40 Years and Counting: AWM's Celebration of Women in Mathematics

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With support from National Science Foundation Grant #DMS-1108916, the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) will hold a two-day meeting, 40 Years and Counting: AWM's Celebration of Women in Mathematics at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, September 17-18, 2011. The principal investigators on this grant are the organizers of the meeting, Georgia Benkart, Kristin Lauter, and Jill Pipher.Since 1971, the Association for Women in Mathematics has been at the forefront of efforts to encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the mathematical sciences. The meeting 40 Years and Counting: AWM's Celebration of Women in Mathematics, which will be open to the public, celebrates the 40th anniversary of the organization, its accomplishments in promoting women in mathematics, and the many significant contributions of women in mathematics over the last forty years. There will be four plenary lectures by distinguished women in pure and applied mathematics, over 15 special sessions on a wide range of topics in the mathematical sciences, poster sessions for recent PhD recipients and graduate students, a panel, a banquet, and time for mentoring and discussion. This event comes at a critical time when the percentage of women among the first-year graduate students in mathematics has declined from 35% in 2001 to 29% in 2009. Many early-career female mathematicians, especially those at smaller schools, and also many graduate students, often have little or no contact with leading women researchers, with the exception of a few in their own research area. The long-term benefits of the meeting will be a heightened awareness of the accomplishments of female mathematicians, an increase in the participation of women in research activities, an expanded research network of potential collaborators, and visibility and connectivity for younger researchers.