The Piscopia Initiative (piscopia.co.uk) [Equate Student Society of the Year 2024] hosts PhD information and networking events across the UK.
These events are specifically aimed at women and non-binary Mathematics students, although anyone is welcome to attend.
For upcoming events please see: https://piscopia.co.uk/whats-on/.

I give some more details on the aims and type of events hosted by Piscopia below, but also want to use this page to highlight other excellent initiatives that aim to increase diversity.

Some upcoming events/opportunities are:

A short talk I gave in 2020 about the wide range of mathematical research: Facets of Mathematics.

Piscopia Initiative

Together with fellow PhD students Bella Deutsch and Mary LLewellyn, I co-founded the Piscopia Initiative (piscopia.co.uk) in 2019 to encourage women and non-binary students to pursue a PhD in mathematics.

Although 40% of UK graduates in the mathematical sciences are female, only 6% of them go on to be professors [LMS report, 2013].

We launched a targeted approach to address this issue by hosting a conference and PhD information events at universities throughout Scotland in 2019-2020.

In 2020, Mary and me extended the scheme to go UK-wide and launched local Piscopia committees at 15 UK universities. Our local committees offer approachable points of contacts for students, equip the students with information they may be hesitant to seek, and provide them with women and non-binary role models at their own university. In parallel, we also set up UK-wide events, e.g. on Non-traditional career paths into academia and seminar series featuring women researchers from across the UK working in diverse areas of mathematics both in academia and industry. A full list of the events I co-organized from 2019-2022 can be found here.

Our events aim to:

  1. Raise awareness for the PhD option among women and non-binary people and increase the attendees' knowledge about what it is like to study and apply for a PhD in Mathematics (and wider STEM).
  2. Highlight women and non-binary role models in Mathematics research.
  3. Provide attendees with a support network and platform where they can ask questions in the future by connecting them with their peers, women & non-binary researchers at their university, and the UK-wide Piscopia community.

We are grateful for all the support we gained along the way from many universities, professors, and organizations such as the International Centre for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS), The Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research, the Clinton Foundation, Maplesoft, the Maxwell Institute Graduate School for Analysis and Its Applications, the Edinburgh Mathematical Society (EMS), and the London Mathematical Society (LMS).

I am also grateful to all our wonderful local committee members and our new Piscopia co-leads: Gemma Crowe, Xell Brunet-Guasch, and Victoria Ironmonger, who are continuing the legacy of the initiative.