This past June, Professor Pamela Harris (Mathematical Sciences, UWM) traveled to Bogotá, Colombia to present a week-long seminar as part of Días de Combinatoria, a multi-institution professional training hosted at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. The collaborative event, an initiative of the Unión Matemática de América Latina y el Caribe (UMALCA), gathers leading researchers in the field alongside undergraduate and graduate students to promote mathematics across the continent.

Harris, a specialist in algebraic combinatorics, offered the mini-course “Computaciones en Permutaciones y sus Generalizaciones”. She shared these words about her experience:

Thanks to CLACS funding I was able to travel to Bogotá, Colombia to participate in Dias de Combinatoria, where I delivered a week-long on permutations and their statistics. The course was attended by students from all over Latin America and it was the first time I delivered a course in Spanish, which is my mother tongue, but not the language I learned mathematics in. The trip was a tremendous success and it has opened the door to collaborate with new mathematicians. This would not have been possible without CLACS funding and I am grateful for the support!

Program participants gather for a group photo at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia

Harris wrote about her experience at length in an article for MAA Focus, the news magazine of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA). The publication is forthcoming, but you may read a pre-print of her article here.