Critical Mass for Gender Equity in Physics: A lesson from Medical Physics

Physics suffers from a gender equity problem. Fewer than 20% of all PhDs awarded to women are for Physics majors. This disparity is shocking considering that at the high school level, women enroll in Physics courses at the same rate as men. Women’s achievement in AP Physics exams also closely matches their male counterparts within 15% at all levels. Simply put, competence in Physics is not determining the number of women Physics PhDs. To understand the lack of gender equity in Physics and STEM, we must understand that there are other factors limiting the entrance and retention of both women and underrepresented racial minorities in these fields. Surprisingly, amongst the Physics specialties there exists a unique multidisciplinary subspecialty—Medical Physics that boasts 36% of its graduate students identifying as women. This rarity in STEM is worth reviewing and learning from. This talk will explain the statistics in gender equity in Physics and Medical Physics, as well as discuss the programming in Medical Physics that supports the burgeoning number of women medical physicists.