This award will provide partial support for 25-30 participants of the third Workshop for Women in Probability to be held October 14-16, 2012 at Duke University. All of those receiving support will be young female researchers (graduate students or recent PhD's) and will be recruited from a wide variety of institutions. This conference features talks on current exciting research areas by ten women probabilists, who are leading researchers in their field. Topics will include mathematical biology, stochastic partial differential equations, fractional Brownian motion, random matrices, dynamical systems, interacting particle systems, stochastic networks, Markov chain Monte Carlo, and randomized algorithms. Participants will have an opportunity to interact with the speakers in a way that is difficult at a large national or international meeting, and to give poster presentations on their own research. This conference will foster the formation of networks of a support structure for female mathematicians at the beginning of their careers. The young researchers will have the chance to network with their peers as well as more senior women in their field, and to discuss the challenges they face in graduate school and early professional life. The interpersonal contacts resulting from this meeting will help guide them through early career transitions, which will ultimately improve the retention of talented women in the mathematics work force.
Funds from this grant were used to support the third Workshop for Women in Probability was held October 14-16, 2012 at Duke. The speakers were invited by a Scientific Committee consisting of Tai Melcher (Virginia) and Amber Puha (San Marcos). Local Organizers: Rick Durrett (Duke) and Jonathan Mattingly (Duke) took care of the details of running the meeting. The conference featured one hour talks by ten prominent female researchers in probability Janet Best (Ohio State) Alexandra Chronopoulou (UCSB) Cindy Greenwood (Arizona State) Alice Guionnet (MIT) Kay Kirkpatrick (UIUC) Chia Lee (UNC) Nevina Maric (Missouri) Dana Randall (Georgia Tech) Amandine Veber (CMAP) Amy Ward (USC) At lunch on Sunday there was a panel discussion concerning issues women face in academic careers. In addition there was a Sunday evening poster session and reception to allow participants to share their work. A conference dinner on Monday allowed the speakers and participants to have discussions in an informal setting. The social program was supported from local funds. The intellectual merit of this activity was the dissemination of recent research and the discussion of open problems that occurred. The broader impact is that the twenty participants (all female) had a unique opportunity to interact with the leaders of their field in an informal setting and discuss the challenges they all face in having an academic career. The next conference will be held in Charlottesville Virginia, organized by Tai Melcher and others.
