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Physics of Life (2022)

Chapter: 10 Building an Inclusive Community

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Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
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10

Building an Inclusive Community

Race, gender, and immigration are topics in the background of almost all policy discussions in the United States, but recent events have made these topics more urgent. This report, written in 2020–2022, comes at the end of a 4-year period in which U.S. government policies toward immigrants, including PhD students in the sciences, shifted substantially; rhetoric and perceptions shifted even more. There is constant discussion of international students, and scientific exchange with international collaborators, as threats to national security and U.S. intellectual property. During this period hate crimes against ethnic minorities also increased,1 and police violence against members of the Black community created a national focus on the problems of racism not seen since the peak of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Highly publicized episodes of sexual harassment, including in the scientific community, brought renewed attention to the challenges of achieving equal opportunity for women. All of these issues obviously reach far beyond the field of biological physics, and far beyond the scientific community. This chapter is not intended as a comprehensive review of these problems. Rather we provide some sampling of the issues, conditioned by the experiences of our particular community and especially by the moment at which we write. In many cases, we echo and reinforce the conclusions reached in previous reports, hopefully doing justice to this previous work.

A central challenge for the scientific community is to be welcoming and supportive of people coming from all parts of society. To do this requires overcoming prejudices inherited from the larger culture, and addressing our policies directly to

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1 See, for example, the regular reports on Hate & Extremism from the Southern Poverty Law Center, https://www.splcenter.org/issues/hate-and-extremism.

Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
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societal injustices. Professional scientists are the stewards of great resources—access to high-quality education and the opportunity for aspiring scientists to pursue careers devoted to their intellectual passions. The community’s stewardship can be judged not only on whether it is productive, but on whether it is just. International engagement, race, and gender are different axes along which success can be judged, and these are taken in turn. We emphasize at the outset that the experience of each group in our society is unique, and that history creates particular responsibilities in achieving a just relationship with each group. At the same time, there are universal themes in the search for social justice. In making recommendations we try to balance the universal and the particular, again recognizing that our discussion is far from comprehensive.

INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT

Science is an international activity. For many years, the scientific community in the United States held a position of great privilege on the world stage. There was a widespread sense that our nation was among the best, if not the best place to launch a scientific career. Admission to U.S. graduate programs was sought after by aspiring scientists around the globe, and the path from PhD to full scientific independence was enviably short. These conditions led to a steady flux of young scientists into to the country, and they were joined by many children of immigrants who had come seeking a broader sense of economic opportunity and freedom from persecution. In many ways, the growth of the United States as a global scientific power during the 20th century is intertwined with the history of immigration.

Many of the benefits of openness to the world are quantifiable. In 2018, the economic impact of international students in the United States was estimated to be roughly $41 billion, supporting 458,000 U.S. jobs.2 Also as of 2018, immigrants who came to the United States as international students had founded 21 startup companies that are still held privately but with capitalization over $1 billion; more than half of such successful startups have been founded by immigrants.3 More than one-third of doctoral degrees in the sciences and engineering from U.S. institutions are earned by temporary visa holders, and the fraction is even higher for physics, having been above 40 percent consistently since 1998.4 Roughly one-third of all

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2 National Association of Foreign Student Advisors, 2020, Losing Talent 2020: An Economic and Foreign Policy Risk America Can’t Ignore, Washington, DC, https://www.nafsa.org/sites/default/files/media/document/nafsa-losing-talent.pdf.

3 National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, 2019, “Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities: 2019,” NSF 21-308, National Science Foundation, Alexandria, VA, https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21308.

4 From data collected by the American Physical Society and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Physics Degrees Earned by Temporary Residents, https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/temp-residents.cfm.

Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
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Nobel Prize winners in Physics who were affiliated with U.S. institutions at the time of the award were immigrants.

Finding: Science in the United States has long benefited from the influx of talented students and scientists from elsewhere in the world.

Finding: International students have made substantial contributions to the economy of the United States.

The pipeline of talented students from around the world who flock to the United States to study science now is under threat. The United States began restricting visas in 2018, and in September 2020, the Department of Homeland Security issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to change F, J, and I visa aliens from “duration of status” to a fixed period of 4 years, not long enough to complete most U.S. PhD programs.5 Thanks in part to pressure from the scientific community, this last proposal now has been withdrawn. Nonetheless, international student enrollment has suffered. The Department of State funds the Open Doors report annually to provide information relating to foreign students and scholars in the United States and U.S. citizens studying abroad.6 The 2020 Open Doors report shows that international student enrollment dropped for the fourth consecutive year, ending 50 years of nearly exponential growth. National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) data show that international graduate student enrollment dropped starting in 2017 after several years of increases. A survey of 49 of the largest physics PhD programs at U.S. institutions found a nearly 12 percent decline in international applications between 2017 and 2018.

The American Physical Society (APS) conducted a survey of international students who were accepted into U.S. physics graduate programs but declined these offers:7 32 percent expressed a belief that the United States is “unwelcoming to foreigners,” 21 percent said they have better educational opportunities outside the United States, and 20 percent said they have better long-term employment opportunities outside the United States. A more extensive survey, also from the APS,

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5 Department of Homeland Security, 2020, “Establishing a Fixed Time Period of Admission and an Extension of Stay Procedure for Nonimmigrant Academic Students, Exchange Visitors, and Representatives of Foreign Information Media,” Federal Register 85(187):60526–60598, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/09/25/2020-20845/establishing-a-fixed-time-period-ofadmission-and-an-extension-of-stay-procedure-for-nonimmigrant.

6 J. Baer and M. Martel, 2020, Fall 2020 International Student Enrollment Snapshot, Department of State and Institute of International Education, Washington, DC, https://opendoorsdata.org/research-briefs/fall2020snapshot.

7 T.W. Johnson, 2019, “The United States Is Losing the Ability to Attract International Students Due to Visa Obstacles,” APS News 28:11.

Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
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discovered that at least 40 percent of international early career scientists who chose to come to the United States to study and/or work believe that the U.S. government’s current response to research security concerns makes their decision to stay in the United States long term less likely or much less likely.8 These perceptions and the steep decline in the pool of international applicants put the U.S. physics enterprise at high risk of no longer attracting the top students in the world.

Finding: Applications to U.S. physics graduate programs from international students have decreased since 2016.

Finding: Many international students find the United States unwelcoming and feel that they have better opportunities outside the United States.

Beyond attracting students, scientific exchange has been an instrument of diplomacy, even in challenging times. Today, however, concerns over economic security relating to systematic capture of intellectual property, trade secrets, and advanced technologies by China have given rise to a number of policies and practices that may significantly restrict international collaboration. In particular, the Department of Justice launched a “China Initiative,” and in February 2020, the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that it was conducting 1,000 active investigations involving allegations of intellectual property theft by China.9 A number of researchers in the United States have been accused of conflicts of interest as a consequence of their Chinese collaborations, and some have been removed from their academic posts. The vast majority of scientists targeted in this way are of Asian ethnicity.10 A recent database established by the MIT Technology Review11 shows that the China Initiative has “strayed from economic espionage and hacking cases to ‘research integrity’ issues, such as failures to fully disclose foreign affiliations on forms.” Their reporting and analysis further showed that “the climate of fear created by the prosecutions has already pushed some talented scientists to leave the United States and made it more difficult for others to enter or

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8 American Physical Society, 2021, Research Security Policies & Their Impacts: Key Results of APS Member Survey, APS Government Affairs, https://www.aps.org/policy/analysis/upload/APSResearch-Security-Survey-Key-Findings-2021.pdf.

9 A. Silver, 2020, “Scientists in China Say US Government Crackdown Is Harming Collaborations,” Nature 583:341–342, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02015-y.

10 J. Mervis, 2020, “‘Has It Peaked? I Don’t Know.’ NIH Official Details Foreign Influence Probe,” Science, June 22, https://www.science.org/content/article/has-it-peaked-i-don-t-knownih-official-details-foreign-influence-probe.

11 E. Guo, J. Aloe, and K. Hao, 2021, “The US Crackdown on Chinese Economic Espionage Is a Mess. We Have the Data to Show It,” MIT Technology Review, December 2, https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/12/02/1040656/china-initative-us-justice-department.

Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
×

stay, endangering America’s ability to attract new talent in science and technology from China and around the world.” In the same spirit, a survey by the University of Michigan’s Association of Chinese Professors found that nearly two-thirds of respondents “don’t feel safe” in their academic positions, while a national survey found that academic scientists of Chinese heritage are four times more likely to fear government intrusions than their non-Chinese colleagues.12 There is a danger that normal components of academic interaction and scientific collaboration are being criminalized.13 These concerns are reinforced in a recent analysis by the leadership of the American Physical Society.14

Finding: Discussions of U.S. policy toward international students and scientists are being driven by concerns about national and economic security.

In response to these developments, NSF commissioned a study by the JASON group to explore the value of openness and the concerns about security.15 While finding some basis for increased concern, the report emphasizes that the scale of the problem remains poorly defined and cautions against over-reaction. Many of the issues involving the conduct of U.S.-based researchers in their interactions with foreign governments and institutions could be addressed through broader and clearer disclosure requirements. Openness in scientific exchange needs to be supported with openness about individual commitments and potential conflicts, and education about the underlying ethical considerations.

The U.S. government has a well-established structure for restricting the flow of information—classification. But the threshold for classification is high, to preserve the benefits of scientific exchange even on matters that have the potential to impact national security. There are mechanisms by which universities and research institutions handle “controlled unclassified information,” such as preserving patient privacy in medical research, but the JASON report cautions against expanding these to create new boundaries around fundamental research activities. In response to the rhetoric that surrounds these issues, it is essential to insist on compelling evidence, rather than anecdotes, in guiding policy.

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12 J. Mervis, 2021, “U.S. Academics of Chinese Descent Organize and Speak Out—with Caution,” Science, November 2, https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-academics-chinese-descentorganize-and-speak-out-caution.

13 G. Wilce, 2021, “Crackdown on Spying Damages US Science, Says Chinese–Born Physicist,” Physics 14(63), https://physics.aps.org/articles/v14/63.

14 P.H. Bucksbaum, S.J. Gates, Jr., R. Rosner, F. Hellman, J. Hollenhorst, B. Balantekin, and J. Bagger, 2021, “Current US Policy on China: The Risk to Open Science,” APS News, August 9, https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/updates/china-risk.cfm.

15 JASON, 2019, Fundamental Research Security, JSR-19-2I, The MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA, http://www.nsf.gov/JASON_Security_Report.

Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
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Conclusion: The open exchange of people and ideas is critical to the health of biological physics, physics, and the scientific enterprise generally. This exchange has enormous economic and security benefits.

General Recommendation: All branches of the U.S. government should support the open exchange of people and ideas. The scientific community should support this openness by maintaining the highest ethical standards.

As this report was in its final review, plans were announced to end the China Initiative. As is clear from the discussion and recommendation above, the Committee views this as a step in the right direction. It is important to emphasize, however, that this one step does not solve the general problem, and that open exchange of people and ideas needs to be supported more broadly.

An important step in implementing this recommendation would be to reaffirm Presidential Directive NSDD189,16 which states that fundamental research is defined as research that is meant to be published in the open literature and that the products of fundamental research remain unrestricted to the maximum extent possible; if control of particular fundamental research is required for national security, the mechanism is classification. To deal with concerns about potential conflicts of interest arising from international collaboration, the federal agencies need to adopt clear and uniform rules regarding disclosure, rules which academic and research institutions can apply effectively to their faculty and staff without restricting their intellectual freedom. Regarding visa policy, making the F-1 visa dual intent would provide a pathway for international students to stay in the United States after receiving their degrees, thus capturing for the U.S. economy some of our investment in their education and accumulated expertise. These observations echo and extend those articulated in the recent decadal survey of atomic, molecular, and optical physics.17 A 2020 report on safeguarding the bioeconomy, which is more focused on security issues and places its discussion in a larger economic context, nonetheless comes to similar conclusions and recommendations.18

Although concerns about engagement with China may seem tied to the current political situation, it is worth remembering that China was long an exception to general U.S. immigration policy. The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in 1882,

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16 National Security Decision Directives (NSDD) Reagan Administration, 1985, National Policy on the Transfer of Scientific, Technical and Engineering Information, NSDD 189, Federation of American Scientists and Intelligence Resource Program, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsdd/nsdd-189.htm.

17 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2020, Manipulating Quantum Systems: An Assessment of Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics in the United States, The National Academies Press, Washington, DC.

18 See, especially Recommendation 4-1, p. 354 in National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2020, Safeguarding the Bioeconomy, The National Academies Press, Washington, DC.

Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
×

and its provisions were not fully repealed until the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. The modern experience of Chinese students applying to U.S. PhD programs in physics began only in 1979, with the launch of CUSPEA (China-U.S. Physics Examination and Application). More generally, we know that our openness to scientific talent is not equally distributed across the globe. The American Physical Society has several programs to foster collaboration between U.S. physicists and those in the developing world.19 For 30 years the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) has hosted a Diploma Program designed to help students who take their first degrees in the developing world make the transition to PhD programs in the United States or Europe, and related programs are growing at ICTP partner institutes in Brazil, China, Mexico, and Rwanda. Cooperative agreements with these institutes, in the spirit of the original CUSPEA agreement, provide a path for selection of exceptional students from a much broader range of backgrounds than might otherwise find their way to PhD programs in the developed world.20

While it is essential that the United States reaffirm its openness to international scientific exchange through changes in both rhetoric and policy, restoring the nation’s privileged status in attracting PhD students from around the world will require special attention. Students need to feel welcome and, concretely, they need to be supported. Scientific exchange needs to be viewed once again as a positive instrument of diplomacy rather than as a danger. As explained in Chapter 9, there often is a mismatch between the existing funding structures and the needs of international students, leading to an effective bias against these students in the admissions process. This creates an opportunity.

Specific Recommendation: Federal agencies and private foundations should establish programs for the support of international students in U.S. PhD programs, in biological physics and more generally.

RACE AND ETHNICITY

Restrictions on international students damage U.S. science by restricting the pool of talent entering the field. The dramatic inequalities faced by racial and ethnic minorities that persist within our society also diminish the pool of talent. Throughout this period, the core funding for pre-college education has been the responsibility of local governments. This has allowed dramatic differences in the

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19 American Physical Society, 2022, “Programs, International Affairs, Developing Countries,” https://www.aps.org/programs/international/programs/index.cfm.

20 An example is the joint MSc program between the South American Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-SAIFR) in Brazil and the Perimeter Institute in Canada.

Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
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support for schools in districts serving different socio-economic groups, exacerbating other racial and ethnic disparities in our society. Although the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954, abolishing racial segregation in public schools, the principles of equal financial support for education of students from all backgrounds and communities continue to be litigated on a state-by-state basis, even today. Inequalities of educational opportunity have been reinforced by racially discriminatory economic practices, even in policy initiatives that, on average, raised the standard of living for poorer Americans.21

In the same way that the progress of U.S. science has been entwined with immigration policy, changing attitudes and policies in the treatment of different ethnic groups also have had impact. Over the course of the 20th century, Chinese, Japanese, and Jewish families in the United States all faced explicit discrimination—in university admissions, in housing, in employment, and more. As treatment of these groups became more just, the children of these families took their places among our nation’s scientific leadership. As just one measure of this, nearly half of the individuals who received the Nobel Prize in Physics while affiliated with U.S. institutions come from these once persecuted groups. This is a reminder that opening access to a more diverse community can unleash talent on a grand scale. The search for justice is aligned with the search for scientific excellence.

Discrimination based on race and ethnicity has a long history. The scientific community’s clearest window into this legacy today is the dramatic underrepresentation of Black and Latinx Americans in our community.22 Underrepresentation is not by itself an indicator of injustice, but the case for systemic racism in the United States does not depend on the fraction of physics degrees awarded to different groups. The challenge for our community is to welcome, support, and nurture talented young people from around the world and from U.S. citizens of all ethnic groups. A recent report from the American Institute of Physics reviews the ways in which the community falls short of this goal with respect to African Americans.23

Inequalities of opportunity have an especially large impact on physics education. Serious engagement with physics requires some level of mathematical maturity, and students from underresourced high schools have less access to the

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21 See, for example, I. Katznelson, 2005, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth Century America, W.W. Norton, New York.

22 From data (2014–2018) collected by the American Physical Society, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), https://www.aps.org/programs/minorities/resources/statistics.cfm.

23 M. James, E. Bertschinger, B. Beckford, T. Dobbins, S. Fries-Britt, S.J. Gates, M. Ong, et al., 2019, The Time Is Now. Systemic Changes to Increase African Americans with Bachelor’s Degrees in Physics and Astronomy, https://www.aip.org/diversity-initiatives/team-up-task-force.

Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
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teachers who can nurture this maturity:24 students in schools with large minority populations have only a 50 percent chance of being taught by math and science teachers who are fully qualified for their assignments. This is not a failing of the teachers, but of the school administrators, who preferentially assign less qualified teachers to minority-serving schools, as well reflecting a lack of resources needed to attract highly qualified teachers into minority-serving districts. These differences in resources at the high school level continue when we look at minority-serving undergraduate institutions.

Finding: Physics education is layered, with one layer building strongly on the one below. Inequality of access or resources is compounded.

Finding: Recent data indicate that while the number of Black students earning physics bachelor’s degrees is growing, the percentage has not increased.

Finding: Historically Black Colleges and Universities have played a crucial role in the scientific and professional education of Black Americans.

Finding: The total number of physics bachelor’s degrees awarded by Historically Black Colleges and Universities has shrunk.

Conclusion: Inequalities of educational opportunity continue to limit the accessibility of physics education for Black students.

Although the experience of each group is unique, one can find related problems for all of the underrepresented ethnic groups in our community. Parallel to the role of HBCUs for Black students are the broader collection of Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs).25

There is a strong connection between our specific concerns regarding the education of underrepresented groups and our general concerns about the lack of proper support for core undergraduate education as part of scientific workforce development. As described in Chapter 8, it is not reasonable to expect that problems in this core can be solved by supplemental programs alone.

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24 L. Darling-Hammond, 2001, Inequality in teaching and schooling: How opportunity is rationed to students of color in America, pp. 208–233 in The Right Thing to Do, the Smart Thing to Do Enhancing Diversity in the Health Professions—Summary of the Symposium on Diversity in Health Professions in Honor of Herbert W. Nickens, M.D., B.D. Smedley, A.Y. Stith, L. Colburn, and C.H. Evans, eds., National Academy Press, Washington, DC.

25 For details see Office of Civil Rights, “Minority Serving Institutions Program,” Department of the Interior, https://www.doi.gov/pmb/eeo/doi-minority-serving-institutions-program.

Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
×

General Recommendation: Federal agencies should make new resources available to support core undergraduate physics education for underrepresented and historically excluded groups, and the integration of research into their education.

This recommendation goes beyond the boundaries of biological physics, but as we have emphasized in Chapter 8 the educational issues in our field are intertwined with those of physics more generally. While there are a variety of programs that support research experiences for undergraduates, especially those from historically excluded groups, this recommendation emphasizes the need to integrate teaching and research. We should not assume that a lack of resources for core educational programs, especially at minority serving institutions, can be compensated by pulling students away from their home institutions for relatively short visits to wealthier research intensive environments. Thus, while there are successful examples of partnerships between HBCUs or MSIs and major research universities, including programs organized and supported by the APS and the Biophysical Society, this recommendation emphasizes the need to support core educational programs.

Finally, there is ample evidence that the lived experience of students from minority groups is very different from that of the majority. It is essential that new programs be grounded in this experience.

Specific Recommendation: Recognizing the historical impact of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Minority Serving Institutions, and Tribal Colleges and Universities, faculty from these institutions should play a central role in shaping and implementing new federal programs aimed at recruiting and retaining students from underrepresented and historically excluded groups.

GENDER

Race is not the only axis along which societal prejudices influence participation in the scientific community. It is well known that women continue to be underrepresented in the sciences, and this gap is particularly large in physics.26

Finding: The fraction of women who take a high school physics course is almost equal to the fraction of men, but women comprise only ∼25 percent of students in the most advanced high school courses.

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26 A.M. Porter and R. Ivie, 2019, Women in Physics and Astronomy, American Institute of Physics, https://www.aip.org/statistics/reports/women-physics-and-astronomy-2019.

Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
×

Finding: After steady growth for a generation, the fraction of bachelor’s degrees in physics earned by women plateaued in 2007 at ∼20 percent. The fraction of PhDs in physics earned by women has continued to grow, now matching the fraction of bachelor’s degrees.

In contrast, women account for roughly 40 percent of new PhDs awarded in astronomy and chemistry and more than 50 percent of PhDs awarded in biology. But even within physics, there are substantial variations. Notably, female physics students are twice as likely as their male colleagues to do their thesis research in either astrophysics or biological physics. It would be useful to understand the origins of these differences; anecdotally the difference is more about the attitudes that women encounter upon entering these fields than about the subject matter,27 but this deserves further study.

Although the problem of gender in the sciences has many dimensions, data on high school, bachelor’s, and doctoral programs focuses our attention on the experience of women in courses near the end of high school and the beginning of college. Recent work surveying the performance of more than 10,000 students over a decade shows that the women who enroll in calculus-based introductory physics courses received final grades that are statistically indistinguishable from their male counterparts, but their self-assessments are significantly lower.28 In one study, the women’s low self-assessment was (perhaps surprisingly) not coupled with a perception that they were less included in the course or the student community. This example emphasizes the subtlety of the problems.

Specific Recommendation: In implementing this report’s recommendations on introductory undergraduate education and its integration with research, special attention should be paid to the experience of women students.

In exploring different approaches to building a more inclusive educational environment, it is important that the physics community has access to significant, specialized resources. In 2005 the APS launched Physical Review Physics Education Research, alongside the other Physical Review journals that address different subfields of physics.29 Among other topics, this journal publishes a steady stream of papers on gender in physics education.

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27 T. Feder, 2021, “Why Does Biophysics Attract a Disproportionate Number of Women?,” Physics Today, https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.5.20210607a.

28 M. Dew, J. Perry, L. Ford, W. Bassichis, and T. Erukhimova, 2021, “Gendered Performance Differences in Introductory Physics: A Study from a Large Land-Grant University,” Physical Review Physics Education Research 17(1):010106, https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.17.010106.

29 Biological physics is grouped with statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics in Physical Review E.

Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
×

Even more disturbing than the pattern of enrollment in physics courses are reports of sexual harassment. In surveys of undergraduate women in physics, 75 percent report that they have experienced some form of harassment.30 This is intolerable. Throughout the scientific community, and academia more generally, there is movement toward more concrete policies creating accountability, such as channels for anonymous reporting, and measures for enforcement, for these unacceptable behaviors. These are understood procedures that are well established elsewhere that need to continue and be supported vigorously by the community.

TOWARD BROADER ENGAGEMENT

Finally, the committee’s findings, conclusions, and recommendations regarding the human dimensions of science apply in large part to all areas of physics, and in many cases to the scientific community more generally. There is a sense, however, that biological physics has a special role to play in welcoming a broader community.

Conclusion: The biological physics community has a special opportunity to reach broader audiences, leveraging human fascination with the living world to create entrance points to physics for a more diverse population of students and for the general public.

This impression—that the physics of life should provide a more accessible introduction to physics—is shared quite widely, and was repeated several times in the input from the community, but the committee is unaware of data that could make this claim precise. It seems best to end on the optimistic note that our community senses an opportunity to reach a broader audience, even if many details remain to be determined.

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30 L.M. Aycock, Z. Hazari, E. Brewe, K.B.H. Clancy, T. Hodapp, and R.M. Goertzen, 2019, “Sexual Harassment Reported by Undergraduate Female Physicists,” Physical Review Physics Education Research 15(1):010121, https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.15.010121.

Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
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Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
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Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
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Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
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Suggested Citation:"10 Building an Inclusive Community." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Physics of Life. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26403.
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Biological physics, or the physics of living systems, has emerged fully as a field of physics, alongside more traditional fields of astrophysics and cosmology, atomic, molecular and optical physics, condensed matter physics, nuclear physics, particle physics, and plasma physics. This new field brings the physicist's style of inquiry to bear on the beautiful phenomena of life. The enormous range of phenomena encountered in living systems - phenomena that often have no analog or precedent in the inanimate world - means that the intellectual agenda of biological physics is exceptionally broad, even by the ambitious standards of physics.

Physics of Life is the first decadal survey of this field, as part of a broader decadal survey of physics. This report communicates the importance of biological physics research; addresses what must be done to realize the promise of this new field; and provides guidance for informed decisions about funding, workforce, and research directions.

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