The Journey to a PhD through the Lens of Black Women in Physics

Many physics departments have set goals for inclusion, but due to the low number of Black women graduate students, it is likely their perspectives are not well represented in inclusion plans. Through collaboration with APS, we have collected and are engaged in elevating the experiences of Black women in physics graduate programs to identify priorities for departmental change initiatives to remove structures that keep out and/or push out Black women and build structures to support them to achieve success and well-being.

We recruited Black women physics PhD students to document their physics learning and research experiences via the Photovoice method, individual, and focus group interviews. We will focus on describing students’ experiences beyond currently popular frameworks, such as grit and resilience, which can hide the trauma Black women experience even when they achieve success within a harmful system. Our goal is to elevate the strategies and recommendations Black women physicists identify as most effective from their own personal experiences and voices.