Weverton Ataide Pinheiro, a Ph.D. student in Mathematics Education, has been awarded a research grant to study why graduate mathematics continues to be a male-dominated field.
Current data shows college-level math courses include even numbers of men and women – but that number decreases drastically when looking at who pursues a doctorate program in mathematics: 90-95% of all doctoral mathematics students are men.
“Research has shown that mathematics and mathematical related jobs are still connected to most high-paying jobs. Therefore not having women in the mathematics field causes an unbalance in the market force, and in the end men are privileged and keep occupying most of the positions of power in our society,” Ataide Pinheiro added.
As an undergraduate student in Brazil, Ataide Pinheiro noticed most of his mathematics professors were white, straight men. In a study he conducted last year about the experiences of undergraduate students in college mathematics, his students who identify as women student brought up gender prejudice in mathematics and the difficulty to be in a field with almost no other women.