Gals account for only a quarter of U.S. graduates who get paid bachelor’s levels in physics, according to the American Actual physical Society, a Maryland-primarily based nonprofit organization. But Dr. Tatiana Erukhimova, a physics professor at Texas A&M University, is hunting to transform that with the enable of social media.
Videos of her experiments have ignited people’s curiosity on TikTok, drawing tens of tens of millions of views in excess of the last two years.
“You can not demonstrate a lot in these quick clips, but … you can inspire,” she mentioned.
Afiya Dhanani attended Texas A&M College after seeing Erukhimova’s physics experiments on the net.
“Viewing Dr. Tatiana do the experiments on the web, especially given that she was a female leader, was far more inspiring for me to even go into physics,” Dhanani mentioned.
Erukhimova’s journey commenced countless numbers of miles away, about six several hours northeast of Moscow, prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union. She grew up with two physicists as mother and father and later on married a physicist, Alexey. They relocated to School Station, Texas, wherever they provide as educators.
“I didn’t experience household. But you make it residence,” Erukhimova reported.
When she isn’t teaching, Erukhimova is included in outreach. In 2021, she was involved in a study that incorporated 10,000 college students, physicists and other men and women in the sciences. The review discovered that guys are not far more suited for physics than women of all ages — a message she utilizes to this day.
“We collected midterm examinations, final examinations, ultimate scores, remaining quality grades in excess of 10 a long time. There was no reliable distinction among a male and woman effectiveness on these examination scores. And I felt that this was a quite crucial message for my pupils,” Erukhimova reported.
Previous university student Nicole Cirigioni praised Erukhimova’s enthusiasm and dedication to instructing, saying, “You can tell when a teacher needs to be somewhere else. But when you walk into Dr. Tatiana’s classroom, you can inform she wishes you to be there. She cares and needs you to study, which would make you want to study, far too.”
Up subsequent for Erukhimova is the “Physics and Engineering Competition” at A&M in April, an occasion that attracts in thousands of people today to campus just about every yr. This pageant is open to anyone, and in accordance to Erukhimova, you will not require to be a scientist to celebrate science, just like you really don’t require to be a musician to attend a tunes pageant.
Former scholar Callie Rethman explained Erukhimova “often desires every little thing to be like a celebration of science.”
“And I think that her videos heading viral have genuinely introduced that celebration all over the place,” she claimed.
