You can help paint a fuller picture of the physical sciences community. AIP collects and preserves visual documentation of the personal and professional lives of physical scientists. Our archive of photos, and the stories behind them, is widely used by members of the physical science community, historians and researchers.
Pictures of scientists play an important role in shaping ideas about what kinds of people practice science and what kinds of activities scientists engage in, so it is critical we have access to rich and diverse visual documentation of both who practices science and the full lives science professionals lead.
Each month we’ll feature a recent contributor to our archive and share their images and story. Thanks to a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, AIP will highlight women’s contributions to the physical sciences as well.
Physicist Sarah D. Johnson.
Credit: Sarah Johnson
Exploring the Building Blocks of Matter
If we want to learn about the universe, if we want to understand the building blocks of matter, we have to collaborate with each other to do it. “
In 2021, Johnson was appointed Associate Dean – Learning in the SFU Faculty of Science. In this position, she leads teaching and learning initiatives across the faculty. She was the recipient of the 2018 CAP Medal for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.
In 2023, she was awarded a 3M National Teaching Fellowship in recognition of her teaching accomplishments and educational leadership.
If we want to create new technologies, then we have to have a good understanding of the fundamental particles and the forces that govern how matter and energy interact.”
Sarah Johnson received her Ph.D. in Experimental Particle Physics from the University of Rochester in 1993. Following graduation, she did postdoctoral research at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. Afterwards she transitioned to teaching at the university-level, working at three different four-year colleges in the United States before joining the Simon Fraser University Physics Department in the summer of 2005.
As a university lecturer, Johnson’s duties include teaching physics, developing curriculum, and organizing public outreach activities, especially events aimed at high school girls such as Girls Exploring Physics.
Sarah Johnson, Ph.D. working with an undergraduate student to debug a circuit in an electronics lab at Simon Fraser University.
Credit: Sarah Johnson, Ph.D.
Explore Recent Additions to Our Faces of the Physical Sciences Collection
The central calorimeter of the D-Zero Experiment at Fermilab under construction. A group of physics grad students & postdocs and Fermilab technical staff stand in front of the detector in white clean suits. Names provided by donor include Sarah Johnson, Joan Guida, Gerry Blazey, Terry Heuring, Seung Ahn, and Pat Mooney.
Credit: Photo taken by Fermilab staff photographer, 1990.
Physics instructor Sarah Johnson explains an angular momentum demonstration, which involves suspending a bicycle wheel from the ceiling and causing it to precess like a gyroscope.
Credit: Gift of Sarah Johnson, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
Physics instructor Sarah Johnson looks on as a Barbie doll’s hair stands up in a perfect halo when placed on top of a Van de Graaff generator which creates an electric field. The demonstration was done for a 6th grade class at Queen Elizabeth Elementary School.
Credit: Gift of Sarah D. Johnson, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
Sarah Johnson, physics instructor at Simon Fraser University, holds a bowling ball pendulum bob used to demonstrate conservation of energy in front of a large lecture class.
Credit: Sarah Johnson, Ph.D.
Sarah Johnson, physics instructor at Simon Fraser University, gets ready to release a bowling ball that is suspended from a long cable. This is the “Super Pendulum” and it is used to demonstrate conservation of energy.
Credit: Gift of Sarah D. Johnson, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
Physicist Sarah Johnson (left) and astrophysicist Katie Mack standing in front of a D-Wave Quantum Computer in Burnaby, BC, Canada. Photographer: Mark Johnson /
Copyright Holder: Sarah D. Johnson
Darine Haddad from the Fundamental Electrical Measurements Group at NIST connecting to NIST-4 Kibble balance a Quantum Hall Array Resistance Standards (QHARS) placed in a 9T magnetic field at cryogenic temperature.
Credit: Darine Haddad, Ph.D.
Dr. Gemma Rius, tenured Research Scientist at the Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain), presents on the research and development activities of the Institute of Micro and Nanoelectronics to a group of young students. This outreach activity was the first guided tour to a research institute in Catalan Sign Language. It was part of a Science Communication activity within a project funded by the FCRI (Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation) on STEM for people with hearing impairments.
Credit: Donated by Gemma Rius, 2025.
A van used by IceCube to transport people and supplies at the South Pole. The wheels have been replaced by Matrax tracks.
Credit: AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives, gift of Spencer Klein.
Group portrait of the nuclear physics medicine team testing a Siemens SPECT camera at the University of Florida Shands Healthcare System. (L-R) Dr. Izabella Barreto, Dr. Stephanie Leon, Dr. Anahita Heshmat, Homa Mojabi, and Dr. Mercy Akerele.
Credit: Izabella Barreto, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives
Portrait of Marcel F. Corchado Albelo, a solar physics graduate student working at the National Solar Observatory, at Mar Chiquita in Vega Baja, Puerto Rico.
Credit: Welmo Romero, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives
Dr. Joyful Mdhluli (standing, left) leads a panel discussion at the 32nd IAU General Assembly, held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre in Cape Town, South Africa. Other panelists included Dr. Khotso Mokhele (center) and Dr. Vanessa McBride (right).
Credit: Bradley Urion, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives
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Dr. Darine Haddad, from the Fundamental Electrical Measurements Group at NIST, explains how changes in gravity within the room affect measurements of the balance.
Credit: Trevor Owens, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
Science is Teamwork
The work represented in this image is not just about an instrument. It is about decades of discovery, collaboration, creativity, and people working together to make measurements more reliable for everyone.”
Haddad received her Ph.D. in Optics, Optoelectronics and Microwaves in 2004 from the University of Versailles, France, where she continued teaching and doing research in the field of optical sensors and dimensional metrology. In 2006 she worked on precision experiments to measure the Planck constant, first as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Laboratoire National de Métrologie et d’Essais (LNE), France, and since 2008 at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, USA.
Science may look hard, and it is, but it is also deeply fun. I get to learn something new every day, solve new challenges, and know that the work is helping advance science and technology.”
Darine Haddad is currently the project lead at NIST for the US primary realization of the unit of mass (named NIST-4), and the Quantum Electro-Mechanical Metrology Suite (QEMMS), featuring the compensation of gravitational forces with the use of two quantum electrical standards, bridging classical mechanics with quantum mechanics in a single experiment.
Dr. Darine Haddad, from the Fundamental Electrical Measurements Group at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), shows the NIST-4 Kibble Balance to a tour group.
Credit: Trevor Owens, courtesy of AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.
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Digital photography has transformed how we record our lives and connect with each other. At the same time, the people and roles that make up the physical sciences have changed considerably.
We can no longer wait until people retire and hope their photographs eventually make their way into our collections. We need to connect with scientists throughout their careers and be part of how they document their lives and work, so the record we preserve reflects the physical sciences as they are today.
Chief Research Officer , AIP
Read More About AIP’s Faces of the Physical Sciences Initiative
