| January 23, 2023

Marketing and Communications: A Resource Roundup

SIAM is proud to offer an abundance of resources and programs that support and serve the applied mathematics community. Most of these resources—which are developed with valuable input from member volunteers—are freely available as part of our mission to provide media for the exchange of information and ultimately grow the pipeline of future applied mathematicians, computational scientists, and data scientists. We create these resources to support three main groups: individuals who already work in or study the applied mathematical sciences, educators who introduce students to these areas, and students who are beginning to learn about modeling, programming, and potential careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The SIAM Marketing and Communications Department has been involved in the creation of many of our most important resources over the years, and it has been gratifying and rewarding to witness the usefulness of these offerings. Below are some examples of SIAM resources that are available to you, your students, and your colleagues.

Careers in the Mathematical Sciences Brochure

The 2022 SIAM Careers Brochure, which focuses on industrial careers, features more than 20 new profiles of SIAM community members. It is freely available on the SIAM website and can otherwise be purchased from the SIAM Bookstore.

Every five years, SIAM produces a new Careers Brochure — a popular resource that spotlights applied mathematicians who work in various facets of the mathematical sciences, with a focus on industrial careers. The recently updated edition features more than 20 new profiles, and we also plan to add a video component in the near future. We are very appreciative of the SIAM Career Opportunities, Diversity Advisory, Education, and Industry Committees for helping to identify community members to be featured, and for reviewing pertinent career information. The brochure is available for free download on SIAM’s website and purchase at the SIAM Bookstore. We will also have print copies at the SIAM booth during most 2023 SIAM conferences — stop by and pick one up!

SIAM Job Board

The SIAM Job Board offers job seekers and employers an easy way to connect. In 2022, we provided a platform that connected 120 companies with qualified candidates. These companies posted 325+ jobs on the SIAM Job Board that received 650+ applications, with a total of nearly 100,000 views. Visit jobs.siam.org to browse available positions or advertise your organization’s openings; sign up for email alerts and follow the SIAM Job Board on Twitter to be notified whenever a new opportunity is added.

“We had an especially challenging and specific job requirement. We posted the position and sent the targeted mass email through the SIAM Job Board; it was extremely effective! Now whenever I have open positions, I always recommend the SIAM Job Board to hiring managers and technical recruiters.” — Holly Smith, former recruiter for Siemens Digital Industries Software

SIAM Videos

We uploaded 75 educational videos to SIAM’s YouTube channel in 2022, largely from conference talks, seminars, workshops, and panels. We now have an impressive 500 videos on our YouTube channel, which collectively received 173,000 views last year with a total watch time of 5,500 hours. SIAM works with many of our activity group organizers to host webinars that are shared freely on YouTube. Most recently, we posted the presentations from the SIAM Convening on Climate Science, Sustainability, and Clean Energy, which took place in October 2022 in Tysons, Va. This National Science Foundation-funded multidisciplinary scoping workshop focused on six main goal areas and produced a report and nine recommendations for research funding around climate science, clean energy, and sustainability.

In 2022, the Marketing and Communications Department worked with a professional video team to produce eight new videos that will be shared with the community over the next six months. Some of the videos were filmed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where we interviewed SIAM members Katherine Evans, Juan Restrepo, and Slaven Peles on the topics of climate, renewable energy, and supercomputing. The other videos were filmed during the 2022 SIAM Conference on Mathematics of Data Science, which took place in San Diego, Calif., in September 2022. While there, we interviewed more than 15 attendees who ranged from undergraduate students to established researchers. Look for these videos throughout 2023!

SIAM.org Website

From career and student materials to in-depth reports and updates on educational issues, science policy, and advocacy, the SIAM website is a hub of useful information that spans the past several decades. In the coming year, we’ll be making big changes and improvements to www.siam.org to ensure that it is as useful and accessible as possible. We are working with the SIAM Education, Industry, and Science Policy Committees to add new resource sections to the website as well. Stay tuned!

MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge

SIAM staff pose at the 2022 MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge (M3 Challenge) Final Event, which took place in New York City in April 2022. From left to right: Eliana Zimet, Programs Coordinator; Michelle Montgomery, M3 Challenge Project Director; Becky Kerner, Director of Marketing and Communications; Adrianne Ali, Marketing and Communications Manager; and Taylor Johnson, Digital Communications and Content Coordinator. SIAM photo.

Now in its 18th year, SIAM’s MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge (M3 Challenge) spotlights applied mathematics and technical computing as powerful problem-solving tools and viable, exciting professions. Nearly 55,000 high school and sixth form students have participated in M3 Challenge to date, which has awarded $1.75 million in scholarships. This incredibly impactful program also offers free educator and student resources, including handbooks about math modeling and modeling with computing; the “What is Math Modeling?” video series (which has been watched nearly 500,000 times) and “Essentials of Math Modeling” video series (featuring MATLAB); and the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Mathematical Modeling Education (GAIMME), a report that helps educators understand and teach the modeling process as a basic tool for problem-solving and logical thinking in STEM. Visit the M3 Challenge website to learn more and find out how you can serve as a judge or submit a problem topic.

“The content [in the GAIMME report] not only helps teachers incorporate mathematical modeling problems into classes, but also makes the curious and diligent ones want to do so, or even to teach a whole course in modeling.” — Jan Holly, professor of mathematics and statistics at Colby College

We are grateful to the organizations and companies that supported SIAM in 2022 and made our continued resource and program development possible. We are always seeking collaborative partners to help us create new resources and programs and sustain or refresh existing ones. If your company is interested in partnering with SIAM, email us at [email protected] to explore the possibilities.

Thank you to the SIAM volunteers and members who have contributed to this vast portfolio of resources, and to those of you who put them to good use! Are there additional resources that would be helpful but don’t yet exist? Let us know at [email protected].

Becky Kerner is the Director of Marketing and Communications at SIAM.