A new National Science Foundation grant is taking a new tack to fix the long-term problem of a shortage of women in the sciences.
The idea behind the On-Ramps in Academia workshops is to lure women from private industry into academia, rather than the previous pattern of schools fighting over a limited pool of candidates already in academia, a zero-sum strategy.
According to the American Institute of Physics, as of 2003, women receive 22 percent of the bachelor's of science and arts degrees in physics, but only 18 percent of the PhDs. Additionally, only 5 percent of full professors in physics were women in 2002.
Likewise, women are severely underrepresented in the other physical sciences and engineering.
Women in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematical professions represented 26.1 percent of those fields in 2003, a jump from 7 percent in 1983 and 2003, according to the Association for Women in Science.
You can learn more about women in science and engineering, particularly in physics, on a new Web site Women in Physics hosted by Fermilab.
