Ph.D. Mamas
Community, visibility, and a different account of scholarly life.
Ph.D. Mamas is an international community of more than 20,000 mothers in academia. It was founded in 2015 to make room for identities and experiences academic institutions have too often asked mothers to hide.
Why the community exists
Motherhood and scholarship are often treated as competing identities. Ph.D. Mamas begins from a different premise: care is not evidence of lesser commitment or capacity. It is part of the social world scholars inhabit and part of the knowledge many of us bring to our work.
The community creates connection, shares practical knowledge, and makes visible the structural barriers faced by mothers and caregivers across graduate education, faculty life, contingent work, career transitions, and institutions around the world.
From community to scholarship
Ph.D. Mamas also informs a wider body of research and public scholarship on motherscholars, caregiving, academic work, identity, burnout, and institutional change. The community is not a research population by default; its first purpose is connection and support.