The NSBP Visions Seminar Series is designed to be a welcoming series of informal fireside chats highlighting a broad range of research ideas and topics. An NSBP member is paired with a seasoned scientist or thought leader from a different field (typically in science or technology) so that they may have a dialogue and find commonality in their differing opinions and interests. The purpose of these talks is to provide a platform for members to explore their research ideas, broaden their physics knowledge and network with professionals. Through this series, we aim to bring physics to the people: that is make physics accessible and understandable to the public. Moreover, as always, our mission is to continue to promote the image of the Black scientist and share our members’ excellence with the rest of the world.
LaNell A. Williams is a current Ph.D. student at Harvard University
studying soft condensed matter physics. Born and raised in Memphis, TN,
LaNell graduated with her Bachelors of Arts Degree in Physics at
Wesleyan University. LaNell went on to finish her Masters of Arts Degree
from Fisk University and continued on to Harvard University to pursue
her Ph.D. Her current research interest includes an in-depth analysis of
the physics of self-assembled systems by studying the assembly pathway
of viruses. She is a current member of the Equity and Inclusion
committee in Harvard’s Physics Department. She is also the co- founder
of the Women of Color Project (WOCP), an initiative geared towards
providing women of color resources on graduate school applications. As
of January 2020, she was elected as Councilor of the Forum on Graduate
Student Affairs (FGSA) and the Forum on Early Careers (FECS). As of
August 2020, she has also joined the APS IDEA – Steering committee.
Duane Velz
Duane Valz has counseled a wide variety of privately held and public
companies on law, technology and business matters. He is VP &
General Counsel of Insitro, a venture-backed company applying machine
learning and automation to disease target identification and new drug
development. Prior to Insitro, Duane was VP & General Counsel of
Zymergen Inc., a molecular technology growth company operating at the
intersection of biology, chemistry, automation and machine learning.
Duane was previously a senior member of the Patent Team at Google, where
he led strategic IP initiatives bearing on mobile, cloud, web, and open
source technologies. He was also previously Associate General Counsel
in charge of patent development at Yahoo! Duane began his career at
Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin (now combined with
Arnold & Porter LLP). Duane also serves on the Board of Directors
for SMASH.org and is an advisory board member for UCOP's MESA program,
both focused on supporting underrepresented students in the pursuit of
educations and careers in STEM fields.
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