Sandra is an FWF Elise Richter Fellow at the TU Wien and recently received a FWF START Prize for her project Determinacy and Woodin limits of Woodin cardinals. She is a set theorist and her main research interests lie in the areas of inner model theory, determinacy axioms and descriptive set theory, as well as their relationships and connections to other areas of logic. 

Sandra studied at the University of Münster and received her PhD degree in Mathematical Logic in 2016. Afterwards she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Vienna and in 2020 she was awarded with the L'ORÉAL Austria/ÖUK/ÖAW Fellowship for her project on Determinacy and Large Cardinals.

Sandra looks forward to discussing the following topics with you:

• Importance of grants - when to apply for your first grant?

• How do I make sure my grant application is suited for the audience that is actually going to read and evaluate it?

• Two-body problem: how to uphold a relationship/family and raise children while working in academia

Elena is an associate professor at the Alpen-Adria University of Klagenfurt. She works on the regularization of inverse problems and continuous optimization. Elena is a member of the EWM standing committee.

She studied Mathematics in Iasi, Romania and obtained her PhD in from the University of Haifa, Israel. Before moving to Klagenfurt, she worked as a post doc at RICAM and at the Johannes Kepler Unviversity Linz.

Furthermore, Elena has been active in the steering committee of the European Women in Mathematics for 10 years.

Elena received the FWF Elise Richter fellowship in 2008.

Elena looks forward to discussing the following topics with you:

• Importance of overseas experience

• Tenure track — yes or no?

• -Career vs. lifestyle — how much do I need to sacrifice for my career?

Mechthild is a professor at the University of Innsbruck, specializing on space and time discretisation methods for non-linear PDE’s.

Born and raised in Tirol, she studied mathematics at the University of Innsbruck and earned her PhD in 2001. Mechthild held several positions in Innsbruck and was a visiting professor in Geneva and Munich.

Mechthild was the first woman to finish a habilitation in mathematics at the University of Innsbruck. She also studied the flute at the Tyrolian State Conservatory.

Mechthild looks forward to discussing the following topics with you:

• The chemistry has to be right. How to create fruitful collaborations.

• Quality over quantity. How to decide about key aspects of activity.

• Mathematics - working 24 hours a day to be successful?

Nicole is a specialist for quantitative risk analysis at Deutsche Bundesbank (German central bank). In many of her current projects, she focuses on financial risks stemming from climate change.

Nicole studied and did her PhD at the University of Salzburg.

She won the Hans-Stegbuchner prize for her PhD thesis in the field of geometric knot theory.

Nicole looks forward to discussing the following topics with you:

• Career choice

• Job search

• Transition from academia to industry

Barbara is a professor for applied analysis at the Alpen-Adria Unviersity of Klagenfurt. Her research focuses on inverse problems, regularization, and PDE-constrained optimization. Throughout her career she engaged in several industrial projects.

After earning her diploma and doctoral degree at the Johannes Kepler Unviversity Linz, Barbara was a temporary professor in Erlangen and Göttingen. Then she became a professor in Stuttgart and later in Graz, before moving to her current position.

From 2018 to 2021 Barbara was the president of the Austrian Mathematical Society.

Barbara looks forward to discussing the following topics with you:

• I don’t have enough papers, what should I do? How many papers (per year) is enough?

• How interdisciplinary should I be?

• Career vs. lifestyle — how much do I need to sacrifice for my career?

Ailsa is an associate professor at the Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics (DPMMS) at the University of Cambridge. She is interested in geometry and topology focusing on research in symplectic geometry and homological mirror symmetry.

Ailsa grew up in Toulouse and was a PhD student at MIT advised by Paul Seidel, followed by being a Simons Junior Fellow at Columbia and a postdoc at the IAS. Since 2017 she has been a lecturer (assistant professor) at Cambridge. Moreover, Ailsa is one of the Postgraduate Welfare Advisors for the DPMMS in Cambridge.

Ailsa looks forward to discussing the following topics with you:

• Interview experience

• Time management - balancing research & other activities

• How to cope with mental challenges (rejections, imposter syndrome, burn-out, etc)

Carola is a professor for applied mathematics at the University of Cambridge, specializing in the mathematics of digital image and video processing. She has many interdisciplinary collaborations with natural scientists and even artists.

Born and raised in Austria, Carola studied at the University of Salzburg and at the University of Vienna. She left Austria for her PhD at the University of Cambridge, where she returned after a post doc at the Georg-August University Goettingen.

Carola won the prestigious Whitehead price "for her spectacular contributions to the mathematics of image analysis".

Carola looks forward to discussing the following topics with you:

• Importance of grants - when to apply for your first grant?

• How do I build a network?

• Two-body problem: how to uphold a relationship/family if your partner also works in academia