Physics PhDs Awarded to Minorities (1973

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Physics PhDs Awarded to Minorities (1973 2000)
AA African Americans HA Hispanic Americans
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PhDs Awarded in Physics (2000 2002)
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The Physics Education Pipeline HS math
Likelihood of earning bachelors degree by 2000
based on 92 math test scores
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The Physics Education Pipeline after the BS
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Estimate of Pipeline leakage for African Americans
Stage Total Blacks Ratio Note
HS grad rate 82 77 1.07 1
Fraction taking HS physics 32 22 1.46 2
Math achievement gt 300 62 31 2.00 3
College enrollment rate 66 62 1.07 4
College graduation rate 63 47 1.34 5
Physics BS ? Ph.D. rate 30 14 2.14 6
Net leak factor 9.58 7

• Notes
• 1999 data
• 2001 data
• National Assessment of Education Progress
  Achievement test in mathematics (1996)
• 1998 data
• Data for 1996 enrollment to 2001 graduation
  (graduation within 6 years from enrollment)
• 2000 data Physics BS awarded to Blacks (total)
  161 (4000) Physics Ph.D.s awarded to Blacks
  (total) 22 (1205)
• Assumes on correlation between leak factors

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Recommendations-I
Things that could be done by nuclear physics
programs at DOE and NSF

• Create Grants for Math and Science Summer Schools
• Studies by the the National Center
  for Educational Statistics (NCES) show a strong
  correlations between likelihood for success in
  the undergraduate physics major and performance
  in high-school mathematics and having taken a
  high-school physics course. In the study done by
  the NCES on the BS degrees in physics awarded in
  2000, 66 of the recipients scored in the top
  quarter of their high-school class on
  standardized math tests. This finding was the
  similar for African Americans who received a B.S.
  degree in physics that same year. We recommend
  the creation of grants to support high-school
  math-science summer school programs in
  partnership with public school systems.

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Recommendations-II
Things that could be done by nuclear physics
programs at DOE and NSF
2. Create graduate fellowships in nuclear
physics that provide support from the second
year to degree completions. The intent of these
fellowships is to attract the best students in
each department into nuclear physics. In
addition, these fellowships could be used to
attract women and minority students into nuclear
science. 3. Create incentives for national
laboratories and grantees to increase their
recruitment efforts to attract women and U.S.
minorities into their research and education
programs. Some examples of these recruitment
efforts are formation of partnerships with HBCU
and dedicated personnel to do outreach to target
communities. The success of such recruitment
efforts should be included in the overall
evaluation of the programs.
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Recommendations-III
4. Require education and outreach programs that
receive funds from the DOE and NSF nuclear
physics program to report demographics
information annually (gender and ethnicity).
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Solutions to Strengthen the Pipeline(HS ? BS)
1. Summer Math Science Academies (4 sites x
30/site) - funded by private foundations
- grades 9, 10 and 11 - hosted on the
campus of HBCUs and minority serving
institutions - math and science courses in
the morning, laboratory experiences in the
afternoon would be nice to have some
observational astronomy
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Solution to Strength the Pipeline (BS ? PhD)
2. Physics Summer Schools (2 sites x 20/site)
- funded by private foundations -
physics majors at HBCUs and minority serving
univ. - following 1st and 2nd
years - located at a top minority
producing universities - 8 weeks long
- physics course in the morning afternoons
used to read and work problems seminar
speaker once a week - stipend