Economics Faculty and Alum Publish on Faculty Gender Impacts on Student Success

Published: March 4, 2021

Economics Associate Professor Hani Mansour and Professor Daniel Rees recently published research with Bryson Rintala (currently a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air force and the first Ph.D. student to graduate from our program) along with Nathan Wozny (from the U.S. Air Force Academy).  “The Effects of Professor Gender on the Postgraduation Outcomes of Female Students,” in Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Studying why more than seventy percent of scientists and engineers are men when women earn approximately fifty percent of science, technology, engineering, and math bachelor’s degrees, the authors explore a potential determinant of this STEM gender gap. Using newly collected data on the career trajectories of United States Air Force Academy students, they specifically examine the effects of being assigned female math and science professors on occupation choice and postgraduate education. The results indicate that, among high-ability female students, being assigned a female professor leads to substantial increases in the probability of working in a STEM occupation and the probability of receiving a STEM master’s degree.