Annual Program for Women and Mathematics Examines 21st-Century Geometry
The 19th annual Program for Women and Mathematics will bring undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral women studying mathematics together with research mathematicians for an intensive residential workshop examining the frontiers of geometry. The program, which will take place May 14–25 on the campus of the Institute for Advanced Study, is sponsored by the Institute and Princeton University and is supported by the National Science Foundation.
The Program for Women and Mathematics is designed to inspire talented women from undergraduate through postdoctoral levels to achieve their educational goals, as well as to address the isolation and lack of support many women face in mathematics. It addresses three transition periods in particular: those from undergraduate to graduate study, from advanced graduate work to research, and from postdoctoral work to a tenure-track academic position or a permanent job outside academia.
The 2012 program, 21st-Century Geometry, will focus on cutting-edge topics in knot theory, symplectic geometry, manifolds and holomorphic curves. In addition to undergraduate- and graduate-level lecture courses, the program includes research seminars, review sessions, colloquia and conversations with senior women scientists and mathematicians.
A variety of informal activities also encourage community-building among participants. In conjunction with the program, Gioia De Cari will bring her hit solo show Truth Values: One Girl's Romp through M.I.T.’s Male Math Maze to the Frist Campus Center at Princeton University on Friday, May 18, at 7 p.m. Tickets for the play may be reserved at the Frist Ticket Office or by calling (609) 258-1742.
The 2012 Program for Women and Mathematics is organized by Karen Uhlenbeck of the University of Texas at Austin and Eleny Ionel of Stanford University.
Lecturers for the beginning course will be Joan Licata, Member in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study, and Margaret Symington, Associate Professor at Mercer University. Leading the advanced course will be Eleny Ionel, Professor at Stanford University, and Lisa Traynor, Associate Professor at Bryn Mawr College.
For more information, visit www.math.ias.edu/wam/2012.
About the Program for Women and Mathematics
The Program for Women and Mathematics grew out of the Park City Mathematics Institute, an outreach program of the Institute for Advanced Study that provides professional development for the mathematics community. In 1994, a program called the Mentoring Program for Women in Mathematics was formed with the long-term goal of giving women the support needed to remain in the field of mathematics. Now known as the Program for Women and Mathematics, the program’s participants include undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral scholars and senior researchers. Collaborations and mentoring relationships are formed during the program and are maintained long afterward.
About the Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study is one of the world’s leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. The Institute exists to encourage and support curiosity-driven research in the sciences and humanities—the original, often speculative thinking that produces advances in knowledge that change the way we understand the world. Work at the Institute takes place in four Schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Social Science. It provides for the mentoring of scholars by a permanent Faculty of approximately 30, and it ensures the freedom to undertake research that will make significant contributions in any of the broad range of fields in the sciences and humanities studied at the Institute.
The Institute, founded in 1930, is a private, independent academic institution located in Princeton, New Jersey. Its more than 6,000 former Members hold positions of intellectual and scientific leadership throughout the academic world. Thirty-three Nobel Laureates and 40 out of 56 Fields Medalists, as well as many winners of the Wolf and MacArthur prizes, have been affiliated with the Institute.