The Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics: Leveling the Playing Field By Amber McCreary, a physicist in the Nanoscale Device Characterization Division at NIST At the start of 2020, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) took a short break from doing world-class science to focus its efforts on another of its core values: inclusivity. Co-hosted by NIST and the University of Maryland (UMD), the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) brought dozens of NIST and UMD volunteers, scientists and staff together to inspire about 160 undergraduate women to continue their pursuit of degrees in physics. The sheer scale of the event was exciting to witness and made me proud to be a part of an institution that values outreach in addition to research excellence. I know the value of data. And although I will always advocate for empowering women in all fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), the data tells us that the situation is especially troublesome for physics as a discipline. Statistics on demographics collected from the American Institute of Physics, the Higher Education Research Institute, and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System have shown that while women make up nearly 50% of enrollments in high school physics, chemistry and biology, less than 20% of postsecondary physics majors are female, while chemistry and biology remain relatively stable at above 40%. | 
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