Last night, I got this cool present from APS. I am assuming it is because of my role as an APS career mentoring fellow – something I am extremely proud to be a part of. The present was a giant (~3″ X 6″) stack of playing cards. On the “faces” of the cards were “faces” naturally. Each card has some brief career facts about a successful woman in physics along with a picture. They are cool. And I will likely given them to the physics club, provided my daughter and I don’t start using them first.

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I love the dual purpose of the playing cards. (1) They help to promote the diverse careers physicists can participate in. AND (2) they promote woman and gender minorities in physics. As I am sure many of you know, physics and engineering has a had a poor record nationally when it comes to gender. Only about 20% of folks in physics are woman. Its something we spend a lot of time thinking about and discussing at Adelphi University.

Over the last few days I have been doing what I usually do, think about how awesome our students are. In recent years, female students have played an outsized role in our Physics program. Two nights ago, we invited a number of alumni to an event (https://cosmicpathways.org/2020/12/14/department-of-physics-an-evening-of-gratitude/). Yesterday, my dean commented to me how gender diverse the event was.

We, like most physics departments, have mostly male students. The percentage of female students we have in our department at any one time is somewhere between 25-40% and all of our tenured faculty are all still male. However, it still feels like we are turning a corner.

All of our physics club officers are women! Please let me say that again. All of our physics club officers are women! Here is another odd fact. The previous two presidents of our physics club are still students at Adelphi, not currently officers in our club, and are woman. (They are happy. They just have moved on to bigger and better things for their careers.) Its not just about the number of woman we have in our club; female Adelphi Physics students are carving out the department and opportunities they want. There seems to be a shift in the activism and leadership. In particular, Sally Lau and Gabi Vidad have been instrumental in developing the physics department’s task force of DEI. Katie Gifford is leading our award winning physics club into the spring semester.

A few years ago, I told our students to take over. Do what you want to do. I’ll support you. Professor Sean Bentley, our other co-adviser, is so supportive too. This is what is happening! I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! I am beaming!