1. What is your current position at the university?
I am a Teaching Fellow, which means my work is concentrated on teaching, rather than more balanced between teaching and research, as it is for University Lecturers. I am currently teaching only first year courses, but I have taught other things in the past. I am also training the Feedback Session Leaders that give the first year FS. (Though this will all be a bit different post Covid-19.)
I am passionate about teaching mathematics, and I try also to do outreach to school children and A-level students.
2. What has inspired your love of the maths community?
I remember starting to like maths when I was around 10. I think it was Probability trees that first caught my interest. After that I was very good at maths in school, and became very interested in it more generally. I was very lucky to have some excellent teachers, and the opportunity to go on quite a lot of maths summer schools. I did also go to some computer science and physics things, but maths just captured me a bit more. I don't remember when it became clear, but certainly throughout my last years at school it was clear that I was going to study maths. I also had friends who were older who were studying Physics for example, but who had proper maths lectures and told me all about what they were doing.
Studying and the teaching in Cambridge was a great joy and honour for me, and stretched me much more than my one year in Germany before that. As an undergraduate, I was good but not excellent, and also did plenty of other things, like singing and dancing. I think that helped me be balanced and happy as a person. Teaching in Cambridge was very enjoyable, although also very hard work. I enjoyed the close relationship to my students, who I was teaching two at a time. I do miss those regular discussions with just a small number of students here in Leicester. I'm always happy when someone comes to my office hour and wants to be helped .
When I was still doing research in Category Theory, I enjoyed the community there as well. I'm still sort of vaguely part of it, but not as much any more. It is a small subject area, and we have an email list for all Category Theorists in the world!
3. What you most enjoy about your role?
I love the contact with the students, especially the more individual contact with students who are really engaging and want to learn. I also like thinking about the maths and how best to structure and explain the material, at least most of the time .
4. What are the common misconceptions needed to be overcome?
This is a hard one. I think there is a big misconception in society that maths is all about calculating and speed and recipes. Often people wonder what people are still "researching" in maths. It would be nice if it were more widely understood that maths is about structure, about understanding, about "why?", and indeed a very active and creative research area. In fact, many many research areas (maths is quite broad). But this also means it is not necessarily the thing for everyone. We need lots of variety in the world! When students who didn't know what university maths is "really like" discover this, and either thrive with it, or manage to overcome their initial dislike or disengagement, and find that the effort makes it really enjoyable in the end, then I think we have achieved something good. But there is also an important place in the world for people who are good at the other, non-research or maybe more applied aspects of mathematics: good numeracy skills, understanding of statistical methods etc are also much needed in our world.
5. Any inspirational role models/ quotes for you.
I am grateful to the women who went before and showed the world that women can do mathematics. I don't think I had any specific role models as a student. As a teacher, I think Lara Alcock from Loughborough is the closest thing I might have to a role model. I have learnt a lot from a lot of (female and male) colleagues both in Cambridge and in Leicester, and indeed also from students.
I quite like this quote: "You can do anything, but not everything". Not sure where it's from (it was in the cafe in the Cambridge maths department), but I think it's (close to) true. With hard work and determination, and also a bit of help from others, one can achieve many things one sets ones mind to, but we don't have enough time, energy or passion to do absolutely everything.