Women of Applied Mathematics: Research and Leadership

Maeve L. McCarthy and K. Renee Fister
Associate Professors
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Murray State University
Murray, Kentucky

We organized an afternoon session of women in the College of Science, Engineering, and Technology (CSET) at Murray State University, a panel discussion about career questions and potential options at the Kentucky Mathematical Association of America meeting (KY MAA), and a minisymposium at the SIAM Annual meeting that addresses questions and concerns about gender issues in academia and industry. An article about the workshop was published in the January-February 2004 issue of the AWM Newsletter. The text is enclosed at the end of this report.

The afternoon session with women in the CSET occurred on January 29, 2004. It was a time to discuss pertinent issues on our campus as sabbatical, maternity leave challenges, and our teaching schedules. We found that little information was given to any of us prior to our hire about parental leave practices and that it has been only recently that this information could be easily found. We talked about our need to be better negotiators and that we need to continue our discussions.

The panel discussion at KY MAA occurred on April 3, 2004. Christine Shannon from Centre College, Dora Ahmadi from Morehead State University, and Kirsty Fleming from Northern Kentucky University talked about their history. Then they addressed issues pertinent to their lives, and lastly the floor was open for questions. Christine talked about the flexibility that one can have in an academic job. She also discussed the challenges that arose when she had her children. Her advice was that one should not think that one can do it all. She mentioned that she had to limit some of her activities when she was younger, but now she has been able to get back to them. Dora focused her discussion on her teaching and her extensive committee work. She has served on the national CUPM committee for MAA. She said that time management and positive thinking has enabled her to keep going. Kirsty gave some sound advice about serving in an administrative position. She made a conscious decision to become a chair since her goal is to be a dean. She had worked in two Deans' offices and said that was invaluable experience. She said that as a chair you have to be willing to lose all control in regard to one's time and what you do with that time. She highlighted some necessary characteristics for a chairperson as being a good listener, caring but not too much, learning from others, having patience, being a person who sees how things can be done, and being willing to see if she contributed to a problem rather than immediately blame an external source. She gave an analogy that being a chair is like teaching a class. One has to help others succeed and be satisfied with their success. In addition, if one has a student who despised her in class more than likely that student will not be in another of her classes. However, as a chair, if a faculty member does not like a decision, then the chair still has this faculty member in her "class." Good people skills and having thick skin are important skills to have!

The minisymposium at the SIAM Annual Meeting in Portland will occur as part of the AWM workshop, July 12-13, 2004. The format will be similar to the KY MAA meeting. The speakers are Martha Abell from Georgia Southern University, Barbara Keyfitz from University of Houston, Carol Woodard form Sandia Labs, and Lisette dePillis from Harvey Mudd College.

AWM Article

On October 8-10, 2003, the Women of Applied Mathematics Research and Leadership workshop was held on the University of Maryland's College Park Campus. This workshop was sponsored by the US Department of Energy with local support from the University of Maryland Computer Science Department and the Center for Scientific Computing and Mathematical Modeling. The workshop was organized by Tammy Kolda from Sandia National Laboratories and Dianne O'Leary from the University of Maryland, College Park. The schedule was a mixture of panel discussions and diverse research talks given by ten senior women researchers and twenty-five early career women.

The opening address by Tammy Kolda and Dianne O'Leary gave us an overview of the issues faced by women in applied mathematics. Some of these issues are faced by all women - like the assumption that you are the spouse of a professional rather than a professional in your own right and the mobility limits felt by women when they seek promotion. Specifically relevant to applied mathematicians was the rather shocking fact that, even though approximately 30% of PhDs in applied mathematics are awarded to women, only 6% of the faculty positions in the top twenty applied mathematics programs are held by women.

The panels discussed becoming a senior research or project leader, writing a fundable proposal, obtaining merit promotion by setting priorities and taking action, becoming a chair, dean, or manager, leading and serving the profession, mentoring younger colleagues, and brainstorming what we can do to foster change. Each panel session provided insight into different strategies and opportunities that we can choose to pursue. A great deal of valuable advice was given. One thought-provoking concept of the workshop was that of taking from it what each of us could see working for ourselves. Rather than allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by all we could do, we must realize that none of us can do everything, but that we have long careers in which to build on our strengths. All the senior participants provided a different viewpoint because each had different experiences. Some of their common themes included the need to be solid in our research careers before taking on too many administrative and service components and the need to prioritize carefully.

The research talks came from a variety of fields within applied mathematics such as numerical analysis, ordinary and partial differential equations, optimization, control theory, discrete mathematics and mathematical biology. The quality of the talks was excellent and this unique conference afforded us the opportunity to think about collaborations with women in our fields.

The closing session addressed items that we could do to facilitate change. Suggestions ranged from making sure our universities do well-designed salary equity studies in order to analyze the career paths of male and female mathematicians to see if longevity compensates for maternity choices. Maternity challenges were discussed throughout the workshop in the context of what can we do to promote parental policy on each of our campuses. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Harvey Mudd College have recently enacted policies that have allowed women and male faculty members to have such leave. Furthermore, the need to increase the participation of women as plenary speakers at national meetings was discussed. Potential solutions included organizing meetings with themes in which women are established experts and making conference committees diverse in not only gender but also in seniority and ethnicity.

All in all, the conference provided food for thought - a lot of it! It gave us opportunities to form collaborations with other solid researchers. It allowed us to discuss issues that are dear to our hearts and to probe at answers to some of our questions.

Questions? tgkolda@sandia.gov or oleary@cs.umd.edu