Fighting for women in math
Doctoral student Katrina Morgan is making her mark in the mathematics world, and she’s making sure women and girls know there’s a place for them, too.
Doctoral student Katrina Morgan is making her mark in the mathematics world, and she’s making sure women and girls know there’s a place for them, too.
Katrina Morgan studied math as a doctoral candidate in the College of Arts & Sciences at Carolina, but she often encounters people who say that they just “aren’t a math person.”
She argues that mathematics is a field where people decide whether they are or are not fit for the field very early in their academic careers. This is especially true for girls because there is less representation of women in mathematics, Morgan explained.
In 2016, Morgan, along with fellow doctoral student Francesca Bernardi, set out to change that by founding Girls Talk Math, which invites high school girls from North Carolina to UNC-Chapel Hill to participate in a two-week day camp that explores mathematical concepts.
Girls Talk Math is providing the camaraderie and community that Katrina wanted when she was in high school. Now she’s empowering a growing group of young mathematicians, no matter whether they call themselves “math people” or not.
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Katrina Morgan received the 2019 Boka W. Hadzija Award for Distinguished University Service and earned a Ph.D. in Pure Mathematics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2019.
