Welcome! No matter how you identify, we’re glad you’re here. This group was originally founded as Women in Physics in 2014 as a series of talks for women graduate students to increase networking, improve members’ confidence, and create camaraderie. In 2017 we changed our name to more explicitly invite all gender minorities into the space. Meanwhile, our activities have expanded to include working with the chair to advocate for change and offering trainings and workshops open to the whole department.

WAGMIP is made up of women and gender minorities in STEM. Most of our members are physics graduate students, but we also welcome people from chemistry, biology, molecular engineering, astrophysics, geophysics, etc. as well as undergraduates interested in these fields.

Our most frequent events are twice-monthly talks, generally by members of the UChicago physics department but occasionally by members of another department or from another university. These range from practice talks for upcoming conferences to professors’ presentations on their trajectories from college to faculty position.

In addition, we have occasional movie nights and dinners to chat with one another outside of scheduled talks. We are also becoming increasingly involved in department policy, for example by adding a graduate student member to the department’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee and meeting with the department chair to discuss changes we’d like to see.