The Department of Mathematics held the 14th seminar in the ‘Women in Mathematics’ series on Wednesday 8 March 2023.
'Women in Mathematics' is an academic, professional and personal development seminar series presented by leading female mathematicians to offer support, encouragement and advice to female staff and students. It also provides an informal networking opportunity.
You can find the YouTube video of the event below.
Becoming a Good Mathematician
Becoming a Good Mathematician
Becoming a Good Mathematician: Practical Ethics for the Mathematical Sciences
Abstract
Erica starts from the premise that all of our mathematical choices have practical and ethical implications. To illustrate this, Erica will recap her mathematical career and interests, presenting some solved and unsolved problems in geometry, fluid dynamics, complex modelling, forecast evaluation and statistical inference. Using examples including climate change and Covid-19, she will demonstrate the mathematical consequences of (lack of) social diversity in the mathematical sciences, and show how our ethical standpoint as mathematicians can be fundamental to understanding and re-imagining the world around us and making responsible decisions about the future.
Speaker biography
Dr Erica Thompson is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and senior policy fellow in the Ethics of Modelling and Simulation at the LSE Data Science Institute. She works on an interdisciplinary programme of research about the construction, calibration and interpretation of mathematical models including climate and weather models, with applications in public health, finance, humanitarian response and climate adaptation. Erica has an MMath (Cambridge Part 3, fluid dynamics options) and a PhD in Physics (Imperial College), and now at the Data Science Institute. She is also affiliated with the London Mathematical Laboratory, which supported the publication of Escape From The Model Land (Basic Books, 2022).
For further information or enquiries about the seminar series please contact: womeninmaths@maths.lse.ac.uk