Newsletter VOLUME 44, NO. 2 • MARCH–APRIL 2014 PRESIDENT’S REPORT My last President’s Report began with the good news that we had been offered a $5,000 match for contributions to AWM made between December 1 and January 31. I am happy to begin this month’s report with even better news: your contri- The purpose of the Association butions put us well over the $5,000. Including the match, we raised over $12,000 for Women in Mathematics is in two months. To all of you who contributed, please accept my personal thanks as • to encourage women and girls to well as the thanks of the Association as a whole for supporting our goals. study and to have active careers February 1 marks the changing of the guard at AWM. We welcome Kristin in the mathematical sciences, and Lauter (Microsoft Research) as the new President-Elect. Kristin replaces Jill Pipher, • to promote equal opportunity and the equal treatment of women and the outgoing Past President on the Management Team. The community as a whole girls in the mathematical sciences. owes Jill an enormous thanks for all she has done for AWM over the past four years. Personally, I will miss her sage advice (or more likely, I will pick up the phone and consult her anyway). Kristin has been serving on the AWM Executive Committee (EC) for the past two years so she is well versed in the current issues and has some excellent ideas for the future. I look forward with enthusiasm to working with her. We also welcome the new AWM Clerk, Janet Beery (University of Redlands) and the new EC Members-at-Large Alissa Crans (Loyola Marymount University), Joan Ferrini-Mundy (National Science Foundation), Bryna Kra (Northwestern University), and Talitha Washington (Howard University). In addition, Marie Vitulli (University of Oregon) has agreed to extend her term for two more years to fill the EC slot vacated by Kristin. Our gratitude goes to those rotating off the EC, Trachette Jackson, Irina Mitrea, Ami Radunskaya, and Rebecca Segal. As always, AWM had a packed schedule at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore. (I was too tired to write this report on the plane ride home, so I am testing out my writing skills at sea level this month.) Wednesday morning was taken IN THIS ISSUE up with the AWM Executive Committee meeting. This is the one in-person EC 4 AWM at JMM meeting of the year—the other meetings are by teleconference—and I was remind- ed how much livelier conversations tend to be in person! The EC meeting was 16 USASEF followed by the AWM Panel on “Building a research career in mathematics,” organized 17 Media Column by Bettye Anne Case and Christina Sormani. Panelists included Joan Hutchinson, 19 Book Review Delaram Kahrobaei, Tanya Leise, Chikako Mese, Judy Walker, and myself. Coming 21 Education Column from a wide variety of institutions, the panelists were able to give multiple perspectives on strategies for building a successful research career and the challenges 23 Mathematics, Live! one may encounter. The panel was well attended and the audience chimed in with 25 Mathematics + Motherhood many questions. continued on page 2 PRESIDENT’S REPORT continued from page 1 A highlight of the JMM was the AWM Reception Wednesday evening. The reception attracted a large and lively audience, including such luminaries as the presidents of the AMS and SIAM and past-president of the MAA. With a little help from the bartender, who lent us a glass and a metal bottle opener to clank, we managed to get everyone’s attention for the AWM Prize Session. I had the pleasure of announcing the winners of the inaugural AWM-Sadosky Prize in Analysis, Svitlana Mayboroda, and the AWM-Microsoft Prize in Algebra and Number Theory, Sophie Morel. It was gratifying to see some of the donors who made these prizes possible in the audience. I also had the pleasure of presenting the Alice T. Schafer Prize for excellence in mathematics by an undergraduate woman AWM was founded in 1971 at the Joint Meetings in Atlantic City. to the winner, Sarah Peluse, the runner-up, Morgan Opie, and two honorable mentions, Shiyu (Jing-Jing) Li and Jessie Zhang. All four have demonstrated The Newsletter is published bi-monthly. Articles, letters to the editor, and announce- truly outstanding talent and I look forward to following their progress. In addition, ments are welcome. the AWM Service Awards went to Tai Melcher and Katharine Ott for their Opinions expressed in AWM Newsletter outstanding work on the Sonia Kovalevsky Days and USA Science and Engineering articles are those of the authors and do not Fair. For more details about the awardees, please see the report “AWM at JMM” necessarily reflect opinions of the editors or policies of the Association for Women later in this issue. in Mathematics. Authors sign consent to Thursday’s activities began with the 35th Annual AWM Noether Lecture, publish forms. given by Georgia Benkart, E. B. Van Vleck Professor of Mathematics (emerita) Circulation: 3500. © 2014, AWM at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Benkart is internationally recognized for her work in representation theory and algebraic combinatorics. For the EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Noether lecture, she presented a marvelous introduction to the rich interplay President between combinatorics and representation theory. It is easy to see why she is Ruth Charney such a popular speaker! A joint AMS-AWM special session on Geometric Department of Mathematics, MS 050 Applications of Algebraic Combinatorics was also held in connection with the Brandeis University 415 South Street Noether Lecture. Waltham, MA 02453 Later that day, I attended a special session talk by Sarah Greenwald, our [email protected] Associate Newsletter Editor, entitled “40+ Years of AWM: The history of the AWM Past President Jill Pipher and the AWM archives.” My favorite moment in her talk was the slide showing a Treasurer Ellen Kirkman picture from 1966 of a young Mary Gray, one of the founders of AWM. Sitting At-Large Members 20 feet away in the audience was Mary Gray, still very much involved in AWM as Annalisa Crannell Bryna Kra legal counsel and as current chair of the Advisory Board! Alissa Crans Maura Mast Thursday afternoon concluded with the Joint AMS-MAA-AWM prize Joan Ferrini-Mundy Marie Vitulli Tara Holm Talitha Washington session. The Louise Hay Award went to Sybilla Beckmann (University of Georgia) for her outstanding contributions to improving K–12 mathematics education and Clerk Janet Beery the preparation of K–12 teachers. The M. Gweneth Humphreys Award went to Meetings Coordinator Bettye Anne Case William Yslas Vélez (University of Arizona) for his legendary success in encouraging [email protected] women, especially first generation and minority students, to study mathematics and Newsletter Editor pursue careers in the mathematical sciences. In addition, the Schafer Prize winner, Anne Leggett, [email protected] Sarah Peluse, received her official plaque at the ceremony. Associate Editor The final AWM event at the JMM was the annual AWM Workshop. These Sarah Greenwald workshops, started in the 1990s, offer an opportunity for graduate students and [email protected] recent PhDs to present their work, meet others in their field, and interact with NEWSLETTER TEAM more senior mentors. In recent years the workshops were redesigned to focus Margaret Bayer, Book Review on a specific research topic and to encourage more interaction between participants. Jacqueline Dewar, Education Column This year’s workshop began Friday evening with a poster session and reception. Sarah Greenwald, Media Column Volunteer judges evaluated the posters and the two top posters were awarded Alice Silverberg, Media Column 2 AWM Newsletter Volume 44, Number 2 • March–April 2014 prizes. The winners were Jacqueline Davis (Vanderbilt University) and Tracy Membership Dues Weyand (Texas A&M). In addition, Aisha Chesler (Claremont Graduate University) Membership runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 was awarded a prize sponsored by the Mathematical Biosciences Institute, for the best Individual: $65 Family: $30 Contributing: $150 poster related to the biosciences. Congratulations to all three! Saturday was New member, affiliate and reciprocal members, devoted to a series of talks by recent PhDs on image analysis, computational geometry, retired, part-time: $30 Student, unemployed: $20 and computer vision. The lunch break provided time for participants to meet Outreach: $10 with assigned mentors. We are grateful to Maria Basterra, Erin Chambers, Kathryn AWM is a 501(c)(3) organization. Leonard, and Luminita Vese for their work in organizing this event and to the Institutional Membership Levels National Science Foundation for its financial support. Category 1: $325 Category 2: $325 With the JMM in the rear window, it is time to think about upcoming Category 3: $200 events. Plans are well under way for the 2014 SIAM Meeting in July and MathFest See www.awm-math.org for details on free ads, in August. This year’s SIAM workshop will focus on numerical and theoretical free student memberships, and ad discounts. approaches for nonlinear partial differential equations. Planning has also Sponsorship Levels begn for the 2015 events and there is one item I would like to bring to your α Circle: $5000+ β Circle: $2500–$4999 attention now. In 2015, the Annual SIAM Meeting will be replaced by the γ Circle: $1000–$2499 International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM) in Beijing. See the AWM website for details. As a result, the AWM SIAM workshop, normally held at the annual meeting in Subscriptions and Back Orders—All July, has been moved to the SIAM Conference on Computational Science and members receive a subscription to the news- Engineering (CSE) in March 2015.