If you’re on social media, there’s a chance you’ve already come across Dr. Tatiana Erukhimova’s viral science videos. This Texas physics professor films herself performing fun and unique experiments with infectious enthusiasm. Her content has brought millions of likes to the Texas A&M University Physics & Astronomy Department’s Instagram and TikTok accounts, and you can tell that her students absolutely love her class. However, that’s not the only way this teacher is making a difference!
Serving as a role model, Dr. Tatiana is helping to close the gender gap in STEM related fields– specifically, physics. Her platform on social media motivates women every day to pursue careers in science.
“Watching Dr. Tatiana do the experiments online, especially since she was a female leader, was more inspiring for me to even go into physics,” Afiya Dhanani, a student at Texas A&M University, told CBS News.
Dr. Tatiana believes that women have what it takes to succeed in STEM, but she also has the scientific evidence to back it up. In 2021, she and some of her colleagues performed research involving 10,000 students and scientists. The data collected through this study indicated that men and women have the same abilities when it comes to physics.
“We collected midterm exams, final exams, final scores, final grade grades over 10 years,”said the professor. “There was no consistent difference between a male and female performance on these exam scores. And I felt that this was a very important message for my students.â€
According to Maroon, a Texas A&M University magazine, Dr. Tatiana is passionate about physics outreach programs that encourage students to develop an interest in science. Many of these initiatives involve student-led demonstrations, which the teacher considers an essential part of the learning experience.
“The best way to understand something is to explain it,”she expressed. “It is one thing to answer physics questions on an exam, but it is quite another to explain physics concepts to both a 5-year-old and a 95-year-old watching your demonstration. You have to understand the principles deeply. These programs help students find their physics voice.â€
Watch the video below to see Dr. Tatiana get creative with “potato physics!”
You can find the source of this story’s featured image here.
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