Hannah Pybus at the TMT Conference
Congratulations to Hannah Pybus, a current Mathematics undergraduate student, for successfully securing a place on this year's Tomorrow’s Mathematicians Today (TMT). This conference is aimed at final year undergraduate students with the purpose of providing participants with an opportunity to present on mathematical topics of their choice. This is the fifth year of this hugely popular event, which took place on Saturday 13 February 2016 at the University of Greenwich. Hannah would like to encourage other undergraduate students to participate in future TMT conferences as she found the knowledge she gained invaluable. Hannah's work was well received and she was also nominated for the GCHQ prize.
Read about Hannah's experiences:
"The school kindly informed me about the Tomorrow’s Mathematicians Today (TMT) undergraduate conference via email early in the autumn semester. This gave me plenty of time to prepare a 200 word abstract and 500 word GCHQ criterion for the submission deadline of December. At that moment in time I was pursuing a PhD application for further study continuing at the University of Nottingham. I thought that the TMT conference would give me a beneficial insight into the workings of potential conferences I may be involved with during my PhD studies.
Focusing on my keen interests, I wished to present my ongoing dissertation research exploring ‘Mathematical Models of Growth Factor Activation during Bronchoconstriction in Asthma’. My supervisor Dr Bindi Brook happily helped me, offering tremendous support in preparations of abstracts, presentation slides and discussing the conference process. The event was inundated with applications and we were delighted to be one of the 31 abstracts to be accepted.
The TMT conference was hosted by The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), Mr Tony Man and Ms Noel-Ann Bradshaw at The King William Court, University of Greenwich and was sponsored by the GCHQ. The IMA added all speakers to their mailing list and will inform us of future events.
The event started at 9.45am where we were able to collect our name badges and meet all other enthusiastic undergraduates. The multiple breaks in the day meant we were all able to network and approach each other posing new questions complimenting each other’s research. Surrounded by passionate collaborating mathematicians was a fantastic opportunity to flourish and expand upon existing knowledge in various fields. Each speaker was allocated a 15-minute presentation with 5 additional minutes for questions. I presented my work in the morning and was thrilled that it was well received. It was very flattering that the keynote speaker complemented my work and highlighted parts on social media. Furthermore, I was nominated for the GCHQ prize. During the afternoon speakers were split into streams, grouping similar topics allowing for us to follow sets of talks suiting to our mathematic curiosity.
I attended a variety of presentations from multiple mathematic disciplines, many of which were pure. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the more applied talks and followed the familiar work. The last talk came from the keynote speaker Dr Eugenia Cheng who engaged everyone in an interesting development into abstract maths. She specialised in higher dimension category theory, but presented her work in such an assessable way for us all to follow. The event finished at 5pm but many of us exchanged email addresses to continue contact.
Prior to the event, I had not had any experience in formally presenting my work to an audience. However multiple previous occasions hosted by the school allowed me to gain confidence in talking through my work and explaining myself in the relaxed and familiar environment of the maths department. These events included presenting my student internship poster supervised by Professor John King amongst a group of fellow students. Here I was able to speak to many helpful lecturers that motivated me further. Dr Gerardo Adesso promoted me to apply for the TMT event and remained in contact offering support. Further help in funding was kindly offered from Dr Richard Graham and the school.
To summarise, I am very fortunate to have taken part in a brilliant opportunity that provided me with valuable experiences in networking, conference process practise and confidence to present work again. I would like to put emphasis on how supportive the school is and encourage more undergraduates to apply to these events, as it offers excellent opportunities to enjoy your work and be submersed with inspiring mathematicians."
Posted on Monday 14th March 2016