The National Academies have suggested that increasing diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math will be critical to the future competitiveness of the US in these areas, and both the National Science Foundation and the American Physical Society are taking this seriously. In this talk, I will discuss several opportunities that may help move toward meeting this goal. The most universally applicable and implementable actions regard perturbing graduate admissions policies and practices. I will discuss problems with the typical approach, and how holistic admissions may help programs to practice equity in graduate education.
Biography
Casey W. Miller is a Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he is currently Sr. Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Affairs in the College of Science. He is an experimental physicist focusing on nanoscale magnetic materials and related devices, director of the NSF INCLUDES Alliance: IGEN’s Inclusive Practices Hub, cofounder of the California Consortium for Inclusive Doctoral Education and the Equity in Graduate Education Resource Center (equitygraded.org). He served on the Panel on State of the Profession and Societal Impacts for the National Academies’ Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics 2020 (Astro2020). He graduated summa cum laude from Wittenberg University and earned his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin in 2003 for work combining Magnetic Resonance Imaging with Scanning Probe Microscopy.
