Florence Nightingale Day

The Florence Nightingale Days are part of our continuing efforts to promote mathematical sciences and especially the participation of women in those subjects.

The Florence Nightingale Days are part of our continuing efforts to promote mathematical sciences to young women in years 10 and above, who will soon be making crucial choices in their career paths. The Florence Nightingale Day will showcase successful women in mathematics at various stages of their careers, display information about the broad range of possibilities offered by a degree in mathematics or statistics, stimulate informal discussion between pupils and mathematicians and give an opportunity for participants to compare their mathematical skills with their peers in other schools via a quiz.

While Florence Nightingale is well-known for her medical work as a nurse, she was also a pioneer in statistics, especially in the use of visualisation of statistical data. A description of this work may be found in her biography on the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, along with a large number of biographies of other female mathematicians.

Florence Nightingale Day 2025

Thursday 9th January 2025, 10:00-15:00, Lancaster University Management School (West Pavillion).

To sign up for a school group, teachers should complete this registration link.

For enquiries contact Dr Sean Prendiville (s.prendiville@lancaster.ac.uk).

Timetable

09.30-10.00: Registration
10.00-10.05: Introduction
10.05-10.50: Talk 1 - Carolina Euan (Lancaster)
10.50-11.10: Refreshments
11.10-12.20: Maths quiz!
12.20-13.00: Lunch break
13.00-13.45: Talk 2 - Gail Collyer-Hoar (Lancaster)
13.45-14.00: Results of the quiz and prizes; break
14.00-14.45: Talk 3 - Sophie Maclean (KCL)
14.45-15.00: Closing comments, thank you gifts and feedback

Carolina Euan

Carolina Euan is a Lecturer in Statistics at the School of Mathematical Sciences at Lancaster University. She earned her PhD in Mexico and had the opportunity to be a postdoctoral fellow at KAUST (Saudi Arabia). Carolina's primary research interest is developing statistical methodologies to better understand environmental data. Currently, she is collaborating closely with the EDF R&D team to study sea surface temperature patterns around the UK. Carolina also has expertise in statistical modelling of brain connectivity to understand the impact of conditions like epilepsy on the brain.

Gail Collyer-Hoar

Gail Collyer-Hoar is a PhD student in the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University. Her research focuses AI ethics, specifically on the impact of algorithmic biases in Artificial Intelligence (AI) on children, and investigating how children interpret such intelligent systems. An advocate for responsible innovation, Gail is also involved in promoting ethical research practices through her role on the Science and Technology Ethics Board at the university.Before beginning her PhD, Gail completed an Integrated Master’s in Computer Science and Mathematics, also at Lancaster University. In her spare time, she enjoys building custom PCs, having designed and built her own machine, which she uses to support her research work.

Sophie Maclean

Sophie Maclean is a mathematician and experienced maths communicator currently studying for a PhD in analytic number theory and additive combinatorics at King’s College London. When not discovering new maths, Sophie shares her love of maths with others by delivering talks and workshops all around the UK and beyond. She is a regular at Maths Inspiration events (having given talks to more than 700 school students) and has spoken about maths at the renowned Cheltenham Science Festival.

Previous events

You can find information about previous years' Florence Nightingale Days here: