Mary Rigdon, Director of the Freedom Center and Associate Professor in the Department of Political Economy and Moral Science at the University of Arizona, is a nationally recognized expert on gender equity. Her recent work focuses on understanding gender differences in competitiveness and the role this plays in the persistent gender wage gap. Mary’s work is supported by the National Science Foundation and has been published in top scientific journals, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Phil Trans B, and Evolution and Human Behavior. Her research has been covered by local, national, and international media, including interviews with UArizona News, a special feature in the Financial Post, KJZZ’s The Show (Phx, AZ), and KVOA Channel 4 News (Tucson, AZ). Mary has presented this research in the National Science Foundation’s Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Distinguished Lecture Series, and she was competitively selected to present her research at the 2023 SXSW UArizona Wonder House.