Ahead of International Women’s Day on Friday 8 March, Rosie Evans, a PGR in Maths shares the work that she does with The Piscopia Initiative.
Only 26% of doctorate mathematical sciences graduates are female, and this falls further to 11% of mathematical sciences professors. The Piscopia Initiative is an international network of women and underrepresented genders in mathematical research with two key aims:
- To support current women and underrepresented genders in PhD study in mathematics and create a community where they feel heard and understood.
- To encourage more undergraduates to consider further study in mathematics.
Three PhD students (Isabella, Tiffany, and Mary) at the University of Edinburgh started Piscopia in 2019 to tackle this gender gap that we see in mathematical research. I started up the Birmingham Piscopia node in 2021 in the first year of my PhD when Tiffany got in touch. At the end of 2022 I became a national co-lead and I am now responsible for coordinating some of our 19 committees across the UK and one in the US.
Our local committees run events such as mentorship schemes, social sports, and application helpdesks for students to get advice on PhD applications. Nationally, we host a monthly, online seminar series called PiWORKS and run an annual in-person event called PiFORUM. We also have several online advice series on our social media pages including “Mathematician of the Month”, which celebrates the recent achievements of a nominated women or person from an underrepresented gender.
International Women’s Day is an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women and underrepresented genders within our community. Piscopia are hosting ten events across the UK simultaneously on Friday 8th March to celebrate International Women’s Day this year. Our Edinburgh committee are going to be making signs and going on the IWD march, in Newcastle there will be a bake sale in aid of a Kenyan outreach programme that encourages and supports Kenyan girls to pursue education in STEM, and lots of our other committees are hosting coffee & cake (York, St Andrews, Bath, Glasgow & Strathclyde, Leicester) with a poster carousel of work done by women and underrepresented genders in Maths. Here in Brum we are going to be hosting a PhD showcase on the Physics Bridge in Watson. After a successful showcase in 2023, we have decided to run the same event this year, hopefully even bigger! We’ve asked postgraduates in maths to make a poster that communicates their research in a way that is accessible for undergraduates. This includes talking about the best and worst parts of PhD study for them and the sorts of skills that they learnt when they were undergraduate that they are using now. This event is open to anyone but is particularly aimed at women and underrepresented genders. The goal is to break the barrier between postgraduates and undergraduates and initiate conversations that would otherwise not happen organically. We also want to inspire the students by showing them the huge variety of topics that we as postgraduates research – each PhD and therefore each PhD student is unique.
None of the events we run here in Birmingham would be possible without our committee members as well as the staff in Maths. Sara Jabbari and Olga Maleva have supported us at every stage, particularly with their advice from their experience supporting underrepresented groups in Mathematics. We’d love you to get in touch if you’d like to be involved.
UoB PGR Development 