University of Oxford Hosts 2022 EDGE Summer Program for Women in Mathematics

By Amy Oden

On a scorching day in July, a group of 14 women spilled through the grounds of St. Johns College at the University of Oxford, swapping undergraduate stories and strategizing for their algebra and real analysis courses. Though they had met only recently, their immediate connection and camaraderie carried them through a month of intensive mathematics instruction — and will continue to support them during their professional careers.

These students comprise the 2022 cohort of the Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education (EDGE) Summer Program, which is designed for women who are preparing to enter Ph.D. programs in the mathematical sciences. Now in its 25th year, the EDGE Summer Program reached a new milestone in 2022 by hosting its first summer session outside of the U.S. This year’s program took place from July 6 through August 6 at the University of Oxford in the U.K. thanks in part to EDGE alumna Heather Harrington, a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Oxford’s Mathematical Institute. Harrington, who received a 2020 Philip Leverhulme Prize, designated a portion of her prize funds to partially finance the 2022 EDGE Summer Program. SIAM has also supported the previous two EDGE Summer Programs and was an EDGE Lead Sponsor this past year.

Founded in 1998 by Sylvia Bozeman of Spelman College and Rhonda Hughes of Bryn Mawr College, the EDGE Program is designed to increase the number of women who thrive in leadership roles in the mathematical sciences. While women earn 48 percent of all U.S. bachelor’s degrees in the mathematical sciences [1], their representation significantly drops as they climb the professional ladder. For example, females earn only 25.8 percent of all Ph.D.s in the mathematical and computer sciences [4] and hold merely 28 percent of leadership roles in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) academia [2]. These numbers are primarily reflective of White women’s growing assimilation into advanced STEM professional culture. For Black, Brown, and other underrepresented groups, a stark inequity remains. For instance, 2,003 mathematical sciences Ph.D.s were earned in the U.S. in 2019; of those 2,003 degrees, U.S. Black women earned 14 and U.S. Hispanic women earned 20 [3]. 

To mitigate this issue, the EDGE Summer Program helps students build the skills and support network that are necessary to thrive in graduate school and beyond. The program has seen tremendous success in its nearly 25 years; more than 90 percent of all alumni have either earned advanced degrees or are still in school. Since EDGE alumni began earning Ph.D.s in 2003, approximately 23 percent of all Black women who have earned Ph.D.s in the mathematical sciences in the U.S. are EDGErs. This statistic is representative of the significant work EDGE has done in the field but also highlights the work that remains.

This year’s participants—lovingly dubbed EDGErs—hail from the U.S., Poland, and Ghana. Following the program, they will enter 12 different graduate programs across the U.S. and U.K. to study pure and applied mathematics, statistics, and operations research. Their destinations include Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Chicago, Cornell University, Duke University, University of Edinburgh, Howard University, Iowa State University, University of Minnesota, North Carolina State University, University of Notre Dame, and Rice University.

2022 students completed accelerated coursework in algebra, real analysis, machine learning, and measure theory, working together to complete rigorous problem sets and prepare a textbook for future use. They also attended colloquia that featured notable mathematicians from the University of Oxford (Ulrike Tilmann, Helen Byrne, and Xenia de la Ossa), participated in a probability mini-course, and prepared individual presentations.

Following the completion of the 2022 EDGE Summer Program, the program’s leadership named Connor Parrow as the 2022 SIAM EDGE Fellow. Parrow’s drive as a mathematician and commitment to fostering community within her cohort stood out to co-directors Alison Marr and Raegan Higgins. Both SIAM and the EDGE Foundation are delighted to support Connor’s participation in EDGE, and we look forward to seeing her continued growth within the applied mathematics field.

The 2022 EDGE Summer Program was led by EDGE co-directors Raegan Higgins of Texas Tech University and Alison Marr of Southwestern University. The program was administered by Sylvia Bozeman and Rhonda Hughes EDGE Foundation, which is led by president Ami Radunskaya of Pomona College. It is made possible with the generous support of numerous funders; a full list of the 2022 EDGE Summer Program sponsors is available here. 

Visit our website to learn more about EDGE.

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References
[1] Kantrowitz, M. (2022, April 14). Women achieve gains in STEM fields. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/markkantrowitz/2022/04/07/women-achieve-gains-in-stem-fields.
[2] McCullough, L. (2019). Proportions of Women in STEM Leadership in the Academy in the USA. Edu. Sci., 10(1), 1.
[3] National Center for Education Statistics. (2020). Table 324.30: Doctor’s degrees conferred to males by postsecondary institutions, by race/ethnicity and field of study: 2017-18 and 2018-19. Digest of Education Statistics. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_324.30.asp.
[4] Zhou, E., & Gao, J. (2021, October). Graduate enrollment and degrees: 2010 to 2020. The Council of Graduate Schools and the Graduate Record Examination. Retrieved from https://cgsnet.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/CGS_GED20_Report_final_v2-2.pdf. 

Amy Oden is the Associate Director for Programs and Grants at the EDGE Foundation. She has been with EDGE since 2020.