I have changed my mind about “women in STEM”

Disclaimers: Views my own, and limited to my cis-gendered perspective. “Another year, another Internation Women’s Day”, wrote Athene Donald earlier this month. With this resignation that we still need this day (or week, or month), I opened my inbox awaiting the yearly email from the Maths Faculty in which maths students are reminded that women […]

how to get better at Cambridge maths

I’ve recently been asked twice by first-year Cambridge maths students how to get good at maths. While I did reply to one of them with advice specific to their situation, this is a good topic for a simple, informative post. (Definitely not meant to be my best post – it won’t be, I have covid […]

I’m back

As 2022 approaches, I thought I’ll give a quick update (but see News for more). Introduction: For me, as for many others, 2021 has been a tough year. I haven’t really published any new posts since early January, partially because I’ve become more risk-averse about the things I publish online (for various reasons) and partially […]

How to solve y”(x)=f(y(x))

This post is exactly what its title suggests. It turns out that differential equations of the form y”(x)=f(y(x)), where f is any function of your choice (which depends on the function y (x) that you want to solve for, but not on its derivatives), come up a lot in applied maths. And now it may […]

Tips for giving talks

Introduction I gave quite a few online talks in 2020 and I’m very happy to have done so. Giving talks is great. It’s an excellent commitment device if you want to learn or better understand something (and great for signalling, if you care about that). They improve (and are a proof of) your communication skills, […]

Using maths to optimally renew my passport

I recently had to renew my passort. For this, I needed a recent headshot of myself. As I didn’t have one at home, I went to a photo booth. For the 5€ that I paid, I could have up to three shoots taken. However, I (crucially) had to decide whether I wanted to use one […]

Why you should get a Kindle

In this post, I’ll argue that, if you read anything, you should get a Kindle. I’ll give what I believe the more important advantages of a Kindle. I’ll also argue against common objections.

My full-size whiteboard

Online Easter term -now over, more on that next week- has given me the idea to post a picture of my whiteboard here. (Super short post this week.) It feels a bit of a useless post for anyone reading it, but it’s such a mathmo item that I could not show it here. It’s just […]

How to choose books to read

I am the kind of person who reads a bit everyday. Lately I have come across really good books, and improved my criteria to choose books. This is something I used to struggle with. I hope other people finding this post helpful. If you do, then I’d love to hear about it (you can use […]

On being a woman in Maths

How is it like to be a woman in maths? Should you be one?