Women in Physics

The women-in-physics (WIP) program at OSU was founded by the OSU Foundation via a small donation in 2010. This program has provided travel supports for female physics majors to attend professional conferences, invited outstanding women physicists to give colloquium talks targeted specifically for an undergraduate audience, held monthly social gatherings to engage all women in physics (including undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, staff, and faculty members), and provided encouragements for female students to pursue a career in physics in the last past years.

 

It is known that physics has fewer women than other scientific disciplines. The gender equity report published on the American Physics Society (APS) website states that "Despite the quite considerable increase in the number of female physics faculty over the past three decades, women still represent only 13 percent of faculty of all ranks from the 760 degree-granting physics departments in the U.S." These statistics tell us that there is still too much work to be done, especially at the level of high school, to promote the enrollment of women in physics bachelor.

 

In this direction, one of the current goals of the WIP program at OSU is to encourage and motivate young women to follow a physics career. We want to create a space where women in our department can share their experiences and be the point of contact to young women. Having female mentors could be a huge help for young women wanted to pursue a career in physics. We would like to provide an environment where young women can feel they are not alone. It is believed that the reason because girls do not pursue a physics major is not because of physics, but because of the atmosphere. They may face a climate that may not be welcomed to girls, or an environment where they feel like they do not fit. Therefore, one of our goals with this program is to create spaces where girls can feel welcomed.