Sunday, May 12 was International Women in Mathematics Day. International Women in Math Day is celebrated annually on May 12th because that day is the birthday of Maryam Mirzakhan, the first woman (and first Muslim and first Iranian) to receive the Fields Medal (2014) for her work on the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces. There has been one other female recipient of the Fields Medal since then: the Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska (2022), for her work on sphere packing.
To celebrate international Women in Mathematics Day, the Department of Statistics hosted a gathering with UW Statistics female emeritus faculty that featured profiles of their careers and provided an opportunity to reminisce about their professional success and their key role in making the department the success that it is today. The gathering took place in the department’s Multipurpose Room on Friday, May 10.
Many thanks to Jess Kunke and Jillian Fisher for organizing this event!