Post date: Feb 16, 2012 2:50:20 PM
This is the analysis of faculty demographics, with respect to AMO research, presented by Jim McGuire at ITAMP and at the 1999 APS Centennial Meeting (Atlanta, GA).
Jim McGuire
Tulane University
Data collected from 'Graduate Programs in Physics' published by the American Institute of Physics has been combined with 'Rankings of US Physics Departments' posted on the internet by US News & World Report. All of the top 10 ranked departments have experimental AMO physics. In these 10 departments there are 39.5 AMO experimentalists and 3 theorists. In the top 25 departments, there are 92 experimental AMO physicists in 18 departments. In 9 of these top 25 departments there are listed 12.5 theorists. In the bottom half of the 83 ranked departments, somewhat more than half have either AMO experiment (100.5 positions) or theory (41 positions) with a ratio of theory to experiment slightly exceeding 1/2.5. In the top 10 ranked physics departments, in condensed matter physics there are 59 theorists and 84 experimentalists. Thus, the ratio of theory to experiment is 59:84 = 0.70 in condensed matter; 90:102 = 0.88 in astrophysics; 3:39.5 = 0.08 in AMO physics; 10:40 = 0.25 in nuclear physics; and 84:103 = 0.82 in elementary particle physics.