Women’s HERstory Guest Speaker Combines Passion for Knitting and Graphing

STEM, short for science, technology, engineering, and math, are fields where women are still a minority.

Dr. Sarah-Marie Belcastro of Smith College hosted a virtual lecture as part of Fresno State’s Women’s HERstory month. Her lecture on topological graph theory introduces the concept of graphing of three-dimensional shapes.

“I’m knitting between classes and then I go into a topology class and then I suddenly am like, ‘Can I knit the object we’re talking about?’ and there’s another sort of question, which is like, ‘What is the mathematical structure of the sweater that I’m making?'” Belcastro asks.

When looking at demographics like race, according to Pew Research Center, just 8% of all STEM workers are Latinx while Black workers represent 9% of all STEM occupations. As of the publication of this 2021 report, the Pew Research Center reports no change in the share of Black workers in STEM jobs since 2016.

The Women’s HERstory Mathematical Colloquium is a guest lecture series organized by professor Carmen Caprow (above), who invites women mathematicians to showcase their research for her senior students looking for ideas for their thesis or for postgraduate work.

The Fresno State mathematics department hosts a series of seminars during the month of March to honor women’s history; namely, their contributions to the STEM fields