Ph.D. student Chenqi Gao gave a 15-minute talk presenting her research at SPSSI 2021, San Juan, Puerto Rico: “Are Societal Beauty Standards Preventing Women from Pursuing Mathematics? ” This research studies women’s underrepresentation in math from the perspective of societal expectations on women’s physical appearances. The findings show that women’s physical appearance satisfaction moderates the relation between their math participation and math interest, implying that lower physical appearance satisfaction may contribute to gender disparity in math.

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