Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics

University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln NE

Investigators

Abstract

The 21st Annual Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics (NCUWM) will take place January 25th-27th, 2019 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Since its inception in 1999, nearly 4000 undergraduate women have participated in NCUWM. The main purpose of the conference is to prepare women mathematics majors to attend graduate school, to increase their success in graduate school, and to help them identify potential careers using mathematics. In 2019, conference components include three plenary talks from prominent women mathematicians, 48 undergraduate student talks, an undergraduate student poster session with over 60 posters, panel discussions with invited graduate students and professionals in academia and industry, small-group breakout sessions on specific topics, and other networking opportunities. The conference has a special focus on mentoring, connecting undergraduate students not only with their peers but also with a number of successful women at a broad range of career stages. The 2019 slate of plenary speakers include Christine Darden of the NASA Langley Research Center, who was featured in the famous "Hidden Figures" book, Zhilan Feng, a Professor of Mathematics at Purdue University, and Margaret Holen, a retired partner at Goldman Sachs and Lecturer at Princeton University. In addition to learning cutting edge mathematics from the plenary speakers, student attendees will also learn about current developments at the frontier of undergraduate mathematics research from an array of student talks and poster presentations. The focus on vertical mentoring at NCUWM leads to professional development opportunities for all of the conference attendees. A comprehensive assessment prepared by RMC Research Corporation following NCUWM in 2015 concluded that NCUWM strongly influences the attitudes and beliefs of the undergraduate participants related to pursuing graduate-level mathematics and mathematics related careers. RMC Research continues to gather data after each conference in the form of participant surveys, and this data is used in part to ensure that the conference also well serves underrepresented populations. The conference webpage is available at https://www.math.unl.edu/~ncuwm/21stAnnual/ This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.