This week I did something a little crazy, dictated by necessity: I took my 2 year old girl to a conference, namely the Inverse Days in Lappeenranta. We drove from Espoo (bad idea) on Monday evening and will stay until Thursday, cutting at half day to get home not too late. Baby-wise it went much […]
Category: womens rights
Women in Mathematics in Finland: Kirsi Peltonen

I am so excited to announce this upcoming event: the first lecture Women in Mathematics in Finland. I organised the seminar as national coordinator for European Women in Mathematics, since we discussed with the local members that we needed our local network to be more active. Visibility for women in mathematics is much needed in Finland, […]
Giving more visibility to minorities in mathematics: practical guidelines

Inspired by the recent paper Addressing the underrepresentation of women in mathematics conferences by Greg Martin, I decided to create a short and practical "to-do" list for conference organisers. This list does not apply to the specific field of mathematics, nor to women only. It's all good to involve all minorities, in any field. Take […]
Childcare in academia: hall of fame

Balancing work and family can be stressful, but balancing an academic career and family can be even worse. A lot of travelling to present your own work and network to find new collaborators and ideas, visiting periods abroad and social events undermine the fundamental component of family life management: routine. I am a young researcher […]
Tweeting for Real Scientists: aftermath.
My week as curator of the Twitter channel @realscientists has just ended. It was refreshing and a lot of fun. I had the chance to review my own work from a fresh perspective and to check out old problems I didn't read about for a while. For those who don't know what Real Scientists is, I […]
Curiosity and determination: the example of Amalia Ercoli-Finzi

Today I came across this nice piece on one of my favorite Italian columns on women. The following article is extracted from a book called “Il senso delle donne per la scienza” by Maria Luisa Agnese and tells the story of Amalia Ercoli-Finzi, an Italian scientist who is deeply involved in the amazing space mission Rosetta. The […]
Kumpula's Women Network: spring event

Last week the Kumpula's Women Network (see previous post) had a nice spring event at Helsinki Observatory, in the City Centre. Two lectures in Finnish were held by Eva Isaksson, astronomy librarian who's passionate about women in science, and Päivi Harjunpää, head of the Observatory. After a pleasant lunch, the head guide Paula Kyyrö showed us the […]
Well-being event in Kumpulan Kampus

Last weeks have been simply crazy. As a result, I finally caught the flu I magically avoided for the past 8 months (and, believe me, with a 2 year old attending daycare, it's really called magic). As a positive consequence, I get some free time to blog. Among other news, I would like to tell […]
Should childcare become a custom in conference planning?

A couple of weeks ago I received an email of a female colleague researcher working in France through the EWM mailing list. The open letter - that was published also on her personal website - was addressed to CIRM in Marseille and criticised their ridiculous policy regarding the presence of children at the meeting facilities […]
Sofia Kovalevskaya: the girl who wanted something else

After several days of no writing, I will make up by publishing some edited notes that I used during one guest lecture this week. This is a short bio of a brilliant female mathematicians who lived about 150 years ago. Her story is an example of personal determination and brilliant mind, but also can make […]