SIAM Workshop: Graduate Student Focus on Diversity

SIAM Diversity Day History
In October 1995, SIAM initiated and held a workshop for underrepresented minority students during its annual meeting in Charlotte. Three minority graduate students (Monica Martinez-Canales, Pamela Williams, and Cassandra McZeal) from Rice University, with guidance and support from Professor Richard Tapia of Rice University, organized the workshop. After extensive discussions with Professor Tapia, and based upon their experiences with other workshops, the graduate students designed the current format of SIAM Diversity Day.

The workshop was intended to accomplish several goals:

to send a clear, explicit message of enthusiastic welcome and support from SIAM to members of underrepresented groups. The workshop was deliberately held as part of a regular SIAM meeting so that the participants could combine the experiences of attending a regular scientific meeting and a special occasion dedicated to them
to bring together a mixture of people from different levels of age and professional experience, ranging from undergraduate students to senior scientists. The undergraduate students (and their faculty advisors)were invited from local colleges and universities; the graduate students and senior scientists came from across the United States. SIAM was extremely fortunate to have the presence of numerous distinguished minority mathematicians who made a special trip just to attend the workshop
to provide an opportunity for minority graduate students to present their research at a major scientific meeting
to show undergraduate students the professional opportunities resulting from graduate degrees in science and mathematics
to provide an informal, comfortable setting (a lunch) where all the students could meet applied and computational mathematicians with a wide variety of jobs in academia, national laboratories, industry, and government
to arrange an evening session, ``The Real Deal'', moderated by Professor Tapia, in which students could speak frankly about professional and personal issues associated with pursuing an advanced scientific career.

The reaction of the students to the Charlotte workshop was very favorable, and as a result SIAM has continued this tradition with several follow-up sessions at Stanford University (1997), Atlanta (1999), Puerto Rico (2000), and San Diego (2001).

Previous Workshops
Second Graduate Student Workshop on Diversity, Stanford University, 1997, SIAM News, January,1998.
Third Graduate Student Workshop on Diversity, Atlanta, 1999, SIAM News, October, 1999.
Fourth Graduate Student Workshop on Diversity, Puerto Rico, 2000.
Fifth Graduate Student Workshop on Diversity,San Diego, CA, 2001.

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