Celebrating the Physical Sciences and Embracing Diversity:
The 6th AIP Early-Career Conference for Historians of the Physical Sciences
August 4–9, 2025 — Salvador, Brazil
The American Institute of Physics (AIP) and the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) are pleased to host the sixth international conference for graduate students and early career scholars, to be held August 4–9, 2025, in Salvador, Brazil. “Early Career” includes graduate students and recent PhDs, independent scholars, post-docs, and those in early-stage academic positions. This conference aims to provide a space for professional and creative communication and collaboration across national and disciplinary boundaries amongst junior scholars, and to provide a forum for exploring and reflecting upon current issues in the historiography of the physical sciences.
Remarkably, 2025 marks the centenary of quantum mechanics — or, closer to us, a decade from the discovery of gravitational waves. In this context, this conference aims to broaden the conversation by celebrating significant milestones in the development of the physical sciences and, for the first AIP early-career event in the global south, by acknowledging and addressing the need for greater diversity in the field and in its reflexive approach.
We welcome submissions for 20-minute oral presentations, including works-in-progress, from all time periods and areas of the history of the physical sciences (including earth sciences, industrial physics, astronomy, chemistry, space sciences, and more) addressing in particular, but not limited to, the following topics:
- The role of diversity in the evolution of the physical sciences
- Milestones and turning points in the physical sciences
- Perspectives on the centenary of quantum mechanics
- Transformative discoveries in the physical sciences
- Dynamics between the local and the global, the small and the large, the celebrated and invisible
- Contributions of underrepresented groups
- Decolonizing the historiography of the physical sciences and/or decolonial research in the historiography of the physical sciences
- Feminist and gender approaches to the physical sciences
- Commemoration and the teaching of the physical sciences
- Challenges in the study of the physical sciences
All historiographical perspectives are welcome, from socio-cultural to highly technical, as well as cross-disciplinary.
In addition to sessions with submitted papers, the conference program will feature roundtables, workshops, and other events designed to foster a community of scholars and develop career skills. The conference will also provide an opportunity for junior scholars to interact with invited senior scholars.
The conference is also sponsored by the Inter-Union Commission for the History and Philosophy of Physics (IUCHPP), which will award two medals of the IUPAP Early Career Prize in the History of Physics during the conference.
*Supplementary travel funds will be available for all participants*
Paper proposals should be submitted via the form available at https://linktr.ee/aipecc by November 15, 2024. The application form requires the following information:
- Your name
- E-mail address
- Institutional affiliation
- Presentation title and abstract (1300 characters max., not including title)
- A short biography, indicating where you are in your studies and/or career (1300 characters max.)
Applicants will be notified by January 31st, 2025, at the latest.
All questions may be directed to the conference committee at EarlyCareer.AIP@gmail.com.