The title is very clunky, but for now this is the best way I can think of to combine these topics:
- Engaging with people and communities who are fighting a legacy of injustice, and trying to create opportunities and hope in these spaces, particularly in maths and science education.
- Communicating science to people who don’t spend their whole life doing research
If you are interested in doing something towards solving the education crisis in South Africa, would like to learn more about other people and cultures, or engage with people and organisations doing great things to uplift the disadvantaged, get in touch!
Educational Outreach and Mentoring
In the past I have been involved in a few initiatives, particularly with Beautiful Gate South Africa and their education program, as well as school and church initiatives and in informal settings. This has been as a tutor, doing admin and coordination stuff, as well as fundraising. I’ve also been active in mentoring undergraduate students who are grappling with the complexities of university life and the sharp increase in expectations and workload from high school. I am passionate about the need for change and radical compassion in our unequal society — the greater community needs us all to pull together and give back from what we’ve been given. I firmly believe that South Africa’s diversity and multicultural nature is a blessing to be embraced, and that requires getting to know each other and recognising the injustices that continue to exist. If you want to be part of this, and join me in getting involved then I’d love to chat. If you are someone struggling with the adjustment to the university environment, then feel free to send me an email or come visit in person if you’re at UCT.
Currently, we are starting up a program tutoring maths at Langa High School, a school which faces plenty of challenges due to inequality. If you want to know more, support us, or get involved let me know!
Public Talks and Other Science Communication
I’ve dabbled in various forms of science communication, including a couple of public talks — one on chaos theory (“Chaos: Will we all get eaten by dinosaurs?”, July 2022), and one on the mathematical links in music (“Digits and Didgeridoos: The Mathematics (and Physics) of Music”, November 2022). I also recorded a YouTube interview about chaos on the channel of Mariona Esquerda Ciutat, a Catalan science illustrator and communicator (the subtitles are in Catalan, for anyone who wants to learn the language!). I’m also trying to be more active on social media, with mixed success. But you can follow me on the links in the footer of the webpage to see how dismally I am doing at this. Feel free to badger me to post things if you’d be interested in reading them 🙂
Going forward I hope to give many more talks, and continue to engage in various ways. So if you are looking for someone to give an informal talk on something sciencey, let me know! I’m happy to try adjust things to any audience, but if you want me to explain quantum entanglement to toddlers some details will be skipped.
Here I think my vision is to share some of the joy and simplicity I find in science with other people. Science need not be daunting and complicated, although there is undoubtedly incredible complexity in the world we live in. So if I can do something to make science more enjoyable, encourage us all to be more positive (in general, but also with regard to science), and maybe even help people learn some things, then that counts as a win in my book. If you’re reading this and are in one of the courses I’m lecturing, I really hope you learn something!