The United States is becoming more and more diverse, but the representation of some minority groups in physics and astronomy lags behind. Although 13% of the US population is African American or black, and 17% is Hispanic (US Census), the representation of these two groups in physics and astronomy is much lower. For this reason, African Americans…

Each fall, the American Institute of Physics (AIP's) Statistical Research Center conducts its Survey of Enrollments and Degrees. The survey is sent to all degree-granting physics and astronomy departments in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and asks them to provide the number of degrees they conferred in the previous academic year. The academic year…

The Statistical Research Center of the American Institute of Physics conducts an annual census of all degree-granting physics departments in the United States and Puerto Rico. The survey had a 95% response rate from the 751 departments that granted physics bachelor's degrees in the class of 2010. Results show that the number of physics bachelor's…

The Statistical Research Center of the American Institute of Physics conducts an annual census of all degree-granting physics departments in the United States and Puerto Rico. The survey, collecting data from the 754 departments that granted bachelor's degrees in the class of 2008, had a 97% response rate. Estimates were derived and included in…

The Statistical Research Center of the American Institute of Physics conducts an annual census from October through February of all departments that offer degrees in astronomy (78) in the United States. Astronomy departments consist of stand-alone degree-granting departments (39) and departments that are administered along with a physics program…

In the fall of 2008, the authors contacted a representative sample of over 3,600 high schools in the U.S., both public and private, to determine whether or not physics was taught there. The authors received responses from over 99% of the schools. For the schools which indicated they were offering physics, they obtained contact information for the…

Each fall the Statistical Research Center conducts its Survey of Enrollments and Degrees, which asks all degree-granting physics and astronomy departments in the US and Puerto Rico to provide information concerning the number of students they have enrolled and counts of recent degree recipients. In the academic year 2007-08 there were 252…

The bachelor's data in this Focus On were all compiled from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). IPEDS is the core postsecondary education data system for the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. Department of Education. The PhD data in this focus on were all compiled from WebCASPAR, the integrated…

This document reports on academic enrollments (including Fall 2006) and degrees conferred at the bachelor's, master's, and doctorate levels (including academic year 2005-2006) at colleges and universities with physics or astronomy degree-granting programs. The findings presented in this report are based on an annual survey of all the physics and…

This report is a direct result of physics and astronomy department chairpersons, faculty, and staff providing us with information on their individual programs. For the data on the class of 2003, the authors received responses from 96% of the departments. Data for the non-responding departments were estimated using responses to our survey in…

Despite years of continued growth, women's participation in physics remains among the lowest of any scientific field. The issue is of great concern to many in the scientific community, spawning talks at conferences, data collection efforts, and speculation about the causes of women's low participation in physics. Although women's participation in…