Women and Mathematics

WAM is most grateful for renewed funding from the National Science Foundation as well as a generous grant from Lisa Simonyi, which will enable WAM to enact many new initiatives to continue its mission to recruit and retain more women in mathematics.

NEWS: WAM receives the AMS Prize "The Program that Makes a Difference Award"!!

Mission: The Women and Mathematics Program (WAM) at the Institute for Advanced Study is an annual program with the mission to recruit and retain more women in mathematics. WAM aims to counter the initial imbalance in the numbers of men and women entering mathematics training as well as the higher attrition rate of female mathematicians compared to their male counterparts at every critical transition stage in mathematical careers. WAM encourages female mathematicians to form collaborative research relationships and to become active in a vertical mentoring network spanning a continuum from undergraduates to emerita professors, which provides support and reduces the sense of isolation experienced by many women in mathematics. While there are a number of women's programs targeted solely at undergraduates, or graduate students, or postdocs, very few programs provide the depth and breadth that come from simultaneously including features tailored for undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers from a broad spectrum of US institutions, all in one united community of scholars, as WAM does.

The IAS School of Mathematics is committed to developing and fostering a safe space and successful living and learning environment for our diverse mathematical community, in which all are valued. We recognize that diversity includes a range of gender identities and expressions. The IAS WAM program will consider for admission those applicants who consistently live and identify as women, regardless of the gender assigned to them at birth.