21 Jul 2022

EWM in Ireland, 2020-2022

ACTIVITIES OF WOMEN IN MATHEMATICS IN IRELAND 2020 – 2022

  • Girls Mathematics Olympiad Ireland: as part of `The Irish Mathematical Olympiad (IrMO)’ students are trained at NUI Galway; Maynooth University; University College Cork; University College Dublin; University of Limerick; Sligo Institute of Technology. 
  • I wish campus week: national initiative started by Cork Institute of Technology in 2015. Followed by University of Limerick, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin. This event is organised each January/February to inspire, encourage and motivate female second-level school students to pursue careers in STEM. 
  • January 2021: Romina Gaburro was elected a member of the Irish Mathematical Society (IMS) committee.
  • Since January 2021: Romina Gaburro has been engaging with the other members of the IMS committee to improve participation of Ireland to EWM and promote the role of women in mathematics in Ireland. In particular, the society was in charge of the selection of the Irish recipients of the Kovalevskaya grant to attend the International Congress of Mathematicians 2022 in Saint Petersburg. This includes the selection of female candidates, with the aim of promoting gender balance within the Irish mathematical community.
  • December 2021:  the IMS committee approved the formation of a new IMS sub-committee named ‘The Irish Committee for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Mathematics (ICEDIM). This was proposed by Romina Gaburro at the IMS Annual General Meeting in September 2021, and it was endorsed by the IMS president, Dr Tom Carroll, and the IMS committee members. Together with the IMS president we subsequently drafted the terms of reference, which were approved at the annual IMS committee meeting in December 2021. Formal approval at the AGM in September 2022 is required. The new sub-committee will advise and report to the IMS on all educational matters concerning mathematics, including the theme of `gender and science’ and the promotion of women in the field of mathematics; it will also liaise with other bodies like the EWM and the IMU CWM, as well as government agencies.
  • 8th of March 2022: International Women’s Day Conference 2022, University of Limerick.
  • 27th April 2022: Inspire women in engineering event, University of Limerick.
  • April 2022: Romina Gaburro joined the ‘Physical, Chemical and Mathematical Sciences Committee’ of the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), where she will promote the issues of women in science and gender balance.
  • September 2022: the annual meeting of the IMS will include a Women in mathematics day.
  • June 2023: as a co-organiser of the semester programme ‘Rich and Non-Linear Tomography: a multidisciplinary approach’, Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, U.K., Romina Gaburro is co-organising the final workshop of the programme where we will have a Women in inverse problems afternoon.

November 2022: Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Limerick is applying for the departmental silver Athena SWAN (Scientific Women’s Academic Network). There is a continuous effort nationally to apply to the Athena Swan at both departmental and university level in Ireland, to improve gender balance in academia.