Women in Mathematics

Becoming a Good Mathematician: Practical Ethics for the Mathematical Sciences

Abstract

Erica starts from the premise that all of our mathematical choices have practical and ethical implications. To illustrate this, Erica will recap her mathematical career and interests, presenting some solved and unsolved problems in geometry, fluid dynamics, complex modelling, forecast evaluation and statistical inference. Using examples including climate change and Covid-19, she will demonstrate the mathematical consequences of (lack of) social diversity in the mathematical sciences, and show how our ethical standpoint as mathematicians can be fundamental to understanding and re-imagining the world around us and making responsible decisions about the future.

Speaker biography

Dr Erica Thompson is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and senior policy fellow in the Ethics of Modelling and Simulation at the LSE Data Science Institute. She works on an interdisciplinary programme of research about the construction, calibration and interpretation of mathematical models including climate and weather models, with applications in public health, finance, humanitarian response and climate adaptation. Erica has an MMath (Cambridge Part 3, fluid dynamics options) and a PhD in Physics (Imperial College), and now at the Data Science Institute. She is also affiliated with the London Mathematical Laboratory, which supported the publication of Escape From The Model Land (Basic Books, 2022).

Data for Decisions 

Abstract

Emma’s talk will focus on how data has driven her career, not just in terms of the application areas of her research, but also as central to her journey from a departmental academic to university leadership positions.  Emma will also outline some recent research and data projects, ranging from the impact of the introduction of interventions in road networks; personalisation strategies in online controlled experiments; and the use of data in the regulatory environment in education.

Speaker biography

Professor Emma McCoy joined LSE as the Pro-Director (Education) in 2022, and previously was the Vice-Provost (Education and Student Experience) and a Professor of Statistics in the Mathematics Department at Imperial College London. Her research interests include time series, wavelets and causal inference, with a particular substantive research interest in transport studies. Emma is a member of the Royal Society’s Advisory Committee for Mathematics Education (ACME) and a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and the Royal Statistical Society.

The epidemiological impact of the NHS COVID-19 app

Abstract

Contact tracing is an important (albeit sometimes unpopular) part of the toolkit for limiting the spread of COVID-19. In this talk I will explain the theoretical motivation for contact tracing and for developing the NHS COVID-19 app. I will provide a brief history of its epidemiological impact which has been significant both in reducing COVID-19 transmission and in providing real-time information on the progression of the epidemic. Along the way, I will provide some reflections on how a once pure mathematician found herself working on a very real-world application, and how it has shaped the way I work.

Speaker biography

Michelle Kendall is a Research Fellow at the University of Warwick in the Health Protection Research Unit in Genomics and Enabling Data. Her work centres around developing statistical methods and software to answer questions about epidemiology and evolution. Since early 2020 she has focused on evaluating the impact of interventions on the spread of COVID-19 and currently holds an honourary position with UKHSA advising on the NHS COVID-19 app.

See full report on Seminar 12

The Impact Covid has on Women in Mathematics

Abstract

One truism from the past year is that the pandemic has not affected everybody equally. This is also true in academia and in mathematics. Early career academics, and parents, especially women, have suffered more, through loss of opportunities and time. I will discuss some of the evidence that has emerged on this and suggestions for mitigation (more are needed!), drawing on the resources from the Open Letter from the European Women in Mathematics society on the Impact on Junior and Women Mathematicians of the Corona Crisis.

There will be time for discussion with the audience.

Speaker biography

Diane Maclagan is Professor of Mathematics at the University of Warwick. She moved to Warwick in 2007 from the US, having received her PhD from UC Berkeley in 2000 under the supervision of Bernd Sturmfels. Her research is in algebraic geometry, with a particular focus on tropical geometry. She is a member of the London Mathematical Society (LMS) Committee for Women and Diversity in Mathematics.

See full report on Seminar 11

Britta Srivas will be speaking during the Professional and Personal Development Series for first year student members of the Department of Mathematics.

Britta is a Goldman Sachs banking saleswoman turned startup data scientist. She has worked in finance, logistics, engineering and satellite space technologies. She studied BSc Maths with Economics at the LSE and then went on to do her MSc Scientific Computation at University of Nottingham where she completed her dissertation in quantum computing. She is now about to join a tech startup incubator programme called Entrepreneur First to found her own startup using tech for good. 

Machine learning for personalised mental healthcare: a human-centred approach

Abstract

Machine learning advances are opening new routes to more precise healthcare, from the discovery of disease subtypes for stratified interventions to the development of personalised interactions supporting self-care between clinic visits. This offers an exciting opportunity for machine learning techniques to impact healthcare in a meaningful way. Within the healthcare domain, machine learning for mental healthcare is an under-investigated area and yet a potentially highly impactful area of research. In this talk, I will present recent work on probabilistic graphical modelling to enable a more personalised approach to mental healthcare, whereby information can be aggregated from multiple sources within a unified modelling framework. We present a human-centred approach to mental healthcare which is aimed at increasing the effectiveness of psychological wellbeing practitioners. 

Biography

Dr. Danielle Belgrave is a Principal Researcher Manager at Microsoft Research, in Cambridge (UK) in the Health Intelligence group where she leads Project Talia. She is particularly interested in integrating medical domain knowledge to develop probabilistic graphical models to develop personalized treatment strategies in health. Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, she received her BSc in Business Mathematics and Statistics from London School of Economics, an MSc in Statistics from University College London and her PhD in Machine Learning and Statistics for Healthcare from The University of Manchester where she was a Microsoft Research PhD scholar. Prior to joining Microsoft Research, she had a tenured faculty position at Imperial College London. 

See full report on Seminar 9

Athena SWAN is a national charter mark recognising commitment toadvancing gender equality in Higher Education: representation, progressionand success for all. The LSE Department of Mathematics is planning to apply for the Athena SWAN charter mark. Prof Jan van den Heuvel, Head of Department, gave an overview of the activities that were undertaken in preparation for this application.

Three speakers discussed why they decided to study mathematics, their experiences during their studies (including possible challenges and how they overcame them), their next career steps and the application process after their studies and their ideas for the future.

Speakers:

Kate Shilina: a Masters student in Department of Geography and Environment at LSE

Angela Jiang: an Analyst for a quantitative hedge fund name Quadrature Capital

Cathryn Masters: a third year Bachelor student in the Mathematics Department with a job offer from HSBC

See full report on Seminar 7