The Department of Mathematics held the 15th seminar in the ‘Women in Mathematics’ series on Wednesday 22 November 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.
The Quest for Structure - A Quest for Beauty?
The Quest for Structure - A Quest for Beauty?
The Quest for Structure - A Quest for Beauty?
Abstract
Drawing on examples of her recent research in discrete mathematics amongst others, Julia's talk aims to illustrate how the quest for structure in mathematics can lead to questions and concepts of intangible yet lasting aesthetic appeal. Recalling key events from her own mathematical career date along the way, Julia will also attempt to examine to what extent aesthetic sensibility, opportunity, personality, and chance influence an individual's mathematical path.
Speaker biography
Julia Wolf is Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, where she was both an undergraduate and a graduate student. After obtaining her PhD, she spent three years in the United States, with postdoctoral fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and MSRI at Berkeley, followed by an assistant professorship at Rutgers University. Between 2010 and 2013, she held a Hadamard Associate Professorship at Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, and between 2012 and 2018, a Heilbronn Readership at the University of Bristol, where she served as Associate Chair of the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research for three years.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of combinatorics, number theory, harmonic analysis, and more recently, model theory. In 2016, she was awarded the Anne Bennett Prize of the London Mathematical Society, and in 2022, she was elected Chair of the British Combinatorial Committee.
For further information or enquiries about the seminar series please contact: womeninmaths@maths.lse.ac.uk