Lancaster University hosted a spectacular Florence Nightingale Day, of which 13 girls from Year 10 got to be a part of. The day was an endeavour to promote mathematical sciences to young women, inspired by an influential and significantly important figure in women’ s history in STEM; Florence Nightingale. While she is well-known for her medical work as a nurse, she was also a pioneer in statistics, especially in the use of visualisation of statistical data. Three experienced female academics took time out of their day and provided a detailed and informative journey of their personal and mathematical journeys, starting from their childhood up to their occupations as lecturers at Lancashire University.
The event was aimed at young women aged 14 to 18, including pupils from multiple schools that had travelled far and wide. There were approximately 400 pupils in attendance.
Dr. Jess Jay, the first presenter, is a Security and Protection Science Lecturer at Lancaster University and works on probability theory and links to other areas of pure mathematics. In particular, her work concerns interacting particle systems and combinatorial identities. She provided an insightful presentation on her journey for her love of mathematics and how it was fostered from an early age. She, alongside the other presenters, also used an online quiz website as a form of engagement on behalf of the audience of approximately 150 people. Her presentation provided itself as an extremely useful insight into life after secondary school and college.
After this, all the schools participating in the event were served a wonderful lunch and challenged to a set of demanding mathematics questions. Although Pleckgate pupils unfortunately did not score a place on the podium, the questions served as a fun activity through lunchtime.
The next presenter, Qiyao (Alice) Peng, is a Lecturer in the section of Mathematics for AI in Real-World System (MARS) at the university. She explained her educational background, her nomadic course of university experience, her occupation in mathematics and its scientific ties with biology. Alongside this, she also made her lecture incredibly engaging by using an online quiz platform to get the audience’s feedback.
The last presenter, Dr. Jess Bridgen, provided a detailed overview of the role of statistics in epidemiology, explaining patterns and prediction in spreading of diseases such as COVID 19, Measles and M Pox. She explained the contrast of people diagnosed with a certain disease to people that were no longer a threat through models and graphs, which proved to be extremely intriguing.
Overall, the day was a refreshing break from the school environment and served as an enlightening experience. The lectures not only provided clarity about the journey of a mathematics oriented academic pathway, but also showcased that the field, to put it simply, might not be for the faint-hearted. The ideas showcased were complex, arguably a little confusing, but most of all, extremely intriguing to someone with a fondness for mathematics. After the event I was left thinking about the massive scale of opportunity in mathematics and found myself more open to considering an occupation in the field. The event, for me and many of my peers, was a unique and exciting experience, and we as a school should be grateful for such a wonderful opportunity to expand our knowledge beyond what we already know.
Maira 10 HMI
