MELBOURNE I, AUSTRALIA

April 28th 2017

12:30pm Lunch with Cheryl Praeger for postgraduate students and early career researchers

3:00pm Special Colloquium Cheryl Praeger (UWA):

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS IN MATHEMATICS

I’m delighted to be giving this talk on the occasion of the Women in
Maths exhibition prepared by Sylvie Paycha. Sylvie and I met at the
European Women in Mathematics meeting in Novi Sad, Serbia, and this
meeting, I think, gave Sylvie the idea to develop the exhibition. I’ll
share a little about the amazing Novi Sad conference. As each speaker
there was asked to share for 5 minutes how they had “got to where they
were in their careers”, there were many stories of personal barriers
being overcome.

In the talk I’d like to speak about breaking through some mathematical
barriers in my own research involving symmetry of mathematical
structures. The finite simple group classification changed the face of
algebra and combinatorics, including the way group theorists worked and
applied their expertise. In particular I will describe how this
influenced a recent program to understand a family of finite geometries
called generalised polygons.

4:00pm Official opening of the exhibition with drinks and nibbles
(Ground floor foyer, 9 Rainforest Walk, Monash University, Clayton
Campus)

7:00pm Dinner with the speaker

Contact: Anita Liebenau anita.liebenau@monash.edu