American $\pi$

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Adriana Salerno

As you may know, I was born and raised in Venezuela. I came to the U.S. a bit over 10 years ago to go to graduate school. It’s only been since then that I have been around for and a part of $\pi$ Day celebrations. This makes sense, since in Venezuela (and most other countries) dates are written in the day/month/year format, rather than the (slightly less natural) month/day/year format. Today, 3/14, is widely known around U.S. schools and universities as $\pi$ day. The only equivalent in Venezuela would be the 31st of April (yeah, there isn’t one).

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Posted in pi day | 2 Comments

The Referee: Unsung Hero or Arch-Nemesis?

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Adriana Salerno

Earlier today I finished revising and resubmitting a paper. It seems like the stages of revision after a referee report are very similar to the stages of grief: denial (no, referee, this proof is NOT incomplete), anger (this referee is such a jerk), bargaining (well, maybe I can fix this part but not this part), depression (I will never be able to publish this paper), and acceptance (well, maybe the referee is making some very good points and I should go ahead and fix everything he suggests). I am sure I went through all of these, and have come out with a renewed respect for referees and the jobs they do. I mean, there were a couple of important comments she/he made that I hadn’t even thought about before, and definitely fixing those things made my paper much much better. But until a few days ago, I felt so bitter about the whole thing. This is why I will put this referee into the “unsung hero” category. He/she did a great job, but it took me a while to recognize it.

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Posted in refereeing, research, revising a paper, submitting a paper for publication | 4 Comments

Mine are still greater

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Adriana Salerno

As many of you know, I am currently on pre-tenure leave. I spent the Fall in Paris doing research at Jussieu (thanks in large part to the AWM mentoring travel grant), and I’m currently stationed at the University of Texas at Austin, where I am continuing my Paris project and working on a couple of others. It has definitely been a different experience for me to work exclusively on research and to have no teaching responsibilities. Even in graduate school, I taught a class or graded every single semester. I am definitely loving the chance to dedicate myself to doing research, but this is inevitably accompanied by a not-so-fun feeling of inadequacy and ignorance. I have been thinking about this feeling a lot lately, and I thought I would share some of my thoughts on this post (even though this will not be new to many of you).

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Posted in math anxiety, research | 12 Comments