Women in Mathematics Day 2020

Today, Tuesday 12 May, is International Women in Mathematics Day, which aims to celebrate and connect women in maths across the world and commemorates the birthday of the late Fields Medallist Maryam Mirzakhani.

For the inaugural celebration last year, we held a lunch gathering and film screening in the staff common room. Unfortunately we cannot mark the occasion together this year, but some of our School members participated in a special campaign led by ACEMS and the AustMS Women in Maths Special Interest Group.

Thank you to Clara Grazian, Catherine Greenhill, Laure Helme-Guizon, Maarit Laaksonen and Ilknur Tulunay for contributing short video messages encouraging young people to stick with maths.

You can find their videos on a playlist on our School’s YouTube channel.

The ACEMS channel hosts a playlist of all campaign videos, featuring female statisticians and mathematicians from across Australia. See their Facebook page for more info on the campaign.

Another campaign launching today is the Australian Women of Mathematics exhibit. The exhibition features our colleague Anita Liebenau, and is the Australian version of the "Women of Mathematics throughout Europe" exhibit which we displayed at last year’s Girls Do the Maths events. Once complete, it will include 16 panels, and a book including photographs of female mathematicians as well as approximately 100 pages of interviews. 

Happy Women in Maths Day to all of our female colleagues!

Image: Dr Anita Liebenau. Photo by Michael John Hood.