“As a child I wanted to make an impact on the world, and as a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial I feel I am getting closer to fulfilling this dream.”
I arrived at Imperial in 2019 as a PhD student, after completing an MMATH degree at St Andrews. In 2023 I began an EPSRC Research Associate in Pure Mathematics. As a child I wanted to make an impact on the world, and as a postdoctoral researcher at Imperial I feel I am getting closer to fulfilling this dream.
My role mainly involves research but I am also lecturing a first-year course this term. My research is on the intersection of group theory, which is an abstract way of thinking about symmetries and combinatorics, which is the art of counting. I always like to be involved in university life in as many ways as possible, so I am now a Postdoc Representative. I am also passionate about supporting and inspiring women to pursue maths research through outreach and being on scholarships panels. I am a co-founder (with Eoghan McDowell) and organiser (with Zain Kapadia and Bob Dabson) of the Junior London Algebra Colloquium, a seminar series aimed at PhD students
I like surprising people by going against stereotypes and showing people what a fun and creative profession being a mathematician is. One of my favourite parts of working in research is meeting other people in the field. This also gives the opportunity to travel to very interesting places around the world and be inspired by my colleagues. My favourite experiences were visiting a collaborator in New Zealand and winning the Best Student Talk award at a summer school in Slovenia.
My love for collaboration and doing maths while travelling the world is not unusual among mathematicians. One of my role models, Paul Erdős, was famous for having more than 500 collaborators and producing world class mathematics. I was fascinated by his impressive way of carrying out research and wrote an essay on his practices, which won the British Society for the History of Maths Undergraduate Essay Prize.