Yukari Ito selected as executive committee member of the Asia-Oceania Women in Mathematics

August 8, 2022
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU)

Professor Yukari Ito of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), The University of Tokyo, has been announced as a member of the newly established Asia-Oceania Women in Mathematics, under the International Mathematics Union (IMU), it was announced on August 1.

The AOWM was established after the Committee for Women in Mathematics (CWM) under the IMU had received a call for its development this year. The CWM has established similar groups in the past, including the European Women in Mathematics in 1971, the Association for Women in Mathematics in 1983, the African Women in Mathematics in 2013, and the Comisión de Género -Unión Matemática de América Latina y el Caribe in 2020, but this will be the first group to be active in the Asia-Oceania region.

What activities and responsibilities the group will have will be finalized in the near future, but they plan to become a network for women mathematicians in the region, and provide support and education for mathematicians in the future.

“When I attended an EWM conference, I could obtain a lot of useful information from female mathematicians in various fields, not only about their research, but also about how to balance family and childcare, how to manage research life, and so on. Since women are a minority, I would like to create a place where they can obtain a variety of information, enjoy mathematics research at will, and improve themselves by encouraging each other, without being treated as special or isolated. Now, we are planning to hold a conference Women in Mathematics in September so that we can hear about mathematics research and experiences of female mathematicians from various countries,” Ito said.