Tens of millions of people have watched videos of Dr. Tatiana Erukhimova experiments on TikTok over the past two years after they piqued their interest.
Only 25 percent of Americans with bachelor’s degrees in physics are women, according to the American Physical Society, a nonprofit organisation based in Maryland. But Texas A&M University professor of physics Dr. Tatiana Erukhimova hopes to change that with the aid of social media.
Tens of millions of people have watched videos of her experiments on TikTok over the past two years after they piqued their interest.
In these brief clips, you can’t really explain much, but you can inspire, she said. After viewing Erukhimova’s physics experiments online, Afiya Dhanani enrolled at Texas A&M University.
Dhanani said, “Watching Dr. Tatiana Erukhimova do the experiments online was more inspiring for me to even go into physics, especially since she was a female leader. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Erukhimova’s journey began thousands of miles away, about six hours northeast of Moscow. She was raised by two physicists, and she later married Alexey, a physicist. They moved and now work as teachers in College Station, Texas.
“Not feeling at home. However, you arrive home “said Erukhimova. Erukhimova participates in outreach activities when she is not teaching. She took part in a study in 2021 that involved 10,000 students, physicists, and other scientists. She still spreads the message from the study that men and women are equally qualified for the field of physics.
“Over a period of ten years, we gathered midterm, final, and grade grades. On these exam results, there was no discernible difference between a male and female performer. And I thought that this was a message that my students needed to hear very much,” said Erukhimova.
Nicole Cirigioni, a former pupil, praised Erukhimova’s zeal for learning and commitment to instructing, saying, “When a teacher wants to be somewhere else, you can tell. However, you can tell Dr. Tatiana wants you to be there when you enter her classroom. Because she cares about you and wants you to learn, you feel motivated to do the same.”
The “Physics and Engineering Festival” at A&M in April, an occasion that brings thousands of people to campus each year, is next for Erukhimova. Everyone is welcome to attend this festival, and Erukhimova claims that you don’t have to be a scientist to celebrate science in the same way that you don’t have to be a musician to go to a music festival.
Erukhimova “always wants everything to be like a celebration of science,” according to former student Callie Rethman. She continued, “And I think that celebration has really spread everywhere because of her videos going viral.