A Data Analysis of Women’s Trails Among ICM Speakers

Abstract

The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), inaugurated in 1897, is the greatest effort of the mathematical community to strengthen international communication and connections across all mathematical fields. Meetings of the ICM have historically hosted some of the most prominent mathematicians of their time. Receiving an invitation to present a talk at an ICM signals the high international reputation of the recipient, and is akin to entering a 'hall of fame for mathematics'. Women mathematicians attended the ICMs from the start. With the invitation of Laura Pisati to present a lecture in 1908 in Rome and the plenary talk of Emmy Noether in 1932 in Zurich, they entered the grand international stage of their field. At the congress in 2014 in Seoul, Maryam Mirzakhani became the first woman to be awarded the Fields Medal, the most prestigious award in mathematics. In this article, we dive into assorted data sources to follow the footprints of women among the ICM invited speakers, analyzing their demographics and topic distributions, and providing glimpses into their diverse biographies.

Enabling mathematical cultures: introduction

“…The use of these tools has been studied, e.g., byGreiffenhagen (2014) andBarany and MacKenzie (2016) in the case of blackboards;Heintz (2000),Gerovitch (2016), andLane (2017) in the case of research seminars;Mihaljević et al (2016) andMihaljević and Roy (2019) in the case of publication patterns and keynote lectures; orMerz (1998) andMerz and Knorr-Cetina (1997) in the case of e-mail collaborations.2 For a discussion of various problems with Reichenbach's context distinction in philosophy of science, cf., e.g.,Hoyningen-Huene (1987),Schickore andSteinle (2006), andAmmon (2011).…”