摘要

Women continue to constitute an underrepresented, albeit, growing proportion of science and engineering faculty in the United States. Nanotechnology, an emerging science and technology field, has characteristics hypothesized to be more attractive to women. This qualitative study investigates gender differences in nanoscientists' career decisions to test this hypothesis. The study is designed as a grounded theory exercise involving semi-structured interviews with multiple rounds of coding. Our findings suggest that female nanoscientists report more mentoring, over broader spans of their education and careers, than male nanoscientists. Women reported more direct career guidance, support, and direction, and less informal support, than men. Second, women, more often than men, appear to pursue nanotechnology as a tool or means for furthering their research rather than out of interest in nanoscience/nanotech itself. In contrast, men seem to be drawn to nanoscale science and technology out of intrinsic interest in, or excitement about, the field. These findings suggest that nanotechnology workforce development would benefit from a gender-differentiated approach to recruitment.