Empowering Women in Physics: How Leadership, Mentorship, and Career Conceptualization Programs and Practices Impact Identity and Belonging

Understanding identity development for women in physics is important for their persistence in a field that still struggles with underrepresentation of women. In this presentation, we will discuss our qualitative interview study that explores how undergraduate women developed their physics identities, with a particular focus on their experiences with leadership, mentorship, and learning about careers in physics. Our team analyzed 15 interviews to understand how women in physics define physics identity and how our theorized factors (leadership, mentorship, and career conceptualization) were associated with an individual's physics identity. Our findings have implications far beyond undergraduate education. K-12 educators and informal science educators may be positioned to provide STEM leadership and mentorship opportunities to underrepresented students, which can help to build students' identities before they go on to college.