Information about female Physics students (graduate and undergraduate) and female physicists at the School of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires.

The University of Buenos Aires is the largest university in Argentina. It is a national university. It doesn´t have a single campus. The University is divided in schools (facultades) which have some degree of independence. Professors from each school only teach students from the same school. Schools are spread all over the city of Buenos Aires (a city of over 3 million people, 11 million if the suburbs are included). The School of Exact and Natural Sciences (Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales) offers the following careers: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Computer Science, Geology, Meteorology, Oceanography plus some other shorter ones. This is the only school in the Buenos Aires city area where students can study to become physicists. The plan for undergraduate studies is supposed to take five years, although in most cases it takes much longer. After finishing these studies, the students obtain the title of "Licenciado en Física" (a title that is closer to a Master than to a Bachelor degree of an American university. It involves doing some research at the end). The School also offers an "intermediate" title which involves taking fewer courses than those required for a Licenciado (very few students choose to do this) and the career of Professor in Physics (which prepares the students to teach at middle and high schools). Students can also do their PhD in Physics at this School. The Physics Department of the School of Exact and Natural Sciences is a rather large department, with full-time and part-time professors. Full-time professors do their research in the Department, while part-time professors do their research somewhere else within the Buenos Aires city area (including the National Atomic Energy Commision and various research institutes of our National Research Council, CONICET). Other schools of the University of Buenos Aires have their own Physics Departments. Physicists also work at some of these departments. Professors of these departments teach Physics to students of careers other than Physics. In particular, there is a Physics Department at the School of Engineering with groups that do basic and applied research in Physics.

We include here the information we have collected about Physics students and Physicists at the School of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires.  This information has been collected by Mirta Gil, a professor at the Physics Department of this School.
 

Licenciatura (undergraduate studies):

1) Each year, approximately 100 students start the career, 30% of whom are women. We list below the number of registered students during the last 11 years.
 
Year of registration
Number of registered students 
Total (men/women)
1990
163 (116/47)
1991
127(75/32)
1992
128(88/40)
1993
127(81/46) 
1994
83(54/29)
1995
87(64/23)
1996
120(78/42)
1997
103(64/39)
1998
77(62/15)
1999
99(73/26) 
2000
91(61/30)

2) Each year, approximately 40 students finish their careers obtaining the degree of Licenciado, women comprise about 35% of  this total.
A total of 488 students obtained their degree of "Licenciado en Física" during the last 11 years. 36.7% of this total finished their careers in 8 years or less,  22% in 7 years or less and 8.4% in 6 years or less. Among these groups, women represent  a 31%, 27% and 8%, respectively. We list below  the number of students that obtained their undergraduate degree over the past 11 years:
 
Year of graduation
Number of students that graduated
Total (men/women)
Career duration
(up to 8 years) Total (men/women)
Career duration
(up to 7 years) Total (men/women)
Career duration
(up to 6 years) Total (men/women)
1990
34(26/08)
11 (08/3)
5 (05/0)
1 (1/0)
1991
54(36/18)
17 (12/5)
9 (08/1)
7 (6/1)
1992
45(27/18)
17 (12/5)
17 (12/5)
7 (4/3)
1993
44(27/17) 
19 (14/5)
12 (08/4)
3 (3/0)
1994
36(23/13)
17 (13/4)
5 (04/1)
1 (1/0)
1995
46(29/17)
11 (07/4)
5 (03/2)
1 (1/0)
1996 *
63(45/18)
15 (11/4)
14 (10/4)
6 (4/2)
1997 *
62(37/25)
24 (16/8)
18 (12/6)
7 (6/1)
1998
34(22/12)
21 (12/9)
11 (08/3)
5 (4/1)
1999
27(20/07) 
14 (11/3)
6 (06/0)
3 (3/0)
2000
43(27/16)
13 (07/6) 
6 (03/3)
0 (0/0)

* A larger number of students graduated during these years because it was the last chance that students that followed the "old" career curriculum had to graduate.
 

PhD in Physics (graduate studies)

1)Currently there are 99 graduate students doing their PhD in Physics at the School of Exact and Natural Sciences, 30% of whom are women.

2)Approximately 15 students obtain their PhD in Physics each year. 40% of this total are women.

We list here the total number of students that obtained their PhD during the last 11 years:
 
Year of graduation
Number of PhD recipients
Total (men/women)
1990
23 (10/13)
1991
13 (09/04)
1992
15 (07/08)
1993
10 (08/02)
1994
17 (09/08)
1995
11 (08/03)
1996 
13 (08/05)
1997 
18 (08/10)
1998
17 (12/05)
1999
21 (12/09)
2000
13 (11/02)

 

Professors and teaching assistants at the Physics Department:

The Faculy of the Physics Department of the School of Exact and Natural Sciences is composed by 62 professors. There are also 117 teaching assistants (with at least the degree of Licenciado) that work at the Department. These numbers include both full and part-time professors and assistants.

Here we list the total number of professors at the Physics Department:
 
Position
Number Total (men/women)
Prof. Emérito (Emeritus)
1(1/0)
Prof. Consulto
1(1/0)
Prof. Titular (Full Professor)
14(13/1)
Prof. Asociado (Associate Professor)
17(14/3)
Prof. Adjunto (Assistant Professor)
29(19/10)

Female professors comprise 22.6 % of the total Faculty, although most of them correspond to the lowest position (assistant professor, 34.5%).

Within teaching assistants, women comprise 35% of the total number.