Black Heroes of Mathematics Conference

The British Society for the History of Mathematics, The International Centre for Mathematical Sciences, the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and the London Mathematical Society, are holding a two day conference on Black Heroes of Mathematics. This event is part of the Black History Month 2020 celebrations. 

Registration is now closed but the talks are all available from this link.

Please click here to see the talk titles and abstracts. 

The Vision of the conference is “To celebrate the inspirational contributions of black role models to the field of mathematics”.

There will be a balance of technical talks by internationally renowned black speakers that include some detail of career paths and experience to provide a testimonial dimension. We plan to achieve a balance of career stage and gender. Our speakers include Professor Edray Goins [Pomona College], Professor Nkechi Agwu [CUNY], Professor Tannie Liverpool [University of Bristol] and Dr Angela Tabiri [AIMS Ghana] to name a few.

We plan two sessions 26 October 2020 [morning and afternoon] and two sessions on 27 October [afternoon and early evening] to suit our audience and our line-up of international speakers. The second session each day will be a questions and discussion session hosted by Dr Nira Chamberlain, President of the IMA. Pre-recorded talks will be available during the first session each day from this link. The questions and discussion sessions each day will be hosted in real time.

We are requesting that all talks are accessible to the wide audience that we hope to attract.

Registration:

To attend this virtual conference, please fill out the registration form here.

Tentative Programme:

Please note that all times below are in GMT—the UK will start observing GMT on 25th October.

26th October 2020

Day 1, Session 1 (All timings are Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)) 

• There will be a short break between each talk.
• 10:00 Welcome – Dr Nira Chamberlain (IMA)
• 10:10 Dr Angela Tabiri (AIMS Ghana) The Journey of Female African Mathematicians.
• 10:50 Dr Howard Haughton (King's College London) On the use of Probability and Moment generating functions for quantifying loan portfolio credit losses.
• 11:30 Professor Tannie Liverpool (Bristol). From Boltzmann to bird flocks: journeys in non-equilibrium statistical mechanics
• 12:10 Close of Day 1, Session 1

Day 1, Session 2

• 13:00 Dr Nira Chamberlain (IMA) Black Heroes of Mathematics.
• 13:50 Break
• 14:00 Panel discussion
• 15:30 Close of Day 1, Session 2

27th October 2020

Day 2, Session 1

• 13:00 Welcome – Dr Nira Chamberlain (IMA)
• 13:10 Natalya Silcott (FIMA) Leaving a Legacy.
• 13:50 Dr Spencer Becker-Kahn (Cambridge) Soap Bubbles and Minimal Surfaces.
• 14:50 Professor Nkechi Agwu (BMCC) Mathematical Storytelling: Fostering Creativity, Innovation, CulturalAwareness and Entrepreneurship.
• 15:30 Professor Edray Goins The Black Mathematician Chronicles: Our Quest to Update the MAD Pages.
• 16:00 Close of Day 2, Session 1

Day 2, Session 2

• 18:00 Panel Discussion 
• 19:30 End of event

*Please note that times are subject to change.

Click here to see the list of titles and abstracts.

Further information

For general conference queries please contact the Conferences Team (conferences@ima.org.uk)

Organising Committee:

• Nira Chamberlain – IMA
• Frank Neumann – LMS
• Troy Astarte – BSHM
• Snezana Lawrence – BSHM and IMA

E-mail: conferences@ima.org.uk Tel: +44 (0) 1702 354 020 Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, Catherine Richards House, 16 Nelson Street, Southend-on-Sea, Essex, SS1 1EF, UK.