Almost 40 years separate Shirley Ann Jackson’s achievement, as the first African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in theoretical high energy physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Jedidah Isler, the first African-American woman to receive a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Yale.
In 2014, Isler completed her award-winning study that examines the physics of particle jets emanating from black holes at the centers of distant galaxies.
Jackson’s thesis, “The Study of a Multiperipheral Model with Continued Cross-Channel Unitarity,” was published in the Annals of Physics in 1975.
But in 39 years, US physics doctorates went to 66 black women, and 22,000 white men, noted Quartz, a business news publication, this week.
The article, which looks at black women with physics doctorates, also mentions the work of a little-known organization called African American Women in Physics.
To raise awareness about the need to boost the Black female talent pipeline, two members of African American Women in Physics, Jami M. Valentine, Ph.D., and Jessica Tucker M.S., have been calculating the number of African American women with PhDs in physics and related fields.
The website has both a Physics and Astro only list and a Physics Community list. On the Physics and Astro only list, women with PhDs in Physics, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Applied Physics, and Space Physics are included.
On the Physics Community list, they included all the Physics and Astro only list as well as women who identify as Physicists.
“For example, a number of women have Physics bachelor’s degrees and Electrical Engineering PhDs and work for NASA. They participate in the physics community and identify themselves as, physicists, so we include them on the Physics Community list,” the website explains.
They have also included 4 pioneers — women who due to various circumstances did not finish their Ph.D., but studied advanced physics before 1980.
If you believe that you or someone you know should be included on this list, or if you have a correction or update, contact African American Women in Physics at:
AfricanAmericanWomenInPhysics@gmail.com
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