Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2016
Volume 61, Number 6
Saturday–Tuesday, April 16–19, 2016; Salt Lake City, Utah
Session M6: Women in Physics - Thriving and Creating a Culture Where Others ThriveInvited Undergraduate
|
Hide Abstracts |
Sponsoring Units: CSWP Room: 150ABC |
Sunday, April 17, 2016 3:30PM - 4:00PM |
M6.00001: A New Norm: Using Social Science to Create Disruptive Innovations for Broadening Participation in Physics Invited Speaker: Jessi L. Smith Norms often operate outside conscious awareness and limit broad participation in physics and STEM fields more generally. This presentation identifies several of these norms and provides empirically tested disruptions at three academic points: faculty, graduate, and undergraduate. First, is a focus on broadening the participation of women science faculty through an intervention aimed at supporting faculty search committees. Using a randomized control trail design, results show searches in the intervention were 6.3 times more likely to make an offer to a woman candidate, and these women were 5.8 times more likely to accept the offer from an intervention search. A diverse faculty can help disrupt the norms of their field’s understanding about brilliance and effort, which can appeal to – or repel– potential graduate students. Using a randomized control trial design, recruitment materials for a science graduate program were manipulated to emphasize effort versus innate ability as the norm. Results show emphasizing effort as normal to achieve success in the male-dominated graduate program elevated women’s motivation to purse and persist in graduate studies. Of course, before a student will consider graduate school, they must see themselves as a scientist. Data from a survey at three universities showed undergraduate women in physics lab classes were less likely to identify as a scientist when they were concerned about being stereotyped and could not see how physics was useful or helpful to society. Identifying and disrupting social norms can help create an inclusive learning and working context with far-reaching benefits. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 17, 2016 4:00PM - 4:25PM |
M6.00002: Promoting Gender Equity in STEM: Theory and Applications Invited Speaker: Elizabeth Simmons This presentation will begin by briefly reviewing data on the current status of women in STEM disciplines: degrees earned, careers pursued, obstacles encountered. Next, it will draw on social science research to illuminate a variety of underlying causes for gender disparities in STEM. These, in turn, will be shown to suggest an array of concrete actions that individual scientists, group leaders, and institutions can take to improve gender diversity; a few that the speaker has found especially effective in her role as a college dean will be noted. While the primary focus of the talk will be on women in physics, some of the broader issues encountered by sexual and gender minorities in STEM will also be discussed. In the remainder of the presentation, two particular interventions in which the speaker has been involved for the past several years will be covered in more detail: one aimed at building career skills of women physicists in developing nations and the other aimed at improving the climate for LGBT physicists here in the United States. These illustrate the wide array of opportunities open to all of us for making our field more inclusive. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 17, 2016 4:25PM - 4:50PM |
M6.00003: TBD Invited Speaker: Brenda Dingus |
Sunday, April 17, 2016 4:50PM - 5:18PM |
M6.00004: Panel Discussion on Increasing the Representation of Women Invited Speaker: Panel Discussion |
Follow Us |
Engage
Become an APS Member |
My APS
Renew Membership |
Information for |
About APSThe American Physical Society (APS) is a non-profit membership organization working to advance the knowledge of physics. |
© 2024 American Physical Society
| All rights reserved | Terms of Use
| Contact Us
Headquarters
1 Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3844
(301) 209-3200
Editorial Office
100 Motor Pkwy, Suite 110, Hauppauge, NY 11788
(631) 591-4000
Office of Public Affairs
529 14th St NW, Suite 1050, Washington, D.C. 20045-2001
(202) 662-8700