Stanford PIE

The Stanford Physics, Identity, and Equity (PIE) program is designed to support candidates who have aspirations to apply to doctoral programs and become future leaders in the scientific community, and who will promote and/or contribute to a more equitable and inclusive physics community that would enhance our field.This three-day program (10.23.2025-10.25.2025) will provide prospective applicants with information and guidance on the graduate experience, the PhD application process, and the various research interests at Stanford.

Applying

The main objective of our program is to help mitigate the systematic challenges and barriers to broadening participation in physics. With that in mind, our application is designed to be as accessible and equitable as possible. We do not accept letters of recommendation, transcripts, or standardized test scores as a part of our application process. Applicants are asked to fill out a set of short questions establishing their interest in pursuing graduate work in physics or astrophysics and noting challenges they have faced and their availability for the program dates. The application is intended to take only a few minutes to complete. Applicants who are not selected to be participants will still be invited to register for the program. All registrants will have access to the graduate and faculty panels. See the program schedule for more information. 

Applications for PIE 2025 are live and due by 10.10.2025. All current physics undergrads, recent grads, or students in bridge or terminal masters programs who intend to apply for a Ph.D. program in the upcoming cycle are invited to apply.  We strongly encourage applicants from all groups that are underrepresented in physics and from those who are committed to building a more equitable field that provides opportunities to those from a wide range of backgrounds.
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Participation

The Stanford PIE program will be conducted entirely online. Participants will be asked to join the program events via zoom.

Over the course of our three-day program, participants will get the opportunity to hear from and talk to a number of the members of our physics community at Stanford. Our goal is to give participants access to a wide range of voices, both in terms of career stages and personal background. We will release this year's list of faculty soon. There will also be opportunities for participants to schedule meetings with additional Stanford faculty in the weeks proceeding the program.

Invited Speakers

Peter Michelson, Sri Raghu, Oliver Philcox, Surya Ganguli, Chelsea Bartram, Peter Graham, James Cryan

Graduate Student Speakers

Jessica Pan (moderator), Barkotel Zemenu, Michelle Xu, Maya Martinez, Alex Russo, Christina Bell, John McEnany, Ben Sherwin, Josephine Yu, Emily Thierstein

Graduate Life Panel

• Viraj Manwadkar (moderator), Abby Hartley, Hope Fu, Shenghua (Sean) Liu, Emma Simmerman

Graduate Research Panel

• Jessica Pan (moderator), Kaitlyn Karpovich, Yiheng Ye, Elena Corbae, Jello Zhou

Equity in Physics Panel

• Risa Wechsler (moderator), Leo Hollberg

Organizing Committee

• Maya Martinez, Viraj Manwadkar, Jessica Pan, Ben Sherwin, Sara Irvine, Ben Dodge, Aiden Reilly, Chengjie Jia, Luke Weaver, Sanya Gupta, Susan Clark