Orsola Rath Spivack

Photo of Orsola in front of maths poster, wearing red cardigan and black and white striped top
Current Workplace
DAMTP (Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics), and Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge
Current Role
Senior Research Assistant & Faculty Admissions Officer, DAMTP; Director of Studies in Mathematics, Lucy Cavendish College
My Mathematics Success Story is...

I have had a very varied career, often moving & changing job & research focus because of family reasons (husband’s job, children), and had a 5 year career break when my children were young. The numerous changes have made my maths knowledge & research work quite broad, which is interesting and can be very useful, but have also meant that I haven’t built a strong reputation in any single topic. Also, even though I have lectured and continued doing research almost throughout (aside from the career break), family commitments and the need to stay put in one location have restricted my choice of jobs, so a lot of my work has been of an administrative nature and pastoral care of students. Whilst this has been very interesting and rewarding, it has often left almost no time for research. From this year, though, I have been lucky enough to be have more time to pursue research. I now work on wave propagation and scattering, and particularly inverse scattering problems. I am determined to make the most of it. As Faculty Admissions Officer I’m keen to make a real difference, make all bright mathematicians out there, whatever their background, confident of aiming high, and be a positive role model for female mathematicians especially.

Categories
Women in mathematics
Alternative career paths
Caring responsibilities (including children)