Student

Researchers are urging universities across the United States to find a new way to identify the next generation of scientists. A new study discovered that traditional admissions metrics for physics Ph.D. programs such as the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) do not predict completion and hurt the growth of diversity in physics, which is already the least diverse of the sciences.

...The data shows that the GRE gives us no predictive information on who will succeed in graduate school (even among men) and simultaneously acts to weed out people of color and underrepresented minorities and, as a whole, doesn’t help women applicants either.

© 2019 SPEAKING OF GEOSCIENCE

The American Chemical Society has been awarded a $2.3 million grant over five years from the National Science Foundation as part of an alliance of scientific societies to increase the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in graduate education in the physical sciences. The Inclusive Graduate Education Network is a five-year, $10 million grant led by the American Physical Society (APS). 

APS has joined forces with four other scientific societies—the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Astronomical Society, and the Materials Research Society—to increase participation of underrepresented students in graduate physical science programs. The five societies make up the Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN) that will be funded with a five-year $10 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

Rochester Institute of Technology is helping to build a national network for improving access to graduate education for underrepresented students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

...AGU is one of five scientific societies that have formed the Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN), which will increase the participation of women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in graduate studies in the physical sciences. 

APS has joined forces with four other scientific societies—the American Chemical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Astronomical Society, and the Materials Research Society—to increase participation of underrepresented students in graduate physical science programs. The five societies make up the Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN) that will be funded with a five-year $10M grant from the National Science Foundation.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has issued new awards that represent the next major step for its NSF INCLUDES program -- the development of a national network to enhance U.S. leadership in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by broadening participation in those disciplines.

Dr. Catherine Mader of the Hope College physics faculty is part of a collaboration led by the American Physical Society (APS) that has received a grant from the National Science Foundation to create and administer a nationwide, five-year effort that seeks to increase participation in careers in the physical sciences by women and underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities by helping more pursue graduate education.

Abstract

Historically, access to education in the U.S. has not been equitable. Furthermore, intersectionality, the interaction of multiple identities, results in educational experiences that vary widely for diverse groups of students with implications for the recruitment of future students. To better understand barriers to ethnic/racial minority students participating in graduate education a study has been conducted through the APS Bridge program, a program designed to increase the number of ethnic/racial minorities earning PhDs in physics.