at UCI. She co-founded the Graduate School Support Scholarship through UNITY, which offers funding for GRE and graduate school application fees to undergraduates. This past summer, she also worked as a GSR for the Graduate Division to create and facilitate a training for the Fellowship Mentors Consultation Program (https://grad.uci.edu/professional-development/fellowship-mentors-program/). As part of this, she helped to create a website with information about applying to high-stakes fellowships like the NSF GRFP and Ford Foundation Fellowship (available here https://grad.uci.edu/professional-development/fellowship-mentors-program/fellowship-application-roadmap/)
Maya’s research interest in astroparticle physics started with her fascination with dark matter (DM). During undergrad, she worked with Professor Stefano Profumo on various projects concerning both particle physics and astrophysics. At UCI, she works with Professor Manoj Kaplinghat comparing simulations to observations of Milky Way-like galaxies to constrain the particle nature of dark matter. While she says there are many theories for what DM can be, self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) is a model that is well motivated by particle physics and that may be able to solve problems in astrophysics. Maya aims to constrain the self-interaction cross section of SIDM using observable quantities, like the distribution and central density of satellite galaxies within the Milky Way.
Outside of work, Maya loves rock climbing and acroyoga. When the weather is nice, she will play volleyball and go on hikes. Occasionally, she goes camping and backpacking. She makes sure to schedule fun activities in her calendar (like climbing, dance classes, dinners with friends, etc.) and tries not to work on the weekends unless it’s necessary. She also makes sure to eat at least three meals a day, not work after dinner, and aims to get at least 8 hours of sleep each night.
In the future, Maya plans to become a professor. She wants to continue doing research and working with students, as she enjoys teaching, mentoring, and working to change the culture in physics and astronomy to be more inclusive.
