Our Chapter at the SIAM Annual Meeting 2018 in Portland, Oregon

8 July 2018, by Christiane Schmidt

Photo: Christiane Schmidt

From 8th to 13th July 2018 I represented our SIAM student chapter at the SIAM Annual Meeting 2018 in Portland, Oregon, USA. The meeting was held jointly with the SIAM Conference on Mathematical Aspects of Materials Science (MS18), the SIAM Conference on Applied Mathematics Education (ED18) and the SIAM Workshop on Network Science (NS18). 

The Annual Meeting is a major international conference with famous speakers offering talks, panels and minisymposia covering various topics of applied mathematics. Probably the most difficult part was to decide which session to attend. I listened to several interesting talks with quite different but not less fascinating applications, such as classification of adds in smartphone apps, seismic imaging or oyster reef classification.

I also attended the Hidden Figures Panel, inspired by the book by Margot Lee Shetterly (2006) and the respective Hollywood movie dealing with the experiences of African-American women working at NASA as human computers during the segregation. I happened to see the movie on the plane on my way to Portland. The session mainly dealt with African-American female mathematicians but also discrimination in general, against women or other underrepresented groups. One speaker was Christine Darden, PhD, who also worked at NASA and was featured in the book. She shared her insights and reflected on her career as a female mathematician.

Another part of the conference and the main reason why I was sent to Portland were the Student Days. About 40 percent of SIAM members are students and SIAM promotes students to attend this event to experience an international conference, provides tips and networking opportunities, offers career events and soft skill courses. Undergrad and PhD students get the opportunity to present their research to an international audience.

The student days start with the student orientation which helps to get to know people and gives advice on how to talk to other scientists. There are many more events like a student poster session, the communication doctors, where experienced scientists can help you selling your research more successfully or a free book giveaway. I really liked the concept of the student days. It helped a lot not to get lost and to enjoy this big conference.

The most important event is the Student Chapter Breakfast. There the chapter representatives from many of the 187 student chapters present and discuss their activities with each other and members of the SIAM leadership. So everyone takes home some new ideas for future activities .

For me the SIAM Annual Meeting was a great opportunity to get some international conference and networking experience. I met many fellow PhD students from all over the world and enjoyed my stay in Portland.

I would like to thank SIAM for the funding, the organization of the conference and our local chapter and advisor for the support, the generous funding and for choosing me as their chapter representative.

The next student days will be held jointly with the SIAM conference Computational Science and Engineering (CSE19) in Spokane, Washington, USA.