Australia

02
Oct
2024
Nadia Abdelal

Nadia Abdelal

Born in Tripoli, Lebanon • Birth year 1975 • Studied Science and Education at Monash University in Melbourne • Highest Degree Post Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education • Lives in Melbourne, Australia • Occupation Mathematics Education Specialist

There were only two things I ever wanted to be as a child – an artist or a scientist. Growing up as the daughter of a struggling artist, you can guess which one I was vehemently encouraged not to pursue. So, with great regret, I set aside my artistic dreams to focus on the more ‘financially stable’ study of science.

However, for a young migrant girl born in the 1970s, things were not that simple. Back then, women and girls weren’t even close to touching the glass ceiling, let alone breaking it. We were too busy dodging patriarchal bullets. For many women, particularly those of certain ethnicities, the central mission was marriage and children. Our dreams didn’t amount to much because there was only really one worth pursuing, and it definitely did not end with the word “scientist”.

(…) How does someone who was told by teachers that she would never understand maths, and who failed almost all her maths exams, end up as a maths education specialist?

Despite this, I was not discouraged. Much to the dismay of my mother, I had inherited my father’s burning desire to punch the status quo right in the face. Consequently, my feminist roots sprouted early. If I’m being totally honest, while I genuinely loved science, the idea of pushing against gender stereotypes, some of which still exist today, was equally as appealing. So, I set my course with determination.

It was not without its obstacles – and there were many. One obstacle in particular that could have derailed my entire professional future was my ongoing struggle with mathematics. I didn’t just struggle a little; I struggled a lot. For as long as I can remember, and throughout school, it was one of my greatest sources of shame. My failures in this subject accompanied me through primary school, high school, and even into university, where I eventually graduated with a major in physics and geophysics.

But how? How does someone manage to get a degree in physics while struggling so much with maths? And how does someone who was told by teachers that she would never understand maths, and who failed almost all her maths exams, end up as a maths education specialist? The answer is this: it’s not that I wasn’t good at maths, or that I couldn’t understand it. It was simply that I couldn’t understand the way maths was being taught to me!

Traditional mathematics approaches may work for a small percentage of the population, but the majority, especially those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, non-native language speakers, or those with non-neurotypical brains, are rarely among that select few.

Traditional mathematics approaches may work for a small percentage of the population, but the majority, especially those from lower socio-economic backgrounds, non-native language speakers, or those with non-neurotypical brains, are rarely among that select few. Unfortunately for me, I fell into all three categories, so school was a constant struggle. However, science was my art – a creative outlet for my curiosity, and anyone can tell you that when you love something and are curious about it, the teaching becomes secondary to the learning.

As I moved further into my career, I began to apply this newfound understanding to my teaching, shifting away from traditional methods and towards more conceptual approaches to maths education – methods that I wished I had been exposed to as a child and as a student of STEM.

The decision to leave the safety of my classroom in 2016 was a very difficult and personal one. However, it shaped some of the greatest learnings and experiences of my lifetime, and three years later, it led me to begin my company, EM Maths Consulting.

I began my life wanting to be one of two things, an artist or a scientist, and little did I know that I would end up as both.

The fear that comes with putting everything on the line to follow a dream can be debilitating. However, sometimes the desire to follow it is just too strong to ignore. So here I am, eight years on, and still clinging to the convictions that started me on this pathway – to drive change in mathematics education, and to encourage a system that supports and nurtures the strengths and uniqueness of every child regardless of race, gender, demographic, or physical, emotional, or spiritual preferences.

I made many discoveries along the way, but the best one was this: There is a little scientist in all of us, one who is compelled to ask questions, be curious, seek synergy, and find beauty. We don’t often connect these things to the learning of mathematics, but we should. I began my life wanting to be one of two things, an artist or a scientist, and little did I know that I would end up as both.

Posted by HMS in Stories
27
Apr
2022
Rachel Thomas

Rachel Thomas

Born in Perth, Australia • Birth year 1974 • Studied Mathematics at the University of Western Australia in Perth, Australia • Highest Degree MSc (Research) in Pure Mathematics • Lives in London, UK • Occupation Editor of Plus magazine (http://plus.maths.org)

When I started university, I planned to be a physicist or astronomer – I can’t deny I was heavily influenced by a love of scifi! I had a great time working in a gravity wave lab one summer, but the experience also made me realise I didn’t have the patience or practical ingenuity to be an experimental scientist. I found the theory fascinating. But at the lab flanges wouldn’t seal properly and huge niobium bars couldn’t be cooled low enough – I wasn’t as fascinated by the practical experimental problem solving.

I then remembered my other film-influenced career plan of becoming an archaeologist and took courses in Australian archaeology and Greek art and architecture. I had a brilliant time but again, I realised I didn’t have the patience required for the field work and analysis. I spent weeks trying (and not really succeeding) to make sense of tray after tray of very small grubby objects that I had dug up. I loved the ideas behind both of these glamorous careers, but the actual nitty gritty doing of the work just didn’t excite me.

Academia wasn’t appealing to most of the women I had studied with.

In the meantime, I’d been doing maths all along and I loved it. Originally, I took maths because I needed it to study physics. Then I kept studying maths because it turned out to be really fun. I really liked the actual doing of the maths – playing with linear algebra, proving something in group theory – each new area we were taught was so exciting with new concepts and new language or giving familiar ideas an entirely new perspective.

I loved doing research in semigroup theory for my Master’s degree and often couldn’t wait to get back to the desk to move my work forward. Unfortunately though, I didn’t really feel part of the community of my maths department. With hindsight, I’m sure this was partly due to being one of just a few female students when I was at honours and then postgraduate level. Academia wasn’t appealing to most of the women I had studied with. When things didn’t work out with my supervisor I nearly dropped out and left academia to work as a consultant mathematician on projects in government and industry. But fortunately, my generous boss, a brilliant female professor from the department, and my good friends supported me to finish my Master’s dissertation.

(…) it was in this job, and during the writing of my Master’s dissertation, that I discovered how much I loved communicating mathematics.

My work as a consultant was varied, and despite rarely crossing paths with the maths I’d learnt at university my degree had prepared me to learn quickly and to discern the structure of a problem and how I could use available data to answer meaningful questions. My maths training also helped me to communicate with the clients and it was in this job, and during the writing of my Master’s dissertation, that I discovered how much I loved communicating mathematics.

When I moved to the UK, I knew I wanted to write about maths. I was lucky enough to get a job with the Millennium Mathematics Project (MMP), a maths and education outreach initiative based at the University of Cambridge, before I left Australia. I quickly moved into working on Plus magazine, the part of the MMP that enables anyone who is curious about maths and the world to see the maths behind current events and keeping up to date with current maths research.

To see maths so visibly making a difference in the world, and to witness the passion, creativity and dedication of the mathematicians involved has been amazing.

Twenty years later I still love working at Plus, every day learning about new maths and new applications and talking to the mathematicians who make it all happen. My brilliant co-editor of Plus, Marianne Freiberger, and I get to go on all sorts of amazing mathematical adventures. Our work has taken us around the world, we’ve spoken to brilliant mathematicians from academia and industry, we’ve written several popular science books, appeared on TV and radio and worked on documentary series for the Discovery Channel working with our colleagues at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology. And over the last two years we’ve been lucky enough to work with epidemiologists working on the mathematical front line of the COVID-19 pandemic, helping to explain and communicate their work. To see maths so visibly making a difference in the world, and to witness the passion, creativity and dedication of the mathematicians involved has been amazing.

Things have changed a lot since I found myself as one of only a few female students at the end of my time at university.

Things have changed a lot since I found myself as one of only a few female students at the end of my time at university. Despite no longer being an academic mathematician, I feel firmly part of the maths community today.  And I’m very happy that nearly half the mathematicians and researchers Plus has collaborated with over the last year are women. A new community spirit seems to be rising in many mathematics departments, heavily influenced by the experience and hard work of the female researchers already there. I hope that these networks, and projects including Her Maths Story, are helping women in mathematics find the support and the supporters they need to follow their own maths stories.

Posted by HMS in Stories
02
Feb
2022
Elena Tartaglia

Elena Tartaglia

Born in Melbourne, Australia • Studied Applied Mathematics at the University of Melbourne in Australia • Highest Degree Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematical Physics • Lives in Melbourne, Australia • Occupation Research Scientist

I discovered my love of maths in high school when we started learning algebra. I had never been particularly adept at arithmetic or memorising times tables, but algebra was fun. It was about learning logical rules and applying them, step by step, to solve a problem that seemed impossible from the outset. My maths career so far has taken me from applied maths to mathematical physics to statistics and data science. Though the technical areas have been different, the pattern of understanding fundamental rules to break down big problems has remained.

I followed my heart all the way to a PhD in mathematical physics where I discovered the beauty of diagrammatic algebras: equations made out of squiggly diagrams.

My decision to pursue a career in maths came during my second year of university. I had been studying engineering, which I believed to be a more stable career choice, but after a year and a half I couldn’t get excited about any of the engineering specialisations. My Mum encouraged me to follow my heart and study mathematics: study what you love and you’ll figure out the work later, she advised. I followed my heart all the way to a PhD in mathematical physics where I discovered the beauty of diagrammatic algebras: equations made out of squiggly diagrams.

After a two-year postdoc in Italy, I decided to make the switch from academia to follow a career in data science. I had avoided any statistics and probability in my university studies, because they were not topics I enjoyed in high school, but I soon learned how interesting randomness is and how useful it is for understanding the world. I was lucky enough to land a dream job at Data61, the data analytics unit of CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency. Since then I have been working on industry projects, solving applied problems in the areas of manufacturing, wildfires and public policy with statistics and machine learning. I love that even after this career change, I can still use my mathematical thinking to break problems down into their essential ingredients and solve them step by step.

Reflecting on my path from education to employment, I have learnt that careers don’t have to follow a clear and straight path.

Reflecting on my path from education to employment, I have learnt that careers don’t have to follow a clear and straight path. I have learnt that following your dreams can be a good option, but it isn’t the only one, and that trying out adjacent areas of work that are in-demand can lead to a fulfilling occupation. I have also learnt that an important output of your studies is the ability to teach yourself new skills, because flexibility is a valuable skill in the workforce – plus learning new skills keeps your work interesting.

Posted by HMS in Stories
05
May
2021
Ellese Cotterill

Ellese Cotterill

Born in Newcastle, Australia • Studied Advanced Mathematics at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia • Highest Degree PhD in Computational Neuroscience from Cambridge University, UK • Lives in Sydney, Australia • Occupation Data Scientist

From as early as I can remember, I was always interested in maths and numbers. My grandad used to tell the story of me as a young child adding up the numbers on the back of buses on the way to pick up my sister from school. At school, maths was my favourite subject and something that I found came easily to me. When I finished high school, I really didn’t have any clear idea of what I wanted to do as a career, which made picking a university degree difficult. I wanted to do something where I felt like I was positively contributing to society, and a job in a medical field seemed like an obvious choice. For a while I considered medicinal chemistry, but being in a lab was never very appealing to me. In the end I decided to study something I knew I enjoyed, and so I enrolled in an advanced mathematics degree. My parents were quite confused why I didn’t choose a degree with a defined profession such as medicine or law, and questioned me about what kind of career I could have after studying mathematics. I didn’t have a good answer for that, but felt confident that if I did something I enjoyed, the career aspect of things would work itself out later.

(…) My grandmother was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, so the possibility of making a contribution in that area by studying the brain was very appealing.

In my second year of undergraduate study I discovered the subject of biomathematics, which involves using quantitative methods to study the biological world. I found it really interesting, and ended up doing my honours project in the field, modelling molecular diffusion in cells. When I came to the end of my degree, however, there still wasn’t an obvious career path for mathematics graduates. Careers days were dominated by financial institutions, and I ended up accepting a position as a quantitative analyst at a large investment bank. It only took me a few months to realise this wasn’t the right path for me, and I started looking for other opportunities. I’d enjoyed the research aspect of my honours year, and so thought a PhD in a field like biomathematics could be a good option. There wasn’t much research happening in Australia in this area, but I read a lot coming out of UK universities such as Oxford and Cambridge. Coming from Australia, I’d never imagined that I would be able to get into such prestigious universities, but decided there was no harm in applying. At that time, my grandmother was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, so the possibility of making a contribution in that area by studying the brain was very appealing. I managed to find a supervisor at Cambridge University working in the field of computational neuroscience, and was lucky enough to be accepted into a Wellcome Trust programme that would fund my PhD in that area.

I greatly enjoyed my time studying in Cambridge, and met a lot of interesting people. One thing I noticed was that although there were many talented female PhD students in the mathematics department, I met almost no female postdoctoral researchers. I believe the impermancy of contracts and often frequent relocation involved in the early stages of an academic career are aspects which turn women off pursuing academics, particularly those who want a family. These were certainly factors that influenced my decision not to continue in academia, and at the end of my PhD I instead looked for opportunities in industry back in Australia.

(…) Choosing to study mathematics has given me fundamental skills in logical reasoning and problem solving which can be applied across many industries and careers.

I spent a year working as a data scientist at a neurotechnology startup in Sydney, but found that the company’s small size meant that it was difficult to produce any meaningful insights with the limited amount of data available. I also realised that I was more interested in working on challenging and meaningful problems from a mathematical perspective, rather than their precise applications. These factors lead me to take a position outside neuroscience, at an aerial imagery company called Nearmap. I’ve been working there for over two years now, helping build models and systems for automatically detecting objects in aerial imagery. I’ve greatly enjoyed my time there, and have been lucky enough to work with a number of talented women within the artificial intelligence team.

If there’s any advice I would give young people choosing what to study, it would be to do what you enjoy and are passionate about, and don’t worry too much about a degree’s application to a career path. My job today isn’t something I would have imagined doing while at university, at which time the field of machine learning as it is today barely even existed. Technology advances so rapidly that it’s impossible to predict what the most exciting and important careers might be in the future. However, choosing to study mathematics has given me fundamental skills in logical reasoning and problem solving which can be applied across many industries and careers.

Posted by HMS in Stories