Collection context
Summary
- Abstract:
- Nina Byers was a theoretical physicist and professor in UCLA's Department of Physics and Astronomy. She joined UCLA in 1961 as an assistant professor, working on particle physics, CP-violation, and pion-nuclear charge-exchange scattering. Byers retired in 1993. This collection consists of materials related to her teaching career, research and personal life. The papers include materials related to courses she taught, seminar notes, research, anti-nuclear proliferation materials, professional and personal correspondence, and photographs. Additionally included are materials related to the publication of her book Out of the Shadows: Contributions of Twentieth-Century Women to Physics (2006).
- Extent:
- 2.4 Linear Feet (6 boxes)
- Language:
- Materials are in English.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Nina Byers papers (Collection 1898). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Background
- Scope and content:
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This collection consists of materials related to the teaching career, research, and personal life of UCLA Physics Professor Emerita Nina Byers. The papers includes materials related to courses she taught, lecture and seminar notes, research, anti-nuclear proliferation materials, and a university study in which she participated. Additionally there is professional and personal correspondence, and photographs, including letters regarding the 1965 Watts Riots, affirmative action for women in the UC system, and loyalty oaths. Materials related to Byers' personal life and education include her physics qualifying exams, datebook, curriculum vitae and biographical materials, and correspondence regarding her book Out of the Shadows: Contributions of Twentieth Century Women to Physics (2006).
- Biographical / historical:
-
Nina Byers was a theoretical physicist and professor in UCLA's Department of Physics and Astronomy. She was born in January 19, 1930 in Los Angeles, CA, and graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in physics in 1950. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 1956. Byers did postdoctoral work at the University of Birmingham, England, followed by a research position at Stanford University in 1958. She then began her teaching career at UCLA in 1961 as an assistant professor, working on particle physics, CP-violation, and pion-nuclear charge-exchange scattering. Byers was the only female professor in UCLA's Physics and Astronomy Department for more than 20 years.
Throughout the late 1960s and 1970s Byers split her time between teaching at UCLA and Oxford University. During this period, Byers was politically active, participating in efforts to support affirmative action for women in the UC system and advocating against nuclear proliferation. She supported awareness and education regarding the Holocaust. Byers also opposed the requirement that university faculty take loyalty oaths, which led to her decision to work in England for some time in the late 1950s.
In the 1980s she was an active member of the American Physical Society. Retiring in 1993, Byers remained an active professor emeritus. Her experience as a female physicist was central to her commitment to increase the representation of women in the sciences, particularly physics. Her work to document the accomplishments of women in this field culminated in her book Out of the Shadows: Contributions of Twentieth Century Women to Physics (2006). She also led an initiative to develop a website documenting women in the field of physics, Contributions to 20th Century Women to Physics. Byers passed away on June 5, 2014.
- Acquisition information:
- Morissa Landinsky Cohen; gift; 2014.
- Processing information:
-
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
Processed by Krystell Jimenez in the Center for Primary Research and Training (CFPRT) under the supervision of Angel Diaz, 2017.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form located on our website: Report Potentially Offensive Description in Library Special Collections.
- Arrangement:
-
This collection has been arranged in the following series:
- Series 1: Academic files, 1968-2005
- Series 2: Correspondence and photographs, 1946-2006
- Series 3: Personal files, 1951-2005
Original order of materials has been maintained.
- Physical location:
- Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
Access and use
- Restrictions:
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Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Terms of access:
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Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Nina Byers papers (Collection 1898). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Location of this collection:
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A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988