CAM colloquium - Friday, April 14
3:30 p.m.
655 Rhodes Hall

Speaker: Sara Robinson, Freelance Writer

 

Title: The Future of Math in the Media

Abstract: As a mathematician-turned-science journalist, I hear many complaints from mathematicians about the quality and quantity of math coverage in the popular press. Mathematicians are right to be concerned: math gets far less coverage than the biological sciences, or even cosmology, and much of that coverage is superficial and inaccurate. Yet at the same time, due to funding pressures, math press coverage matters more than it ever has before. Accordingly, math organizations are devoting significant resources to "public relations" efforts, attempting to generate more math coverage.

My thesis is that these efforts will never achieve large scale success because the current model for science journalism is not and never will be math friendly. I propose a different, more ambitious approach. The current science journalism model is imploding as the advertising market for traditional news media shrinks, and herein lies an opportunity. Mathematicians should anticipate the science news model of the future and shape it to be friendlier to the mathematical sciences.

Sara Robinson studied operator algebras in the Berkeley math graduate program until she got a taste of science journalism through a summer fellowship program for graduate students in the sciences. That prompted a career switch, and she has since written about math and computer science for the New York Times, SIAM News, and several other publications. Through her stories, she developed an interest in mathematical economics and she is now working on a Ph.D. dissertation on that topic. At the same time, she continues to write about math and computer science on a freelance basis, and is taking steps toward launching a new kind of online science publication, the subject of this talk.

 

Refreshments at 4:30 in 657 Rhodes Hall.