Professional Development Event for Aspiring Mathematicians

Post date: Apr 16, 2017 4:50:34 PM

AWM co-organized a professional development event, in which we arranged academic and industry panels, networking lunch and a resume/cv clinic.

The event began with an Academic Panel. The panelists were Dr. David Carchedi (Assistant Professor), Diego Torrejon (Graduate Student), Dr. Evelyn Sander (Professor), Dr. Kathleen Alligood (Professor), Dr. Maria Emelianenko (Associate Professor), and Dr. Tyrus Berry (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow). Academic panel revolved around questions regarding choice of graduate school and advisors, life after getting a PhD., life as a professor, job prospects for students with a masters degree in mathematics, post doc positions, research and teaching statements. Some of the responses received from the panelists included:

Go to conferences, REUs, and internships. Think ahead. Put yourself out there. Meet as many people as you can. Take notes on who you talk to, what they do, what you discussed, so in the future you can connect with them again. Dead ends are part of the process. It’s not always going to be fast or efficient, but you’ll learn something from each false start. Follow your instincts. Embrace compromise - you might not be able to study exactly what you thought you would, but it could work out well in the end anyway.

The Industrial Panel comprised of people who had studied mathematics and who now work in industry. The panelists were Zichao (Wendy) Di (Assistant Computational Scientist, Argonne National Lab), Shauna Revay (Research Mathematician, Naval Research Lab), Rachel Locke (Research Mathematician, Department of Defense), Patrick O’Neil (Lead Data Scientist, Spaceflight Industries), Tom Stephens (Computational Biophysicist, National Institutes of Health), and Val Vaughn (Senior Project Leader, the Aerospace Corporation). Five of the six panelists were George Mason Alumni, or current George Mason Ph.D. students. The panelists began by explaining what degree(s) they have, and how those degree(s) relates to their current job. The questions asked were: How did you get the job you have now? How was the transition from academia to industry? What skills do you need to work in industry? Is there more pressure in industry to deliver results in a specific amount of time? If so, how do you deal with this pressure? Again, the panel was initially led by a moderator, but halfway through the session the floor was opened to questions from the attendees. Some of the responses were:

Apply for internships, because your good performance in internships often leads to permanent positions and job offers later on. Learn how to program. Learn how to communicate technical ideas to a non-technical audience. Learn to embrace change and learn to adapt quickly.

A networking lunch followed where attendees were encouraged to meet panelists and improve their networking skills. The last event of the day was a resume clinic. The first half hour was a discussion with Dr. Flavia Colonna (Professor, Graduate Coordinator). She spoke about how to write a resume, the differences between a CV and a resume, how to write a research statement, a teaching statement, and a diversity and inclusion statement, and the things that you shouldn’t put on your resume. Dr. Colonna shared advice such as: focus on quality not quantity, create multiple versions of your resume based on where you’re applying, don’t just list abilities but how you used them, and emphasize your publications, research, funding, and awards.

This event was attended by 32 students, 17 faculty and panelists. We got a very positive response from the attendees. We asked them to fill out a survey at the end, and some of the comments were:

“This should be an event offered every year or every semester”, “Greatly appreciated; could see it growing in the future”, “Everything went very smoothly and I learned more than I anticipated” and “This event was perfectly executed”.

Recommended changes for a future version of the event included “a larger space”, “advice on how to approach conferences and networking with other mathematicians” and “include some useful information for those who are completing their Masters and not pursuing a Ph.D.”

We are planning to run such events every year.