The same side of two coins

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Adriana Salerno

It seems like not that long ago, I was going through my campus interview here at Bates College. That is one reason why it feels so weird to now be on the other side of this process. Just a month ago, I was poring over applications, reading teaching statements and research statements. Just a few weeks ago, I was at the Joint Math Meetings (read my blog on that by going here), interviewing candidates. Today, we start our on-campus interviews, which will be going for the next few weeks. In this post, I want to share some of my thoughts on what it’s like to be on this side of the process.

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Posted in interviewing, job search | 2 Comments

The Joint Math Meetings are here (almost)!

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Adriana Salerno

This is a quick blog post to say that next week I’ll be blogging from Baltimore for the Joint Mathematics Meetings, 2014 edition. Lots of fun things are happening next week. I am particularly excited about going to the invited addresses by Michael Starbird, Jill Pipher, Eitan Grinspun, Andrew Granville (in the Current Events Bulletin) and Georgia Benkart.  I am also looking forward to the Ramanujan movie and the always hilarious Colin Adams skits, as well as the receptions for the many groups I belong to. It will be a challenge to get many things done this time around as I will be on the other side of the interview table for the first time ever. But the thing I am most excited about is that I have two co-bloggers this time around! Tyler Clark and Anna Haensch will be joining me for the JMM blogging duties, and I’m looking forward to reading their posts. Here are all our bios. If you can’t wait until next week and want to check my old blogs about the JMM, here they are: 2008 (San Diego), 2009 (DC), 2011 (New Orleans), 2012 (Boston), and 2013 (San Diego again! this time Tyler was a co-blogger too). (The blog for the 2010 JMM in San Francisco seems to have disappeared into the ether. ) I also look forward to running into old friends and making new ones. Hope to see you all there!

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Tropical Mathematics: A Vacation Diary

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Adriana Salerno

My Winter vacation is almost over (our semester starts on Monday), and as is often the case, it didn’t feel much like a vacation. I DID get to come home to Venezuela, spent some time at the beach, and spent quality time with my family, but I also had a very long list of things to do for my job which have taken some of the “vacation” out of this trip. Still, I think I’ve managed to strike a good balance between the business and pleasure. I know many of the readers of this blog, mostly mathematicians (and my mom and dad, hi mom and dad), probably had similar Winter “breaks”, and so I thought I would share my experiences with you all.

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Posted in grading, reading job applications, vacation, writing letters of recommendation | 1 Comment