A New Method to Build Egocentric Social Networks for Women and LGBTQ+ PhD Physicists

The ability to build and maintain a network with peers, coworkers, and mentors is a vital component of success in any career. Due to exceptional marginalization in physics, women and LGBTQ+ people may face an unprecedented level of difficulty in doing just this. This talk will review our methods for examining the egocentric (personal) social networks developed by 100 women and/or LGBTQ+ PhD physicists across academia, government, and private sectors. We will discuss the methods we used to code qualitative interview data for network information. Specifically, we will discuss our technique for coding relational and support data, an interval proximity scale for measuring closeness, and a technique for tracking mentions of alters in conversation. We will also discuss our technique for consolidating the coded data into a form more appropriate for quantitative network analysis. This discussion of methods will be useful for anyone undertaking qualitative SNA studies in PER, especially if those studies focus on the experiences of marginalized groups.