ABSTRACT

One of my favorite references on gender issues is the report entitled, “Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics,” which was compiled by the American Association of University Women. I learned so much the first time I read it and have returned to it time and again for details, references, and statistics. This report summarizes studies showing that the achievements and interests of girls in math, science, and engineering continue to be shaped by social and environmental factors. The reasons that there are so few women in STEM fields are NOT related to innate gender differences! In this talk, I will discuss three of my favorite topics from this report: (1) Growth Mindset, the idea that believing in the potential for intellectual growth, in and of itself, improves outcomes for women and girls; (2) Stereotype Threat, the anxiety women face in a situation where they have the potential to confirm a negative stereotype about women as a group (like when taking a math test); and (3) Spatial Skills, a test with one of the largest and most persistent gender gaps, where boys consistently outperform girls. The full report can be accessed here: http://www.aauw.org/research/why-so-few/

About the Speaker:

Joan Schmelz currently serves as the deputy director of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. She is a solar physicist who received her Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics from Penn State University in 1987. She then joined the operations team for the Solar Maximum Mission Satellite at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. She is a professor at University of Memphis and a regular visitor to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Her research investigates coronal heating and coronal loops as well as the properties and dynamics of the solar atmosphere. She is a former program officer for the National Science Foundation's Division of Astronomical Sciences. Schmelz is also the former chair of the American Astronomical Society's Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy. In addition to writing science papers for the Astrophysical Journal, she also writes regular posts for the Women in Astronomy blogspot on topics such as unconscious bias, stereotype threat, and the gender gap.