Exploring the lived experiences of female-identifying mathematics PhD students

Laura Wadkin

Newcastle University

"Exploring the lived experiences of female-identifying mathematics PhD students"

Women and other gender minorities are still under-represented in academic mathematics, with only 20% non-cis-male PhD students and 6% non-cis-male professors in the UK (London Mathematical Society’s Good Practice Report). Here we will present the results from a study at Newcastle University UK which explored the lived experiences of female-identifying mathematics PhD students through a series of one-to-one interviews. We seek to understand the extent to which the participants feel their gender has impacted their experiences as mathematics PhD students, including their relationships with supervisors, their view of role models, their identity as a mathematician, and their post-PhD choices.

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