AWM Panel Discussion held at UIC
The UIC AWM Student Chapter held a panel on Nov 15, 2013, entitled Women in mathematics: reflections and history from female mathematicians. The panelists were Alexandra Bellow (Northwestern), Jeanne LaDuke (DePaul), Anne Leggett McDonald (Loyola), Bhama Srinivasan (UIC), and Amie Wilkinson (University of Chicago), and Steve Hurder (UIC) was the moderator.
Each panelist took a turn to tell us about their thoughts on women in math: their personal histories, and/or their research into women in math in general. Bhama Srinivasan, a past president of the AWM, told us about the founding of the AWM and presented statistics on the proportion of female PhD recipients and tenured faculty in American universities. Jeanne LaDuke spoke about her book "Pioneering Women in American Mathematics: pre-1940 Ph.D's" and told us about those PhD recipients and their careers and the challenges they faced. Anne Leggett is the long-time editor of the AWM Newsletter and she spoke about her experiences editing the newsletter and the changes over the decades. Alexandra Bellow spoke about her personal experiences as a woman in math during her time in grad school and during her professorship at Northwestern. Amie Wilkinson, one of the first four female tenured professors of mathematics at the University of Chicago, spoke about her career and her thoughts on the current state of the field.