Dynamics of Female Gender Representation in Mathematics

ICERM | Monday, June 27th, 2022

Dr. Phil Chodrow
Department of Computer Science
Middlebury College





Math has a

  • Race…
  • Gender…
  • Class…
  • Ability…
  • Etc…

problem.






Math has a

  • Race…
  • Gender…
  • Class…
  • Ability…
  • Etc…

problem.


:::





Gender is

  • Nonbinary
  • Multifaceted
  • Not defined by names, pronouns, appearance.

Image: The Genderbread Person by hues, a global justice collective.







This is not a project about
gender diversity
in math.













This is not a project about
gender diversity
in math.







This is a project about
female gender representation
in PhD-granting mathematics departments.







Why do certain parts of math (subfields/departments) achieve higher female gender representation than others?

Data



Complete scrape of the Mathematics Genealogy Project (MGP) – summer, 2021.

“Gender inference”: female/male gender guessed based on names (and in some cases country location):

MGP is managed by the Department of Mathematics at North Dakota State University

Tables



  • academic: names, theses,
  • advisor relationships between academics.
  • schools: country locations
  • gender_pred : predictions from inference services.








Overall counts

Gender guessed for 85% of all academics in data set.








Proportions

Gender guessed for 85% of all academics in data set.








We also have 2-digit MSC numbers for 60% of all records in this timespan.

So we can do some analysis by subfield.






Other Questions We Can Ask






  • Who did their PhD at school \(A\) and subsequently advised a thesis at school \(B\)? (proxy for hiring)
  • Which mathematicians were at school \(B\) at approximately the time that a given scholar was hired?
  • Approximately how many female mathematicians were in the group of advisor \(i\) at the time that a given student joined their group?

Flows between elite institutions, by decade

By subfield




Homophily effects

Do female advisors tend to recruit female students?

Do departments with high female gender representation attract more female faculty or students?








We want you!


  • Data analysis
    • Wrangling
    • Visualization
    • Statistics
    • Network analysis
  • Modeling
    • Compartmental
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  • Domain expertise
    • EDI work in math departments
    • Related models/techniques in other fields