Last week I took part in my second Retreat for Women In Applied Mathematics, held at the ICMS in Edinburgh. Organised by Prof Apala Majumdar (University of Strathclyde) and Prof Angela Mihai (Cardiff University), RWAM is a five-day retreat for female applied mathematicians from all career stages, with keynote lectures, contributed talks, poster session, round-table discussions, working groups and networking time.

This year I led a round-table discussion around the topic of EDI. This workshop style session focussed on exploring some of the common challenges faced by women in male dominated fields. We used some of the thoughts and feelings identified from our Newcastle PhD student experiences study (see more here) as a springboard for small group discussion, sharing our own experiences and personal strategies we’ve found helpful. We also discussed the current literature in this area which highlights the power of networks, mentors and events like RWAM!

It’s always a pleasure to be in Edinburgh and at the ICMS, but being surrounded by such impressive women for RWAM makes for a particularly inspiring week!

On Tuesday 14th May I led a Women’s Research Retreat Day, aimed at women researchers across the academic career stages within the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics. The goal of the day was to provide some protected time away from campus, to share career experiences and challenges, and build our sense of community for future mentoring and collaborative relationships. As a result we have set up a Women’s Network Teams Group for researchers in MSP to share opportunities and connect.

Hopefully lots of events like this to come in the future!

In April this year we hosted the British Mathematics Colloquium here at Newcastle University. The week got off to a very rainy start, but that didn’t dampen any spirits!

It was great to see my PhD student Patrick Parkinson giving his first conference talk, presenting our work exploring quantitative characteristics of damaged and healthy corneas which will inform computer-aided diagnostic tools for limbal stem cell deficiency.

I led a mini-symposium on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Mathematics, with excellent talks from Prof Nira Chamberlain, Dr Claire Davies, Prof Volker Sorge, and Rosie Evans (who won the PhD student talk prize for her contributions!).

As part of the Local Organising Committee, thanks to all that attended and contributed to such a productive, motivating and friendly environment!

A busy year with a growing research group!

Research team:

Welcome to new team members Patrick, Axa and Kaitlyn who have joined our Mathematics of Life and Environmental Sciences (MoLES) research group as PhD students this semester!

Patrick Parkinson (supervised by myself and Prof Anvar Shukurov) is working to develop diagnostic image analysis tools to assess corneal health and mathematical models of corneal wound healing.

Axa Lääperi joins the ecological modelling team (supervised by myself, Dr Andrew Baggaley, and Prof Nick Parker) through the ONE Planet Doctoral Training Partnership, and is working to develop mathematical models for wildfire spread within the UK.

Kaitlyn Ries, supported by the Geospatial Systems Centre for Doctoral Training, also joins the ecological modelling team (supervised by myself, Dr Andrew Baggaley, and Prof Nick Parker) and will work to explore statistical models for invasive pest spread in the UK, beginning with a MRes project before starting her PhD in September 2024.

New Publications:

L E Wadkin, A Golightly, J Branson, A Hoppit, N G Parker and A W Baggaley. Quantifying Invasive Pest Dynamics through Inference of a Two-Node Epidemic Network Model. Diversity, 15(4), 496, 2023.

A Golightly, L E Wadkin, S A Whitaker, A W Baggaley, N G Parker and T Kypraios. Accelerating Bayesian inference for stochastic epidemic models using incidence data. Statistical Computing, 33, 134, 2023.

L E Wadkin, I Makarenko, N G Parker, A Shukurov, F C Figueiredo and M Lako. Human Stem Cells for Ophthalmology: Recent Advances in Diagnostic Image Analysis and Computational Modelling. Current Stem Cell Reports, 1-10, 2023.

It was a pleasure to deliver an invited talk as part of the Statistics of strange species session at the RSS conference a couple of weeks ago! I presented my work on modelling the spread of the oak processionary moth in London – with a particular focus on the inference techniques used to extract our model parameters. There were some great talks over the week, and plenty accessible for an applied mathematician like myself!

I was pleased to present my work with undergraduate summer project student Ramita Dhanda at the Higher Education Academy EDI Conference this week! Through our literature review we found a large gap in research examining the lived experiences of women in mathematics in UK Higher Education. Next step – fill this gap with our own study at Newcastle!

Our recent work investigating the dynamics of the pluripotency transcription factor OCT4 has been published in IOP Physical Biology:

OCT4 expression in human embryonic stem cells: spatio-temporal dynamics and fate transitions

We use time-lapse experimental data of OCT4-mCherry fluorescence intensity to quantify the temporal and spatial dynamics of the pluripotency transcription factor OCT4 in a growing hESC colony in the presence and absence of BMP4.

Last year I won 2nd Prize in the Smith Institute’s TakeAIM competition (Articulating the Influence of Mathematics). The competition is an opportunity for university students to showcase their work on the industrial stage and to highlight the crucial role mathematics plays in solving real-world problems while rewarding the academic exploration of future innovators who undertake pioneering research.

The awards ceremony at Imperial College London featured presentations from other winning entries, interesting industrial talks and a very fancy afternoon tea! My winning entry can be viewed here and the article in the school news here.