An Analysis into the Demographics of Physics and STEM Education

Physics and STEM education continue to have underrepresentation by individuals with marginalized gender, racial, and ethnic identities. As an intern for the American Physical Society, I worked with Dr. Christine O'Donnell to analyze demographics of higher education degrees in physics and STEM. I used the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to collect data for degree completions disaggregated by gender, race, and ethnicity as defined by the database. My work included updating eighteen of the "Physics Graphs & Statistics" and nineteen "Top Educators" tables for APS webpages. Furthermore, I carried out an additional analysis on the effects of using an updated definition for "STEM" that is more consistent with the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), and other groups. The new definition introduced fields with a higher fraction of degrees awarded to women, including Agricultural Sciences and Psychology, leading to greater female representation in STEM degrees. Overall, my work throughout the summer will help drive changes that support diverse students in science education.