The evening of Wednesday 11 February was busy in the Fry building: we welcomed more than one hundred visitors to our public event celebrating Women and Girls in STEM!
The celebration began with Dr Juliette Unwin's talk entitled “Behind the Numbers: Estimating Orphanhood in the Wake of Crisis.” Her talk discussed the mathematical modelling she did as part of the Global Reference Group of Children Affected by Crises in conjunction with the US CDC, USAID, The World Bank and children’s charities to raise attention to the children who lost their parents and caregivers due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She explained the maths and thinking that underpinned the methods and resulted in policy change within countries such as Mexico and Peru. She also briefly explained her current research, where she is being pro-active in finding children who might be at risk of crises instead of being reactionary.
Dr. Unwin (Senior Lecturer) was then joined by Dr. Rachael Carey (Lecturer) , Dr. Celine Maistret (Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow and Proleptic Senior Lecturer), Dr. Laura Monk (Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow), for a panel discussion chaired by Prof Andrew Hogg on their careers, and what they love the best about maths — somehow the panellists also ended up sharing a lot about what about maths they find frustrating and boring, too! The evening ended with a lively pizza reception.
The organising committee for the event included Naomi Boardman, Kentaro Fujimoto, Henna Koivusalo and Kelly Woodcock. Henna Koivusalo, Director of Outreach, said : "We were very pleased with the turn out; it was attended by a broad range of people and there were some lively questions. We hope that the event was interesting and inspiring to a new generation of Mathematicians”