Recorded February 14, 2022.

This podcast episode marks an important centenary: 100 years ago, in 1922, the trailblazing modern mathematician, Emmy Noether, was finally given a paid lectureship at the University of Göttingen in

Germany. Despite a formidable reputation in her field, Noether had been denied paid academic work due to her gender and her Jewish heritage. She is now rightly recognized as one of the greatest

mathematicians who ever lived, but she never really saw the rewards of her brilliance in her lifetime.

While conditions for women in STEM and academia have certainly improved since Noether’s day,

even now, in Europe, only around 10-15% of permanent academic positions in mathematics are held

by women, and women occupy just 3% of CEO positions in STEM industry.(https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/11/math-women/506417/) To explore this lingering problem, I interview Professor June Barrow-Green, a historian of mathematics at the Open University, Iseult O’Rourke, a mathematics and French teacher at Loretto Balbriggan, an all-girls secondary school in County Dublin, and Mireia Martínez i Sellarès, a PhD candidate in mathematics at Utrecht University, who has worked with the European Girls Mathematical Olympiad (EGMO).

We attempt to identify the obstacles stand in the way of a more equitable and fair academic environment and discuss how creating more meaningful connections between the sciences and the arts can help us overcome them. We ask: What cultural and societal perceptions hinder a welcoming environment for girls and women in mathematics? What can we do about it? Is mathematics inherently creative? How can connections between mathematics and literature, art and culture help shed light on inequalities in the subject in academia?

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