Once again the February issue of the AMS Notices includes significant information about black mathematicians. Associate Editor Robin Wilson wrote the introduction to the issue.
Month: January 2019
Emmy Noether
Emmy Noether is one of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century. In this BBC podcast, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss her ideas and achievements.
Imposter Syndrome
One subject that’s received a lot of press recently is imposter syndrome. This occurs when a person is an expert in an area, with years of training and experience, but feels like a fraud. Imposter syndrome causes anxiety from the person’s worry about their fraudulence being found out by others. This can particularly affect women and underrepresented minorities in STEM. In an AMS blog post, William Yslas Vélez discusses this issue.
A Movement to Close the Gender Gap in Mathematics
Article in Quanta magazine about “The Brazilian mathematician Carolina Araujo, who calls herself “a bit of an anarchist,” is organizing meetings and building a support network to study and solve the problems women face in mathematics.”
Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon
Saturday 26 January 2019, 9:00AM-5:00PM
Clemson University, Cooper Library Room 200B
Registration page
Instructor: Dr. Marie A. Vitulli
Professor Emerita, University of Oregon
2019 Fellow of the AWM
Director, Women in Math Web Project
Winner, 2017 AWM Service Award
2014 AWM-MAA Etta Z. Falconer Lecturer
Edit-A-Thon poster
Meet-up page
Gender bias in Wikipedia is well documented. As of 05 Dec 2018, only 17.75% of the biographies in Wikipedia are about women. In addition, biographies of women tend to be “less extensive” and “to overuse words relating to gender and family”. Furthermore, it is estimated that less than 16% of Wikipedia editors are women; the estimation is so rough because women editors frequently decline to identify their gender or lie about it, in part, to avoid online harassment. Wikipedia also suffers from racial bias. Less seems to be known about other biases in Wikipedia.
The broadest goal of this event is to contribute to the reduction of bias in Wikipedia. Participants will receive hands-on training about editing and creating wikipedia pages with an eye toward increasing visibility of underrepresented groups on Wikipedia, especially in the mathematical and statistical sciences. By the end of the edit-a-thon, participants will edit and/or create at least one wikipedia biography.
Distinguished Lecture
Dr. Vitulli will present “Algebra and Geometry Throughout History: A Symbiotic Relationship” in Clemson’s Distinguished Speaker Series on Friday 25 January at 10:10AM in the Watt Family Innovation Center Auditorium
Before the Edit-A-Thon
- Register
- If you have time, research a topic: suggestions (red-list) from Women in Red. Otherwise, Prof. Vitulli is preparing small helpful edit-projects for participants to work on.
- Create a Wikipedia account. Note that new Wikipedia editors won’t be able to publish new pages until their accounts are at least 4 days old and they’ve made at least 10 edits.
- Bring a laptop (or let us know if you need help with this)
Links
- Registration page
- Background, basics, and more for the edit-a-thon
- Writing Women into Wikipedia, by Marie A. Vitulli. (See also the abbreviated version in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, March 2018)
- How to Create a Wikipedia Account
- Dr. Vitulli’s template for a biography of a woman mathematician
- The Women in Red Project
- An extensive list of biographies of female mathematicians, which need to be created or improved, and a section on the Association for Women in Mathematics listing awards, prizes, and lectures, which list award/prize recipients who don’t have pages and prizes/awards that don’t have pages.
- Various lists of pages that need to be created or improved.
- Main page for Wikipedia:WikiProject Women in Red
- Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_scientists
- Clemson guest wireless information (Clemson is also part of Eduroam)
- Clemson visitor parking (let us know when you register if you’ll need a visitor parking permit)
Organizers
Sponsors (listed alphabetically)
TIGERS Advance Distinguished Lecture: Marie Vitulli
Dr. Marie Vitulli, Professor Emerita at the University of Oregon, will deliver a TIGERS Advance Distinguished Lecture “Algebra and Geometry Throughout History: A Symbiotic Relationship” Friday, January 25, at 10:10AM on the Clemson Campus. More information can be found at the Clemson University Events Calendar post for the lecture.
Professor Vitulli’s talk will be followed by a Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon Saturday, January 26.
ICYMI: Title IX Comment Period Ends Soon
As a reminder, the official public comment period for the Department of Education’s proposed changes to Title IX ends January 28, 2019. If you have an opinion about the changes, you might consider posting a comment. Our previous post points to more information about the changes and where readers can post their comments.
Someone You Should Know: Dr. Christine Darden
Dr. Christine Darden
1942-Present
Dr. Christine Darden was born in Monroe, North Carolina in 1942. She received her Bachelor’s degree from the Hampton Institute, her Master’s in Applied Mathematics from Virginia State College, and her Ph. D. in Mechanical Engineering from George Washington University.
Dr. Darden started her career teaching mathematics to college and high school students. In 1967, she was added as a ‘human computer’ at NASA’s Langley Research Center. She worked for NASA for almost 40 years, retiring in 2007.
At NASA, she began processing data and doing calculations. Dr. Darden was upset that males with equivalent educational backgrounds were being promoted to engineer while she remained as a ‘computer’. After approaching her supervisor about the issue, he promoted her to the engineering division where she was one of the few female aerospace engineers at the time.
Her first task in the engineering division was to write a computer program for the sonic boom. This began her 25-year career in sonic boom minimization. She wrote more than 57 papers and articles while at NASA and was awarded two NASA medals, the Black Engineer of the Year Outstanding Achievement in Government Award, and the Women in Science and Engineering Lifetime Achievement Award.
Dr. Darden acknowledged that she was “able to stand on the shoulders of those women who came before me,” such as Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan who were depicted in the film “Hidden Figures”.
Mathematically Gifted and Black
Today is Martin Luther King Day, and next month is Black History Month. With that in mind, we direct you to the website Mathematically Gifted and Black. Each day in February, this website honors a black mathematical/statistical scientist. We’re excited to see who the honorees are this year.
More Shake-up at Michigan State
After several high profile gaffes, Michigan State University’s interim president John M. Engler has resigned effective immediately. Engler was hired to direct MSU in the wake of the Larry Nassar scandal, but apparently the university’s Board of Trustees concluded that his statements were causing too much damage to the institution.