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Anna Podolsky
As a foundation skill, maths will open up new doors for people who want interesting, world-changing careers.” is well paid. But if traditional actuarial areas of business and insurance don’t interest you, Bridget Browne, who was Phin’s lecturer at ANU, says actuarial skills can also be applied to various passions. Bridget develops mathematical models (programs that use maths to predict things) to determine how services like health, education, welfare, child protection and justice work for individuals. “These models are then used to help government agencies provide services and benefits to those in need,” she says. – Ben Skuse GET A HEAD START IN BUSINESS CareerswithSTEM.com/ leadership
Think outside the box I
’ve always enjoyed studying maths so pairing maths with commerce for my degree was an easy decision – and one I’ve never regretted, the courses complement each other so well. As a consultant at Bain & Company in San Francisco, I work in a team using a data-driven approach to solve business problems for companies across industries like mining, retail and healthcare. At Bain I’ve been lucky to work across most major cities in Australia. I also spent a year in Santiago, Chile, and learnt Spanish on the job. Maths careers are only going to grow in demand as the world becomes increasingly reliant on leveraging technology and data. Applied maths in particular is an important skill, as data becomes abundant, organisations that can leverage it in their decision-making will have a huge advantage. Artificial intelligence, for example, is an emerging area with maths at its core. Now is also an amazing time to be a female mathematician. Women with quantitative skills are under-represented in the workplace and are in high demand, which opens doors to so many opportunities. Bachelor of Science (Mathematics) Commerce (Finance), UQ
Intern, Quantium
Consultant, Bain and Company
Creative classrooms J
ustin Matthys is a perfect example of someone who has benefited from mathematical thinking. Trained as a physicist, Justin was part of a research group that discovered the Higgs boson – one of the most important scientific discoveries of the 21st century. Yet a niggling passion for teaching saw him join the Teach For Australia program, becoming a full-time teacher in a disadvantaged school. In his classroom, he noticed that most students didn’t have the maths needed to properly explore interesting science. “It’s heartbreaking to see enthusiastic minds hitting roadblocks and limitations,” Justin says. “So I resolved to do whatever I could to change that.” In 2012 he co-founded Maths Pathway, which partners with schools to completely reform the way maths is taught – something many students agree needs to happen. – Ben Skuse
Bachelor/Master of Science (Physics/Mathematics), The University of Melbourne
Postgraduate Diploma of Education, The University of Melbourne
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Co-founder, Maths Pathway
{Careers with Maths}