From Quarks to Crosswords
From Quarks to Crosswords
How Emma Oxford ’09 blends physics, wordplay, and wit into a hobby of curiosity.
BY MELISSA ULSAKER MAAS ’76
By day, physicist Emma Oxford ‘09 works in the realm of science, technology, and details as a patent examiner. She’s a thinker, an analyst, a solver. And while most people choose either science or wordplay, she lives somewhere in the delicious overlap, where logic dances with language. She solves problems for a living—and invents them for fun. She builds entire worlds out of black-and-white squares, where every answer is a story, and every clue is a challenge. Emma is a cruciverbalist. And if you enjoy solving—or creating—crossword puzzles, you are, too.
Talking to Emma is like being inside a popcorn machine with thought kernels flying so fast it can be hard to keep up. She’s exceptionally smart, competitive, and isn’t someone who sits around doing nothing. The 2009 St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes valedictorian, Emma was drawn to math and science, but could excel in any subject. She graduated Magna Cum Laude with high honors and a bachelor’s in physics from Haverford College, but continuing in physics wasn’t a given.
“I really liked physics and interacting with people who think and process information the same way I do,” Emma explains. “But grad school in physics is a pretty substantial commitment and at that point, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with my life.”
As a lover of data, information, and statistics, she decided to pursue a master’s in library and information science at the University of Pittsburgh. Armed with her new degree, she found her niche as a science librarian assisting professors and students with instruction and research at Rollins College and James Madison University. But by 2017, Emma was ready to commit to pursuing a Ph.D. in physics.
Off she went to Carnegie Mellon to spend five years submerged in Roy Briere’s research group studying charm physics at the Belle II experiment—specifically seeking new physics beyond the Standard Model through the study of charm quark decays, including searches for CP violation… Whew, what? Emma understandably struggles to describe the research in layman’s terms, but she can break down how physicists solve a problem.
“You simplify the problem as much as possible (‘assume a spherical cow’ being a common joke about this), you list out everything you know very clearly, and you proceed from point A to point B to point C, etc. until you get where you want to go,” Emma says. “And you do this all on paper, clearly demonstrating every step of your thinking so that someone else can follow along.” But that “someone” better be another physicist. Her Ph.D. thesis was “Measurements of CP asymmetries in D0 → π+ π− π0 decays in Dalitz plot regions at Belle II (which is why we are focusing on her other, clearly understandable and fun passion, crosswords!)
It All Adds Up
Constructing crosswords requires a unique blend of creativity, wordplay, and a strong knowledge base. Constructors are skilled at designing puzzles that are both challenging and enjoyable, requiring a nuanced understanding of language and a knack for forming logical connections between words and clues.
Emma’s passion for math, science, and all things logical ties in well with constructing crossword puzzles. Her love of numbers began in Lower School, but everything truly clicked when she took physics in Upper School. In fourth grade Emma started studying another favorite subject she later minored in at Haverford, French, which no doubt helped broaden her vocabulary and deepen her appreciation for wordplay.
Emma recalls a vivid wordplay memory from third grade, “My teacher, Sue Brooks, was in the process of reading my class the second Harry Potter book. One day she wrote TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE on the board, and then rearranged the letters to reveal I AM LORD VOLDEMORT. That absolutely blew my eight-year-old mind!”
Emma created a special SSSAS Centennial crossword puzzle. Click the image to check it out and see how fast you can do it!
I’m grateful for every SSSAS English teacher who taught me how to write…Knowing how to write and express yourself well boosts your confidence.
So, surely crossword constructors are English buffs? Not necessarily. “I really didn’t enjoy writing in school,” Emma admits. “But I do now and I’m grateful for every SSSAS English teacher who taught me how to write.” That training paid off in unexpected ways. When she met with the head of Carnegie Mellon’s physics department, he noted her unusually high GRE writing score, which was, he said, “remarkable for a physics applicant.”
“Knowing how to write and express yourself well boosts your confidence,” Emma says. “I knew a lot of students who understood the science, but found writing really daunting. All the practice writing essays and papers on a wide variety of topics at SSSAS has been enormously valuable.”
Emma liked to hang out in the Upper School library and noticed that librarian Joyce Ames shared photocopies of The Washington Post crossword and Sudoku puzzles. She liked to snag one of each. “I would finish the Sudoku in about five minutes, but I had to work on the crossword all day,” Emma confides. Don’t tell anyone, but she wasn’t taking notes in class. She was doing the crossword. Between classes she would “farm out tough clues” to her classmates to see if they knew the answer.
From Solver to Constructor
When Emma first started doing crosswords, she didn’t notice the bylines or think about the people who created them. When she started constructing them in 2019, she was transported into another dimension filled with constructors, solvers, bloggers, podcasters, editors, and publishers.
The five main outlets for constructors looking to have their puzzles published in newspapers are The New York Times, LA Times, USA Today, NBC Universal, and The Wall Street Journal. Each paper has an editor who reviews submissions. Probably the most well-known, Will Shortz, has been The New York Times crossword editor since 1993; he designed his own major at Indiana University and is the only known person to have a degree in enigmatology (the academic study of puzzles).
The first and most important step to constructing crosswords is acquiring the right technology, like Crossword Compiler. The next four steps are essential to creating a strong puzzle: choosing a theme, designing the grid, filling the grid with words, and writing all the clues.
Choosing a good theme—which Emma claims is the hardest part for her—is key, because the newspapers are looking for fresh, intriguing, and narrowly defined themes that are consistently applied throughout the puzzle. If constructors don’t have a theme that grabs the editor’s attention, they won’t be selected. The New York Times is the only paper that does not allow constructors to submit a theme idea on its own, constructors must submit a fully clued crossword grid. [Fun Fact: The Times only started accepting submissions electronically within the last five years.]
When Emma first started constructing, the challenge was technical. “The hardest part was definitely filling the grid,” she says. “I didn’t have a good intuition for how to design a grid that would be easy to fill, or what counted as a bad entry—like junk fill I should be trying to avoid.”
Did You Know…
…the crossword puzzle was born in December 1913, on the eve of World War I
…the first crossword puzzle was created by Arthur Wynne, a New York World editor
…Roger (Rufus) Squires holds the Guinness Book of World Records for the most crossword puzzles produced, with nearly 75,000 puzzles and over 2 million clues written .
…The New York Times editor Will Shortz receives 75-100 submissions a week.
…The New York Times pays $500 for daily puzzles (Mon.-Sat.) for the first or second publication, increasing to $750 for the third or more. Sunday puzzles pay $1,500 for the first or second publication, and $2,250 for the third or more.
…in 2024, 244 constructors were published in The New York Times—88 of those were debut constructors, including 32 women (36%).
“After choosing a theme, creating a good crossword really comes down to the word list,” Emma says. “Is it full of good, accessible words, or is it packed with obscure entries and weird abbreviations no one wants to see in a puzzle?”Crossword constructors rely on word lists to help them build and fill the grid. Emma prefers the scored lists that usually have a standard of scores ranging from 5 (the worst) to 50 (the best).
IT’S A FACT!
Besides being an enjoyable pastime, crossword puzzles have been found to be quite beneficial for mental health. Routine completion of word puzzles, and playing online word games helps with memory, vocabulary, problem solving, and much more!
Once all the answers are in the grid, it’s time to write the clues, a process that varies in difficulty depending on the constructor. “It requires creativity and wordplay skills, but it also gets easier with practice,” Emma reveals. “While some clues are straightforward, others require more complex wordplay or misdirection.” This is especially true for harder puzzles like those in The New York Times on Fridays and Saturdays. Although many think the Sunday Times is the hardest, Shortz says that’s a misconception and that Sunday’s puzzle is more like a larger, mid-week puzzle.
Emma has been published in The L.A. Times (which also publishes the puzzles in The Washington Post), The Wall Street Journal, NBC Universal, and other outlets, having the most success with The L.A. Times. It’s definitely not lucrative, but it’s very satisfying.
Across & Against the Odds
Emma is not afraid of jumping in where men dominate. According to the National Science Foundation, the proportion of women in physics is around 20% across all levels, making it the lowest among the physical sciences. The balance of men to women in the world of crosswords is pretty similar.
In 2015, The Washington Post hired Evan Birnholz as its new crossword editor. Like Emma, he graduated from Haverford College with a science degree, which she thought was “a cool, weird coincidence.” She began solving the Sunday Post puzzle more regularly, drawn to the challenge of meta puzzles and Birnholz’s insightful blog posts.
“In 2020, Birnholz put a link in his blog to an open letter written to The New York Times about the alarming gender disparity in the published crossword constructors, of which only 19% were women,” Emma notes. The Times responded by hiring some new staff and making the submission process more transparent and the number of published women constructors jumped to 30%.
A former assistant to Will Shortz, Anna Shectman, was one of the women who signed that letter. According to an article she wrote in The New Yorker in 2024, “What Turned Crossword Constructing into a Boys’ Club?,” the early history of the crossword was shaped by women. Margaret Petherbridge Farrar was the founding editor of The New York Times crossword, overseeing the section from 1942 to 1968. Many of the most significant contributions to crossword culture—the first crossword contest, the rules for the grid’s symmetry and design—were pioneered by women. Crossword puzzles were an intellectual outlet and an escape from the boredom of housework.
So, what happened? Shechtman and others point to the rise of puzzle software, which entered the scene in the 1990s. With far more men entering the field of computer science, women constructors may simply have been left behind as the requirements for being a good programmer aligned closely with those of crossword enthusiasts. Emma is doing what she can to change the balance.
From Crosswords to Cross-Stitch! Three of Emma’s amazing cross-stitch pieces.
Filling Every Minute of Every Day
When Emma isn’t solving scientific problems or creating crosswords for others to solve, she likes to cross-stitch. “I dunno what it is with me and hobbies that start with ‘cross,’” Emma laughs. Although she started with small pieces, Emma is now doing stunning, large-scale pieces that take months to finish, working two hours a day. Cross-stitch artwork of a similar size and quality sells for as much as $500 on Etsy, but Emma does them for love.
Emma also finds the time (when?) to read “a fair amount.” The last book she read was a school-themed novel, “The Faculty Lounge,” by Jennifer Mathieu. She recently binge-watched “The White Lotus,” but preferred “Running Point.” She loves a good murder mystery, like “Knives Out,” and listens to Agatha Christie audiobooks. And she has recently started to garden with her husband, Bradley Treece, a physics professor. He mostly plants vegetables, so Emma is planting flowers.
Whether decoding charm quark decays, constructing a cleverly themed puzzle, or making very tiny stitches into exquisite art, Emma Oxford brings patience, precision, and a clear love of problem-solving to everything she does. Her passions may span from science to crosswords to cross-stitching, but they’re all united by a single thread: the joy of figuring things out.
LEARN MORE!
If we’ve piqued your interest in crosswords, check out The New York Times online “Crossword Constructor Resource Guide.” It’s an incredibly thorough introduction to the world of crosswords!