President's Report
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Newsletter VOLUME 43, NO. 6 • NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2013 PRESIDENT’S REPORT As usual, summer flew by all too quickly. Fall term is now in full swing, and AWM is buzzing with activity. Advisory Board. The big news this fall is the initiation of an AWM Advisory Board. The Advisory Board, first envisioned under Georgia Benkart’s presidency, con- The purpose of the Association for Women in Mathematics is sists of a diverse group of individuals in mathematics and related disciplines with distinguished careers in academia, industry, or government. Through their insights, • to encourage women and girls to breadth of experience, and connections with broad segments of the mathematical study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences, and community, the Board will seek to increase the effectiveness of AWM, help with fund- • to promote equal opportunity and raising, and contribute to a forward-looking vision for the organization. the equal treatment of women and Members of the Board were selected to represent a broad spectrum of academia girls in the mathematical sciences. and industry. Some have a long history with AWM, and others are new to the orga- nization; all are committed to forwarding our goals. We are pleased to welcome the following Board members: Mary Gray, Chair (American University) Jennifer Chayes (Microsoft Research) Nancy Koppel (Boston University) Irwin Kra (Stony Brook University) Joan Leitzel (University of New Hampshire, Ohio State University) Jill Mesirov (Broad Institute) Linda Ness (Applied Communication Sciences) Richard Schaar (Texas Instruments) IN THIS ISSUE Mary Spilker (Pfizer) Jessica Staddon (Google) 4 AWM Election 14 Benkart Named In addition, the President, Past President (or President Elect) and Executive Noether Lecturer Director of AWM are also members of the Board. Short biographies of the board 15 Education Column members are available on our website. I look forward to working with this outstand- 21 AWM Ballot ing group. Meetings. After a full program of events at the SIAM meeting in July, AWM 22 Media Column concluded its summer activities in August with a lecture and panel at MathFest 22 Book Review 2013. The AWM-MAA Etta Z. Falconer Lecture was presented by Patricia Ken- 25 Mathematics, Live! schaft, Professor Emerita at Montclair State University. Kenschaft’s talk, entitled 28 Mathematics + Motherhood “Improving Equity and Education: Why and How,” was a highly entertaining and thought-provoking look at her efforts to improve mathematics education at the 31 2014 AAAS Meeting continued on page 2 PRESIDENT’S REPORT continued from page 1 elementary school level. The AWM panel, “Successful Career Transitions,” included five panelists, Lynette Boos (Providence College), Eileen Lee (Math for America), Connie Leidy (Wesleyan University), Karen Ricciardi (University of Massachu- setts Boston), and Milena Tzigantcheva (State Street Corporation). Each panelist discussed a key transition point in her career, ranging from starting a tenure-track job, to becoming a mother, to moving from academia to a career in industry or the non-profit sector. All offered useful insights into navigating these transitions. Plans are well under way for a full program of AWM events at the Joint Math- ematics Meetings in Baltimore, January 15–18. Activities planned for the JMM in- clude the opening reception, the AWM Noether Lecture, a career panel, a research AWM was founded in 1971 at the Joint workshop and a poster session. Of particular interest this year is the annual AWM Meetings in Atlantic City. Reception, which takes place Wednesday evening following the Gibbs Lecture. In The Newsletter is published bi-monthly. addition to the usual opportunity to eat, drink, and network, this year’s reception Articles, letters to the editor, and announce- ments are welcome. will feature a presentation of two new AWM research prizes. The AWM Sadosky Opinions expressed in AWM Newsletter Prize in Analysis will be awarded to Svitlana Mayboroda (University of Minnesota) articles are those of the authors and do not and the AWM Microsoft Prize in Algebra and Number Theory will be awarded to necessarily reflect opinions of the editors Sophie Morel (Princeton University). In addition, we will present the 2014 AWM or policies of the Association for Women Service Awards and introduce the winner, runner-up and honorable mentions in Mathematics. Authors sign consent to publish forms. for the Alice T. Schafer Prize for excellence in mathematics by an undergraduate Circulation: 3500. © 2013, AWM woman. If you are attending the JMM this year, be sure to join us at the reception to honor these outstanding prize recipients. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The panel discussion on Wednesday afternoon, organized by Bettye Anne Case (Florida State University) and Christina Sormani (City University of New York), President Ruth Charney will focus on “Building a Research Career in Mathematics.” Panelists from a wide Department of Mathematics, MS 050 range of institutions will provide insight into building a research career in a variety Brandeis University of environments. The discussion should be useful to department chairs interested in 415 South Street helping their junior faculty to succeed, as well as to the junior faculty themselves. Waltham, MA 02453 [email protected] Thursday morning, the annual Noether Lecture will be given by Georgia Benkart (University of Wisconsin-Madison). The Noether Lectureship was created Past President Jill Pipher to honor women who have made fundamental and sustained contributions to the Treasurer Ellen Kirkman mathematical sciences. In addition to serving as AWM President from 2009–11, Ben- At-Large Members kart has had a distinguished research career in algebraic combinatorics. Her talk is Annalisa Crannell Maura Mast Tara Holm Irina Mitrea entitled “Walking on graphs the representation theory way.” (See the press release Trachette Jackson Ami Radunskaya later in this newsletter for more details.) A joint AMS-AWM special session on Kristin Lauter Marie Vitulli Geometric Applications of Algebraic Combinatorics is planned in connection with the Clerk Rebecca Segal Noether Lecture. Meetings Coordinator The AWM-JMM workshop for early career mathematicians, funded by the Bettye Anne Case [email protected] National Science Foundation, is organized this year by Maria Basterra (Univer- sity of New Hampshire), Erin Chambers (Saint Louis University), and Kathryn Newsletter Editor Leonard (California State University Channel Islands). The workshop will begin Anne Leggett, [email protected] with a poster session and reception on Friday evening and continue all day Satur- Associate Editor day with a series of talks focused on image analysis, computational geometry, and Sarah Greenwald [email protected] computer vision. We hope to see many of you in Baltimore in January. If there are breaks NEWSLETTER TEAM Margaret Bayer, Book Review in your JMM schedule, we would appreciate volunteers to help staff the AWM booth Jacqueline Dewar, Education Column in the exhibit hall. Please contact Magnhild Lien at [email protected] to sign up. Sarah Greenwald, Media Column For the schedule of AWM events at JMM, see http://jointmathematicsmeetings.org/ Alice Silverberg, Media Column meetings/national/jmm2014/2160_otherorg. 2 AWM Newsletter Volume 43, Number 6 • November–December 2013 Other news. The list of invited speakers for the next International Congress Membership Dues of Mathematics, ICM 2014, is now available. The plenary speakers include two Membership runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 women, Maryam Mirzakhani (Stanford) and Vera Serganova (University of Califor- Individual: $65 Family: $30 Contributing: $150 nia, Berkeley). Mirzakhani was one of the plenary speakers at the AWM Research New member, affiliate and reciprocal members, Symposium 2013 in Santa Clara last March. In addition, close to 15% of the sectional retired, part-time: $30 Student, unemployed: $20 speakers are women, including our own Past President, Jill Pipher. Congratulations Outreach: $10 to Maryam, Vera, Jill, and all of the invited speakers! AWM is a 501(c)(3) organization. Nominations will soon be open for the inaugural AWM Joan and Joseph Institutional Membership Levels Birman Prize in Topology and Geometry, to be awarded at JMM 2015. The current Category 1: $325 Category 2: $325 three AWM research prizes, the Birman prize, the Sadosky prize, and the Microsoft Category 3: $200 prize, are aimed at highlighting and promoting outstanding women in the early See www.awm-math.org for details on free ads, stages of their career. To be eligible, a woman must be either untenured or within free student memberships, and ad discounts. 10 years of receiving her PhD at the time of the nomination deadline. We are eager Sponsorship Levels α Circle: $5000+ to add a fourth research prize, the [your name here] Prize in Applied Mathematics. β Circle: $2500–$4999 For information on funding a prize, contact the AWM office. γ Circle: $1000–$2499 In other news, through the efforts of Heather Russell (Washington College) See the AWM website for details. and Kathleen Fowler (Clarkson University), AWM has instituted a Student Chap- Subscriptions and Back Orders—All ter Speaker Program. Under this program, AWM solicits volunteers to give math members receive a subscription to the news- letter as a privilege of membership. Libraries, talks to student chapters in their area. If you are interested in volunteering, please women’s studies centers, non-mathemat- see the link to the Student Chapter Speaker Program on our website. This is a ics departments, etc., may pur chase a sub- scription for $65/year ($75 foreign). Back orders wonderful opportunity to support local AWM student chapters and to connect with are $10/issue plus S&H ($5 minimum). undergraduate women in your geographic area. Payment—Payment is by check (drawn on a On a sadder note, I recently learned of the passing of Lesley Sibner. Sib- bank with a US branch), US money order, or international postal order. Visa and MasterCard ner earned her degree from the Courant Institute in 1964 and spent most of her are also accepted.