I apologise for referring to the junior person as “she” throughout this post, and assuming that the senior one is a “he”. I know this is only one of many possible situations, and much of what I say applies to any of the others too. This is going to be a complicated post, so I summarised my recommendations in a… Read more →
I am quite certain I would not have landed a permanent academic job without the amazing advice I received from my post-doc mentors and earlier on from my PhD advisor. So I’ll stop whining for a minute to pass their insights on to you, and add my two cents while I’m at it. If you’re likely to get the Fields Medal or the… Read more →
This is the promised second post about being a woman, you can read the first one here. I would like to repeat that I’m not aiming for any grand conclusion: I am simply sharing an odd assortment of stories for my own entertainment and maybe yours. When I’m feeling ambitious, I might hope to contribute to a better, less polarised… Read more →
A few months ago one of the strongest research universities in Australia advertised a continuing (like tenure-track) position in mathematics for female applicants only. Shortly thereafter, two other first-tier universities followed suit. I wasn’t privy to the politics behind the decisions, but I heard gossip that at my university there wasn’t much of an opposition. It seemed people treated it… Read more →
TL/DR: I became a mathematician because I was a socially awkward five-year-old and things just kind of snowballed from there. The early days My mathematical career started in kindergarten. Until I was five years old I stayed home with my mom and two younger siblings, even though a free full-day pre-school and kindergarten program was available from age three, and… Read more →
My sister used to vacation with me and my math friends for a week each summer; as you might guess she has a lot of patience. By the end of each vacation she was well-trained: she would laugh at our jokes, use words like “trivial”, “modulo” and “orthogonal” in casual conversation, and even get their meaning right. She became, for… Read more →