Abstracts & Speaker Bios

Topic: Homophobia and Transphobia

Speaker: Hermie Monterde

Title: Straight No More

Abstract: We often think of a mathematician as a straight cisgender (white) man until recently, when women mathematicians have become increasingly visible and recognized in the field. But how about the LGBTQ+ mathematicians? In this talk, we will discuss the pervasiveness of homophobia and transphobia in the society, and how they consistently disenfranchise members of LGBTQ+ communities. We will then examine how this translates to the lack of representation of LGBTQ+ people in the academe and in the mathematics community. We will also talk about the concrete ways in which mathematicians can help in promoting the inclusion of LGBTQ+ mathematicians, as well as combatting homophobia and transphobia in their immediate communities.

Bio: Heya! I am Hermie Monterde (she/her), a Ph.D. student at the University of Manitoba. I am currently working on continuous-time quantum walks on graphs, but I like spectral graph theory, combinatorial matrix theory, and matrix analysis in general. I enjoy teaching, community organizing, and EDI work.

Topic: Ableism and Mental Health

Speaker: Dr. Piper H

Title: I Can’t Do This

Abstract: I am once again writing an abstract before I’ve written my talk, but since this isn’t math I don’t want to lie outright. I wanted to talk about Mental Health and Ableism because one of the things I currently struggle with is “things I can’t do” combined with “nobody cares.” I don’t yet have a good description of what I will say because I am in over my head. If the point of an early abstract is to get you interested, then I don’t know what to tell you. Mental health is important and ableism sucks. I’ve only dealt with a sliver of the abuses out there. I will talk about that sliver, perhaps humorously. Who knows! Certainly not me at the time of this writing. I thank you.

Bio: Piper H (pronouns she/they) was a graduate student at Princeton University from 2003-2009 and was miserable the entire time. Piper got her PhD in Jan 2016 and is now on her second postdoc, currently at University of Toronto (in as much as one is anywhere when working from home). Sometimes known as the Liberated Mathematician or as a writer for AMS’s inclusion/exclusion blog, Piper has a long history of complaining about being mistreated and othered in math.

Topic: Mentorship and Allyship

Speaker: Richard Wong

Title: Listen, Amplify, Sustain: Being a better Mentor and Ally

Abstract - There are no quick or easy ways to become a better mentor or ally. Like any other self-improvement endeavor, it requires a consistent and intentional process of education, reflection, and deliberate action.

In this talk, I'll share some suggestions and ideas that you might consider incorporating into your own endeavors towards becoming a better mentor and/or ally. I'll also share the stories of some of the initiatives that my fellow grad students launched at UT Austin, including the campaign to rename our building (now known as the PMA), as well as the establishment and development of MOCAT (the Mathematicians of Color Alliance at Texas).

You can best prepare for this session by doing the following:

• Bring one resource (website, book, article, podcast, video, organization, etc.) that focuses on, shares insights about, or discusses an issue of discrimination and systemic inequity. You'll be able to share these with other participants in the session!

• Find out the following: Who are the young people (grad students, postdocs, tenure-track faculty) in your research area? in your department?

• Find out the following: Who/what groups doing EDI work at your department/institution? What kinds of events/programs do they run?

Bio: Hi! I'm Richard (he/him), and I'm a postdoc in the algebraic topology group at UCLA. Previously, I was lucky to be a graduate student at UT Austin, where I had a tightly knit and supportive community that helped me grow as a person, not just as a mathematician. Some of my non-math hobbies include playing ultimate frisbee, bird-watching, playing board games and D&D, and hanging out with my dog Ernie! You can find me at: https://www.math.ucla.edu/~richardwong/

Topic: Mentorship and Allyship

Speaker: Alexander Sutherland

Title: Listening to Grad Students: A Discussion on Mentoring and Allyship.

Abstract: In this session, we are going to think critically about the similar (but distinct!) roles of faculty as allies and as mentors (particularly, as allies and mentors of graduate students). During our time together, I hope to discuss the roles of “ally” and “mentor” in the academic setting, to provide examples of supportive practices which faculty can easily implement, and to analyze the role of faculty in supporting first-year graduate students by examining the history of my department’s Community, Outreach, and Mentoring Program as a case study.

Faculty members and postdocs:

• You can best prepare for this session by taking some time to reflect on the ways you specifically support graduate students in your department. What else do you think you should be doing (or wish you could be doing) to support graduate students? What are the specific obstacles that are stopping you? What is one small, detailed action you can take towards meeting your goal(s)?

• After your reflection, write down 1 or 2 questions that you would like to ask graduate students about how you can be a better ally or mentor. Bring your questions to our session!

Graduate and undergraduate students can best prepare for this session by:

If you could anonymously tell a well-meaning faculty member anything about mentoring and/or allyship, what would you tell them? Please submit your answers via this anonymous Google form, so that I can share the responses with faculty during (and potentially after) our session.

Thanks,

Bio: Hi folks! My name is Alex (he/him) and I am a sixth-year Ph.D candidate working with Jesse Wolfson at the University of California, Irvine. My research generally lies in algebraic geometry and I spend most of my research time thinking about resolvent degree problems. I enjoy teaching and have served as one of UCI’s Pedagogical Fellows, as well as a summer faculty member for the non-profit Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics.* Outside of math, I love to watch college football, go to concerts, and play board games with friends! For more, feel free to look at my website: www.alexandersutherland.com

Topic: Measuring Graduate Student Success

Speaker: Emily Winn

Title: Quals and Prelims and Comps, Oh Why!?

Abstract: In every PhD program, there is some "checkpoint" in the second or third year to determine whether a student is ready to move on to research. One of the most common practices of this checkpoint is to assess students via a set of exams based on their course material, outside of the original classes. These exams must be passed by a certain point in the program, and the penalty for not doing so is often loss of funding or dismissal from the program. While we take these exams for granted as just part of the program, there's yet to be any research on whether qualifying exams actually benefit the students in meeting the goals of the program. Additionally, we hear lots of stories of stress from exams and discrimination that takes place during the process. All of this raises the question: are these exams even necessary? In this talk, I will use responses for the recent survey conducted in qualifying/preliminary/comprehensive exams to explore the varied practices of different departments across the US and Canada. I will also discuss toxic practices that need to go, signs that it's time for change in your program, and how to implement concrete changes to a system that was never built to be inclusive.

Bio: Emily Winn (she/her) is a NSF Graduate Research Fellow and PhD candidate in the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University working under Dr. Lorin Crawford. Her research interests are in nonparametric linear models, shape statistics, and topological data analysis with applications in data science, machine learning, and genomics. She is the curator of the GRE database, which tracks GRE requirements for mathematics graduate programs in the US and Canada, and the Qual database, designed to empower prospective students to choose the best program for them and encourage department leaders to push for change. In her spare time she is knitting, furiously updating the ESPN app for the latest Red Sox or NBA/WNBA news, and playing with her pug Yoshi. (Pictured at 2 months old.) Website: www.emilytwinn.com

Topic: Measuring Graduate Student Success

Speaker: Kim Reece

Abstract: The greatest knowledge gap in academia is the knowledge of academia itself. What is expected of us when, how to get those crucial CV lines, and why we need them anyway. Gaps in this knowledge and misinterpretations surrounding it create a variety of career experiences, ranging from the perilously direct where so much was done for a person that they have no idea how to mentor others afterward regarding the process, to the anguish inducing absolute lack of guidance or even negative guidance caused by absence of knowledge among peers and mentors.

Worse, the consequences of these gaps are exacerbated by selection and hiring processes that take a factually inaccurate view of what the presence or absence of a CV line or other success metric represents about the applicant. This turns happenstance shortfalls into life-altering failures. In this talk, I will discuss some of the absent knowledge transfer pathways, how we as students and professors can close these gaps, and how we can mitigate their consequences to reduce harm to our fellow scholars.

Bio: Kim Reece (they/them) is a recent graduate with Masters in Mathematics from University of Goettingen. They moved from the USA to Germany to pursue these studies, and are now on a gap year while looking for PhD opportunities. Their research interests focus on Algebraic Number Theory, algebraic methods in Diophantine equations, and searchable organization of mathematical knowledge. Outside of academia, they enjoy hiking and computer security.