Every year, the Fondation L'Oréal and UNESCO celebrate the scientific excellence of five eminent women scientists, each from a major region of the world. In 2021, the L'Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Awards honors Laureates in the field of Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science. See  here.

LAUREATE FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEANS

Professor Alicia DICKENSTEIN – Mathematics Professor of Mathematics at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Awarded for her outstanding contributions at the forefront of mathematical innovation by leveraging algebraic geometry in the field of molecular biology. Her research enables scientists to understand the precise structures and behavior of cells and molecules, even at a microscopic scale. Operating at the frontier between pure and applied mathematics, she has forged important links to physics and chemistry, and enabled biologists to gain an in-depth structural understanding of biochemical reactions and enzymatic networks.

Alicia has been vice-president of IMU in 2015-2018 and remains a CWM ambassador.

LAUREATE FOR NORTH AMRICA

Professor Shafi GOLDWASSER – Computer Science
 
Director of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, professor in electrical engineering and computer sciences at University of California Berkeley, RSA professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, United States of America and professor of computer science and applied mathematics at Weizmann Institute, Israel.
 
Awarded for her pioneering and fundamental work in computer science and cryptography, essential for secure communication over the internet as well as for shared computation on private data. Her research has a significant impact on our understanding of large classes of problems for which computers cannot efficiently find approximate solutions.

Shafi has been invited speaker at  ICM Kyoto 1990 in the section Mathematical aspects of computer science and plenary speaker at ICM Beijing 2002.

Other awardees are

Françoise COMBES, Astrophysics, France

Catherine NGILA, Chemistry, South Africa

Kyoko NOZAKI, Chemistry, Japan.

Cameroon
"Women Scientists at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19" - celebration of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science in Maroua on February, 10.
We are going to celebrate it in person while respecting the barrier measures against COVID 19. The number of participants is limited.

Germany
A journey through the natural and mathematical sciences with female
PhD students, University of Potsdam, Germany. See here.

Indonesia
The Indonesian Mathematical Society (IndoMS) together with Universitas Padjadjaran and Universitas Sriwijaya in Indonesia will organize the Webinar on Service Community with the theme of Ethnomathematics and Ethno-informatics by online meeting on Saturday, 20 February 2021, at 09.00-12.00 at Western Indonesia time (in the Indonesian language). Link to join the event.

Italy
In Cagliari: we are organizing an online event for Mathematics at the University of Cagliari in Italy on February 11th dedicated to the students of secondary schools all over the region of Sardinia. In a few words, we proposed a competition between groups of 5 students (60% female). Each group, led by a girl, challenges the others with a presentation on a female mathematician or a mathematical topic of their choice. On February 11th, the students will present their work and the best group will get a prize. More details here

In Turin: for the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, on 11 February 2021 at the Politecnico of Turin, Italy. Female PhD students and postdoc researchers will introduce their research work in the fields of Pure and Applied Mathematics and Data Sciences.  Link to join the event:  Password: IDWGS

Nepal
WoNIMS  is also going to organize a mini webinar on this day especially for undergrad girls, and promote them in mathematics studies through participation and communication. More details here

Norway
To show our appreciation to our female colleagues,  on the occasion of 11 February, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science students and collaborators, the IDUN project has prepared a short video.. Have a look and share it to acknowledge the efforts of women scientists worldwide!
The IDUN project at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology is named after the mathematician Idun Reiten, the first woman professor at the Faculty

Panama
On Wednesday, February 11th, 2021 at 2 pm EST, the Panamanian Association for the Advancement of Science (APANAC), the Panamanian Foundation for the Promotion of Mathematics (FUNDAPROMAT) and the Panama Pod of 500 Women Scientists are organizing a special event, which is free and open to the general public, to commemorate this special day. Our invited speakers are three female scientists Eugenia Rodriguez, Marleny Vargas and Argentina Ying. The event will be held in Spanish. Registration link

Romania
We are celebrating the IDWGS by organizing a seminar concerning the best ways of teaching and communicating Mathematics. We will keep this first meeting inside our small Google Group of Romanian Women in Mathematics (RWM) which has 27 members. We decided to have a meeting on 11 February which will have two parts. The first part contains 2 talks given by two of our members + free discussions on the online teaching of Mathematics. The second part is devoted to making decisions concerning the organization of this seminar in a regular basis.

South Africa
To celebrate the IDWGS day, AIMS House of Science will be hosting a webinar - Après-Lunch with the Mathematical Scientist - on the 11th February 2021, at 2:45pm SAST. The webinar aims to provide a platform for graduate students to engage with esteemed mathematical scientists/role models in academia/industry and other sectors. Registration link

UK
Women in Mathematics Webinar:  An opportunity to discuss and promote the work of women and non-binary people in maths, University of Leeds, England. Thursday 11TH(PM) & Friday 12TH(AM) February 2021  Registration link

Professor Ulrike Tillmann has been named as the next Director of INI, a position she will take up from 1 October 2021.
A Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and Fellow of the Royal Society with multiple awards to her name, Professor Ulrike Tillmann boasts established connections across the international mathematical sciences community from the London Mathematical Society to the Fields Institute. Her five-year appointment means that she will follow in the footsteps of Sir Michael Atiyah, Keith Moffatt, Sir John Kingman, Sir David Wallace, John Toland and current Director David Abrahams to become the seventh holder of the role since Isaac Newton Institute’s opening in 1992.

Cheryl Praeger had been appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia in 1999. She is ppromoted to Companion in 2021 "for eminent service to mathematics, and to tertiary education, as a leading academic and researcher, to international organisations, and as a champion of women in STEM careers." See here.

Prof. Cheryl Praeger is is also a member of the IMU Committee for Women in Mathematics.

Three women in mathematics, Sanoli Gun, Neena Gupta  and Neela Nataraj were elected fellows of the Indian Academy of Sciences. See here

Prof. Neela Nataraj is also a member of the IMU Committee for Women in Mathematics.

DORA MUSIELAK, Research Professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, will deliver the tenth talk of the CSHPM Online Colloquium series.

DATE: January 15th
TIME: UTC 19:00; Vancouver 11:00; Edmonton 12:00; Regina/Winnipeg 13:00; Montreal/Toronto 14:00; Halifax 15:00; St. John's 15:30

TITLE: Prime Mystery: Sophie Germain and Fermat's Last Theorem
ABSTRACT: Euler wrote to Goldbach on 4 August 1753 that he had proved Fermat's (last) theorem in the case n=3, observing that the proof seemed very different from the proof for the case n=4, and that a proof of the general case still seemed remote. In 1804, Sophie Germain wrote to Gauss, stating that she could "prove that x^n+y^n=z^n is impossible if n=p-1, where p is a prime of form 8k+7." Gauss was silent in the matter. However, Legendre paid attention to Germain's unique approach to prove Fermat's theorem, distinctively different from Euler's. Twenty years later, Legendre added Germain's theorem to his indeterminate analysis particularly focused on Fermat's theorem, in a memoir which became the second supplement to Legendre's *Théorie des Nombres*. In this talk, I will present the history and the enigmas that surround this crucial aspect of Sophie Germain's contribution to mathematics.

The Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Mathematics (http://www.cshpm.org/) invites members as well as the broader scholarly community to the next talk in our online colloquium series via Zoom. Participants are encouraged to become members (for as little as $10-$30/year, depending on your employment status), but it is not required. Non-members can get regular updates on our activities by liking us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/cshpmschpm). The talk will last 30 minutes, followed by a Q&A.

The information to join the session via Zoom is as follows:

Nicolas Fillion is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Your participation will result in the disclosure of personal information to Zoom Video Communications. To consent to this disclosure, visit the link below.
https://www.surveymonkey.ca/r/zoomprivacy

Topic: CSHPM Online Colloquium: Dora Musielak
Time: Jan 15, 2021 11:00 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://sfu.zoom.us/j/65574742804?pwd=ZVhYdGxxWXVEOEZ6Ym5Vc1o1TzlkZz09
Meeting ID: 655 7474 2804
Password: 119644
 

Laila Soueif  is a Professor of Mathematics at Cairo University and a founder of the March 9 Movement for University Autonomy in Egypt. See more information about her here.

Signatories of the call ask their colleagues as well as mathematical societies to support her and her children by writing to relevant authorities. See more here.

Scientists around the world have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.  Women are hit particularly hard, especially those at an early stage of their careers.

The Standing Committee for Gender Equality in Science calls for all individuals and institutions engaged in science to join forces in supporting women colleagues whose research careers are jeopardized by the pandemic. See here.

Professor Susan Scott of the Australian National University was one of four scientists — and the first female physicist — to be awarded Australia's top science prize for their pioneering work discovering gravitational waves opening a new window to the universe.

She shares the $250,000 Prime Minister's Prize for Science with David Blair, of the University of Western Australia (UWA), Peter Veitch of the University of Adelaide, and David McClelland of the Australian National University.

More here.