PartTime

26
Mar
2025
Bindi Brook

Bindi Brook

Born in Nairobi, Kenya • Studied Mathematics at the University of Leeds • Highest Degree PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Leeds • Lives in the UK • Occupation Professor of Mathematical Medicine and Biology at the University of Nottingham

When I think back to school days, my sense is that I’ve always enjoyed mathematics. But there is one particular memory that is contrary to that. I was around 10 years old and had been finding most of the “maths” we did quite easy. Then some combination of factors (teacher, specific content) brought a sudden loss of confidence. I could not get my head around what we were being taught and I thought that was it – that I did not like maths anymore. My dad decided I was being silly (thankfully) and worked through some examples with me, every night, for about a week. By the end of it, my temporary lack of confidence had gone and ever since then I have really enjoyed some form of maths (here one can read – NOT pure maths). In fact, whenever I couldn’t make a decision about what I wanted to do next (at the end of A-levels, at the end of my undergraduate degree) I just picked the thing I enjoyed the most (maths and then applied maths) and went with it. I come from a South Asian culture where, if you’re considered “able”, you’re expected to study Medicine. That wasn’t for me – I really did not like remembering lots of facts and much preferred the problem-solving needed for studying maths.

(…) I have started to look into the mechanisms that could lead to a rare lung disease called lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) and Long Covid.

In an interesting twist though, in my research career, I have essentially specialised in applying mathematics to biological and medical problems! My PhD was all about understanding what happens to blood flow in collapsible blood vessels like the giraffe jugular vein. In my postdoc I was investigating how to optimise ventilator settings for patients in ICU and then how to deliver inhaled therapies into the lungs. Since then, my focus has been in trying to understand how diseases like Asthma and other respiratory diseases originate and then progress. This involves incorporating biology and physics into mathematical and computational models, using approaches from different areas of applied maths. More recently I have started to look into the mechanisms that could lead to a rare lung disease called lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) and Long Covid.

Although I am now a Professor and have spent much of my working life in academia, I took a somewhat torturous path getting there and could have picked a different route a number of times. Immediately after my PhD I worked for a credit card company, applying statistical models in a somewhat robotic fashion. There was no problem-solving involved and within 3 months I knew I could not stay and 3 months later started a postdoc in Sheffield. Towards the end of my postdoc I had my first daughter and worked part-time to complete it after which I decided I would just take time out to look after her. Two years later I had my second daughter.

Throughout my career, I have had some fantastic mentors (both women and men) who guided me through some tough times. These included workplace bullying and discrimination (as a woman of colour) and I have had to work hard to overcome these hurdles.

When my second daughter was around 2 years old I was starting to consider alternative careers to academia (I felt I had been out of it too long, hadn’t written up my postdoc work into peer-reviewed papers, etc) when I got a phone call from a previous academic colleague from the University of Nottingham asking if I would be interested in covering his teaching part-time, as he was taking a sabbatical. I took up this offer and continued to teach and work part-time until I felt my daughters were old enough for me to consider getting back into research. I applied for and was awarded a fantastic “return-to-research” Daphne Jackson Fellowship which allowed me to restart my research on a part-time basis and also write up some of my postdoc work. I will be eternally grateful for this opportunity, as it allowed me to start my research in asthma, build up a network of collaborators and eventually my first MRC grant. The other most important thing that made all this possible is my amazing, hugely supportive, parents who helped look after my daughters for many years.

Throughout my career, I have had some fantastic mentors (both women and men) who guided me through some tough times. These included workplace bullying and discrimination (as a woman of colour) and I have had to work hard to overcome these hurdles. Unfortunately, these things still exist. More recently (in my case) these have been more in the form of unconscious bias rather than overt. And significant efforts are being made to address these issues in my School. I try to contribute the best I can with these efforts. Nonetheless, it does mean that I regularly have to sit back and ask if it’s worth it. The answer isn’t an easy “yes”, not just for the above reasons but also because of the way higher education is going these days in terms of massive budget cuts and increased bureaucracy. On the positive side, I work with wonderful friends and colleagues, on worthwhile research problems, and great students.

Posted by HMS in Stories
15
Sep
2021
Maylin Wartenberg

Maylin Wartenberg

Born in Braunschweig, Germany • Studied Math (diploma) at the Technical University in Braunschweig, Germany • Highest Degree Doctorate in Math (Dr. rer. nat.) • Lives in Meine, Germany • Occupation Professor at the Hochschule Hannover – University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Department of Business Information Systems, Field of Data Science

Analytical thinking has always been easy for me. Therefore, I enjoyed the rules and patterns that occur in math from early on. Luckily, I recovered quickly after the German high school greeted me with the minimum pass mark “adequate” in the first two math exams in 7th grade. In 9th and 10th grade, we had a very strict “old school” teacher who left a lasting impression. We always had to stand up to greet him, and if you used a swear word in class, you had to wash the glasses in the chemistry room during the next break. He was strict, but he liked me and I learned a lot. In 11th grade I spent a high school year in the US and after this year I wanted to take math as one of my advanced courses. That was a tough decision because all I did at the American high school was statistics whereas in Germany everyone had started with curve sketching. After my return to Germany, the first exam in 12th grade was about this topic. I didn’t know anything about it and I had 6 weeks of summer break to study. A former very kind teacher helped me with the material and I studied by myself and achieved a good mark. That was a major milestone to my decision to study math, since I was able to teach myself the topics of almost a whole school year. But I still wasn’t sure. Math or psychology?

After all the ups and downs you typically encounter during this phase – 3 years for me – I finished my doctoral thesis in math (graph theory) two weeks before my first daughter was born.

Both sounded very attractive to my 19-year-old self. The plans to move to Braunschweig with two of my friends were already settled and I finally chose math because it was giving me a wider range of options on what future opportunities to follow – because I had no clue what to do after my studies at that point. In the beginning we were quite a few students, but in the end only 4 of us were left in pure math – 25% women 😉. I chose most of my courses in abstract math – algebra, combinatorics – and did as little applied math as possible. I really enjoyed the study of group and ring structures and the book Algebra by Serge Lang was always by my side. I already dreamed of becoming a professor myself.

Yet, in the end, the question what to do with all the knowledge I gained crept more and more into my consciousness. That is why I didn’t pursue a strictly academic career, nevertheless I still wanted to secure the option, and chose a PHD position in business at Bosch (formerly Blaupunkt) in Hildesheim. No more group and ring theory, suddenly I had to write code in C++ for algorithms in navigation systems. I had avoided any computer science so far, thus, I was thrown in at the deep end. But I never regretted this step because I discovered that coding is not all at all as difficult as I thought – after all it’s logical – and I learned a lot about working in a bigger company. After all the ups and downs you typically encounter during this phase – 3 years for me – I finished my doctoral thesis in math (graph theory) two weeks before my first daughter was born.

I found the fitting position where I can combine my passion for analytical thinking, my academic background, and my work experience (…).

I stayed home with her and somehow managed the defence of my doctoral thesies with a 5-month-old baby and still deprived of decent sleep. After 8 or 9 months at home, my brain started asking to be challenged again, and I began to apply for jobs in industry. As a young mother I wanted to start part time, but as a woman holding a doctorate in mathematics that was not as easy to get as I hoped. After a long search, including several offers with 40 hours and more, I was finally rewarded by starting a job at VW Financial Services. My one-year-old daughter was able to stay at the company’s own childcare facility and I started with 27 hours a week as a systems analyst in the business intelligence department in IT. In almost 10 years I made my way from analyst, to project lead, to team lead all the way to head of two sub-departments and got enrolled in the management trainee program – most of this in part time including a maternity leave when I had my second daughter in between. Then, suddenly, another option which had gotten a little out of sight but was still a silent dream popped back in.

And that is my way to my current position as a professor in business computing, especially data science. I found the fitting position where I can combine my passion for analytical thinking, my academic background, and my work experience – all of that with the advantage of being my own boss, still doing interesting projects with different companies, giving talks about AI for lay audiences (schools, senior clubs, …), and guiding young people on part of their own story.

Posted by HMS in Stories
14
Jul
2021
Natasha Karp

Natasha Karp

Born in United Kingdom • Birth year 1974 • Studied Biochemistry at Warwick University in United Kingdom • Highest Degree PhD in Chemistry from University of London • Lives in Cambridge, United Kingdom • Occupation Director Biostatistics at AstraZeneca

I really struggled at school in the early years, particularly with reading and writing; but then when I was around 12, it started to make sense. I was formally diagnosed as being dyslexic when I went to university, I guess when I was 12  things clicked into place as I found my strategies to get round my dyslexia. Those early years of struggling and being in bottom sets has left me with feelings of doubt but also a drive to prove people wrong. At 16, I selected mathematics with statistics, biology and chemistry as my specialist subjects and got the highest grades possible. I really enjoyed statistics and mathematics, and used to do extra work for fun. However, it was taught as a theoretical subject and I had no sense of what you could do with it. I also had no role models; I am the only person in my family to graduate from university. If you were a clever woman, you became a teacher or a doctor. Being a doctor didn’t appeal, so teaching became the ambition and I decided to study biochemistry with a year in industry at Warwick University and graduated with a first-class degree.

After I conducted some experiments, I felt the mathematical techniques used to make decisions were poor. Consequently, I started studying statistics (…).

I really enjoyed my year in industry, where I learnt the fundamentals of research, but after years of conditioning that my path was to be a teacher, I then trained as a secondary school teacher. After a couple of years teaching, I realised that I didn’t feel satisfied intellectually. I was working hard but didn’t feel I was growing. I decided to return to science and was offered a role back with the industrial placement company who sponsored me to complete a PhD in partnership with Imperial College, London. Unfortunately, the company folded but I just managed to complete my PhD. My confidence as a scientist felt low, I felt I had snuck in my PhD and I decided to work in academia to prove myself and joined the Cambridge Centre for Proteomics as a post-doc. I was very lucky and given a lot of freedom. After I conducted some experiments, I felt the mathematical techniques used to make decisions were poor. Consequently, I started studying statistics and writing papers exploring experimental design and data analysis for proteomic experiments. I was flying high and had 12 publications but then my first son was born and he was very poorly and I had to prioritise the family. I found a part-time job as a biostatistician with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute supporting in vivo research. It felt like I was starting again but I could meet my family needs and keep working. Over time, my son got better. The new environment gave me new opportunities; for example, I spent some time with database experts who helped me learn to code. I started publishing again in data analysis and experimental design for in vivo research. There wasn’t permanent funding in academia for this type of role so I applied to AstraZeneca, who had just relocated to Cambridge, as a statistician.  

I feel my dyslexia is a strength, as it helps me see the bigger picture, connect ideas and be a better manager.

What am I doing now? I now lead a team of statisticians for AstraZeneca supporting preclinical research. I still work part-time (80%) to meet my family commitments. The work is very varied and we have the opportunity to make a big impact. We jump into projects, assist the scientists, enable their research and then jump to the next project. I find it surreal that I, a self-taught statistician, lead these amazing statisticians. I feel my dyslexia is a strength as it helps me see the bigger picture, connect ideas and be a better manager. As a dyslexic woman who has an unusual career path I bring diversity to the leadership element of my role. I also give lectures around the world on my research topics of interest and get the opportunity to work outside of AstraZeneca on working groups exploring topics such as sex bias or reproducibility. I love my job. It is applied statistics having impact.

As an individual with imposter syndrome, you have to recognise your voice of doubt but not let it control you.

My career path has had many twists and turns. That is real life. There are benefits, I have more experience to draw upon. I feel my journey shows there isn’t one path that is right for you. You should be open to opportunities and change. Change is positive. You do have to be prepared to take risks. As an individual with imposter syndrome, you have to recognise your voice of doubt but not let it control you. From the perspective of maths, data is everywhere, being good with data is such a strength. You don’t have to be a theoretical expert to add value and have impact. Enjoy your journey but don’t expect to know exactly where you are going and keep growing and challenging yourself.

Posted by HMS in Stories