Making Waves in Math

Allgemein by Christin Graml

Meet Dr. Kateryna Terletska, the Mathematician, Oceanographer, Science Promoter, and Global Talent Mentoring Partner Connecting STEMM Talent from Ukraine with the World

Dr. Katery­na Ter­let­s­ka has a lot in com­mon with the waves she research­es. While we may not notice the waves far beneath the ocean’s sur­face, we see the impact they have on our shores and in our envi­ron­ment. Like­wise, Dr. Terletska’s work as a sci­en­tist and sci­ence pro­mot­er has impact­ed many lives in Ukraine and abroad. When the doc­tor of phys­i­cal and math­e­mat­i­cal sci­ences is not busy study­ing the mechan­ics of waves, she is work­ing to give edu­ca­tion­al sci­ence oppor­tu­ni­ties to young peo­ple and oth­ers in the Ukrain­ian and inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ties. Dr. Ter­let­s­ka also serves as the coor­di­na­tor of the UNESCO-rec­og­nized Junior Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine (JASU), which is main­tained by both the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Sci­ence of Ukraine and the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine.
The JASU is a val­ued part­ner of Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing nom­i­nat­ing tal­ent­ed youths as mentees and STEMM experts as men­tors. Dr. Ter­let­s­ka recent­ly shared her thoughts with engage­ment spe­cial­ist Christin Graml on her work, men­tor­ing, and get­ting young people—especially girls—engaged in sci­ence and help­ing those who have already found their pas­sion to excel.
You are a sci­en­tist by pro­fes­sion. Would you please tell us a lit­tle bit about your area of STEMM exper­tise and your cur­rent research focus?
I have a strong back­ground in the area of mechan­ics and applied math­e­mat­ics. My approach to sci­ence starts with the research of waves in solids and con­tin­ues in the area of flu­id dynam­ics. Cur­rent­ly, I am work­ing on numer­i­cal mod­el­ing in oceanog­ra­phy. My field of inter­est is inter­nal waves that prop­a­gate not over the sur­face, but in the inte­ri­or of the ocean. Such under­wa­ter waves can exist when a body of water is strat­i­fied, that is, when it con­sists of lay­ers of water hav­ing dif­fer­ent den­si­ties. Such a phe­nom­e­non is usu­al­ly caused by a dif­fer­ence in water tem­per­a­ture or salin­i­ty. Mix­ing from break­ing inter­nal waves dri­ves a ver­ti­cal trans­port of water and heat through­out the ocean, there­by play­ing an impor­tant role in form­ing the cir­cu­la­tion and dis­tri­b­u­tion of heat with­in the cli­mate system. 
Since 2011, you have been work­ing as a senior researcher at the Ukrain­ian Cen­ter of Envi­ron­men­tal and Water Projects (UCEWP), which is part of the Insti­tute of Math­e­mat­i­cal Machines and Sys­tems Prob­lems (IMMSP). What are the main objec­tives of the UCEWP and IMMSP, and what are your respon­si­bil­i­ties there as a senior researcher?
The Ukrain­ian Cen­ter of Envi­ron­men­tal and Water Projects (UCEWP) is a research orga­ni­za­tion that applies knowl­edge in com­put­er mod­el­ing to water man­age­ment. Our team emerged in 1986 as a unit with­in the larg­er Insti­tute of Math­e­mat­i­cal Machines and Sys­tems Prob­lems (IMMSP) of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ence of Ukraine (NASU). Back then, the center’s main objec­tives were the mod­el­ing of radionu­clide trans­port in sur­face and sub­sur­face water after the Cher­nobyl acci­dent. Numer­i­cal mod­els that were devel­oped by the IMMSP were suc­cess­ful­ly used for envi­ron­men­tal health-risk assess­ment, envi­ron­men­tal engi­neer­ing and ecol­o­gy, hydrol­o­gy, oceanog­ra­phy, mete­o­rol­o­gy, and riv­er and marine hydraulics. My respon­si­bil­i­ties in the team focus on numer­i­cal mod­el­ing of strat­i­fied flow, which cov­ers a wide range of oceano­graph­ic problems. 

The IMMSP focus­es on the devel­op­ment of meth­ods of math­e­mat­i­cal mod­el­ing of hydro-mete­o­ro­log­i­cal phe­nom­e­na, envi­ron­men­tal pol­lu­tion, dynam­ics of ecosys­tems and their cre­ation based on com­put­er fore­cast­ing sys­tems, and sup­port of deci­sion-mak­ing for eco­log­i­cal safe­ty and ratio­nal nature management. 

At the IMMSP, I am also work­ing on earn­ing my habil­i­ta­tion. The habil­i­ta­tion in Ukraine is a post­doc­tor­al research degree (in Ukrain­ian, “Dok­tor nauk”) that can be obtained after pub­li­ca­tion of a sub­stan­tive mono­graph and at least 20 arti­cles of high qual­i­ty. After obtain­ing this research degree, the recip­i­ent is eli­gi­ble to apply for a chair posi­tion at a uni­ver­si­ty or research insti­tute in Ukraine. 
What inspired you to become a scientist?
My par­ents were a big inspi­ra­tion. Dur­ing my child­hood, they sparked what would become my endur­ing inter­est in math. In pri­ma­ry school, I liked fig­ur­ing out prob­lems, solv­ing math­e­mat­i­cal puz­zles, exper­i­ment­ing, read­ing books, and dream­ing of excit­ing new adven­tures. My enjoy­ment of math­e­mat­ics moti­vat­ed me to study the sub­ject in a math-focused school. As peo­ple pass through dif­fer­ent stages of life, they ask dif­fer­ent ques­tions about the world around them. For me, the main ques­tion was about the use­ful­ness of math—specifically, how math­e­mat­ics applies to real life. This ques­tion con­tin­ued to chal­lenge me and ulti­mate­ly deter­mined my path to becom­ing a scientist. 
Men­tors are like a life­guard in charge of ensur­ing that one makes informed deci­sions regard­ing impor­tant life choices.
Grow­ing up and through­out your career, did you have some­one who men­tored you on your path to excel­lence in STEMM? If so, in what ways was this per­son or these peo­ple influ­en­tial or supportive?
I had sev­er­al peo­ple who believed in my abil­i­ties along the way, begin­ning with my math teach­ers in grade school and uni­ver­si­ty. Dur­ing my post­doc­tor­al stud­ies, my sci­en­tif­ic advi­sor Prof. Vladimir Maderich has been very influ­en­tial. While work­ing on numer­ous inter­na­tion­al projects, includ­ing in the oceano­graph­ic insti­tutes in South Korea and Chi­na, Prof. Maderich sup­port­ed my ideas, inspired me, and showed me how to grow as a sci­en­tist. When I encoun­tered a prob­lem that seemed too com­pli­cat­ed, he always gave me ideas about how to solve the prob­lem more eas­i­ly through a series of small steps. 
Why do you think a men­tor can make such a big impact on a mentee’s life?
Men­tors are like a life­guard in charge of ensur­ing that one makes informed deci­sions regard­ing impor­tant life choic­es. Men­tors are usu­al­ly out­stand­ing indi­vid­u­als with a wealth of expe­ri­ence that should be shared with oth­ers. Men­tors help a mentee to grow and devel­op by shar­ing impor­tant pro­fes­sion­al or life lessons with their mentees. Aca­d­e­m­ic men­tors should inspire oth­ers by shar­ing ideas and explain­ing com­plex prob­lems in sim­ple words. In addi­tion, the rela­tion­ship between a men­tor and mentee is usu­al­ly per­son­al. A study by Microsoft about why girls lose inter­est in STEM (Choney, 2018) under­lines the impor­tance of men­tor fig­ures in young women’s lives in increas­ing the like­li­hood of them enter­ing STEM careers. 
In your opin­ion as a female math­e­mati­cian, why are men­tors espe­cial­ly impor­tant for girls and young women who are inter­est­ed in math?
For­mer UK Prime Min­is­ter Mar­garet Thatch­er once said, “If you want some­thing said, ask a man; if you want some­thing done, ask a woman.” There are sev­er­al stereo­types about girls and math. One of them is that boys are bet­ter at STEMM. This is sim­ply not true. A 2018 study pub­lished in Nature Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (O’Dea, Lag­isz, Jen­nions, et al., 2018) showed that there was lit­tle dif­fer­ence in the STEM grades of the 1.6 mil­lion eval­u­at­ed stu­dents. More­over, girls had sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er grades over­all than boys by 6.3%.

So, we know that girls can do well in math, physics, and pro­gram­ming, but our stereo­types get in the way of girls being inter­est­ed in these dis­ci­plines. Our soci­ety needs to move past these stereo­types through inno­va­tion and sci­en­tif­ic progress so that we do not leave behind half of our pop­u­la­tion in this respect. 

I think girls’ low­er lev­els of inter­est in STEMM, espe­cial­ly in Ukraine, may be explained by social atti­tudes and beliefs about whether it is con­sid­ered appro­pri­ate for girls to choose these sub­jects and careers. Lim­it­ed knowl­edge about STEMM careers or career require­ments among stu­dents may be pre­vent­ing girls from choos­ing these fields. Men­tors and pos­i­tive role mod­els in STEMM fields can help change out­dat­ed atti­tudes. I was recent­ly fea­tured in a doc­u­men­tary series by INSCIENCE called “Naukovyt­si” (“Female Sci­en­tists”) about Ukrain­ian female sci­en­tists. The pur­pose of the doc­u­men­taries is to break down these stereo­types and show­case females who are suc­cess­ful in STEMM. 
What is your advice to females who might be afraid of pur­su­ing a career in math­e­mat­ics, which is a tra­di­tion­al­ly male-dom­i­nat­ed field?
For my young female col­leagues, I would advise them to com­mu­ni­cate with women who are more expe­ri­enced and senior. Female role mod­els are an effec­tive tool that gives girls the oppor­tu­ni­ty to not only suc­ceed in life, but also under­stand that women have what it takes to excel in an aca­d­e­m­ic envi­ron­ment and in lead­er­ship roles. Some­times, the “imposter syn­drome” or feel­ings of self-doubt can take over, which is com­mon for women in male-dom­i­nat­ed fields. We should remem­ber that we can still per­form well despite hav­ing these thoughts. It is impor­tant to keep this in mind and not for­get pre­vi­ous successes. 
You are known in Ukraine as a pop­u­lar­iz­er of sci­ence. For exam­ple, you helped orga­nize and were a keynote speak­er at a TEDx event held 2018 in coop­er­a­tion with the Kyiv School of Eco­nom­ics. Can you tell us a lit­tle bit about your sci­ence pro­mo­tion endeav­ors and why it is mean­ing­ful for you to tell the pub­lic about the impor­tance of science?
My col­leagues and I start­ed an ini­tia­tive called “Real Sci­ence,” which hosts lec­tures by promi­nent Ukrain­ian sci­en­tists for high school stu­dents. Real Sci­ence helps young peo­ple make deci­sions regard­ing their sci­en­tif­ic careers. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion with sci­en­tists helps young peo­ple to train how they think. They learn how to dis­tin­guish good evi­dence from bad and what needs to be stud­ied in greater depth. This man­ner of ana­lyt­i­cal think­ing is impor­tant in many fields. Researchers are giv­en a chance to present a wide vari­ety of fields where sci­ence is applic­a­ble, such as med­i­cine and com­put­er science. 

Our audi­ence is actu­al­ly much wider than high school stu­dents. We orga­nize pop­u­lar sci­ence lec­tures for ordi­nary peo­ple of all ages. They have become quite pop­u­lar, as knowl­edge is an increas­ing­ly impor­tant resource and we all need reli­able infor­ma­tion. Admit­ted­ly, sci­ence can nev­er offer a uni­ver­sal truth. It offers the sci­en­tif­ic method with method­olog­i­cal­ly ver­i­fi­able inter­pre­ta­tions. We, as sci­en­tists and researchers, must mas­ter our skill of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with soci­ety. Sci­ence is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for a place like Ukraine, a coun­try with a Sovi­et men­tal her­itage, due to its con­tri­bu­tion to the func­tion­ing of democ­ra­cies and the way it dri­ves inno­va­tion and helps our coun­try to be com­pet­i­tive in the glob­al economy. 
Our Ukrain­ian mentees say that the Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing pro­gram is like a ‘win­dow to the open world with its oppor­tu­ni­ties and perspectives.’
In addi­tion to being a sci­en­tif­ic researcher and pub­lic sup­port­er of the sci­ences, you are also the coor­di­na­tor of the Junior Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine (JASU), a UNESCO-rec­og­nized edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem for young peo­ple in Ukraine and inter­na­tion­al­ly. The JASU is also a val­ued part­ner of Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing. Can you please tell us about the work of the JASU, as well as how the JASU sup­ports the sci­en­tif­ic endeav­ors of young people?
The Junior Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine (JASU) facil­i­tates and coor­di­nates research activ­i­ties of high school stu­dents. There are ter­ri­to­r­i­al offices of JASU in all regions of Ukraine. The nation­al cen­ter, called the Junior Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine, coor­di­nates the work of these offices. The JASU is main­tained by both the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Sci­ence of Ukraine and the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences of Ukraine (NASU). In each ter­ri­to­r­i­al office, we offer a num­ber of extracur­ric­u­lar activ­i­ties on var­i­ous sub­jects. In each region, JASU research com­pe­ti­tions take place. At the next lev­el are nation­al JASU com­pe­ti­tions, which are car­ried out in 63 dif­fer­ent sci­en­tif­ic fields. The win­ners of the nation­al com­pe­ti­tions have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to rep­re­sent Ukraine on the inter­na­tion­al lev­el. The JASU gives tal­ent­ed Ukrain­ian youths the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in inter­na­tion­al Olympiads and competitions. 
The JASU and Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing are part­ner­ing to bring young tal­ent­ed STEMM stu­dents togeth­er with STEMM experts from around the world. How do you think Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing can help young STEMM tal­ents in Ukraine? How do you think Ukrain­ian STEMM experts ben­e­fit by par­tic­i­pat­ing as mentors?
Our Ukrain­ian mentees say that the Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing pro­gram is like a “win­dow to the open world with its oppor­tu­ni­ties and per­spec­tives.” Per­son­al expe­ri­ence of for­eign researchers is extreme­ly valu­able for Ukrain­ian stu­dents. Young mentees have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain con­fi­dence and cre­ate their own diverse net­works. Like­wise, Ukrain­ian STEMM experts obtain expe­ri­ence in inter­cul­tur­al exchanges, which improves under­stand­ing and coop­er­a­tion with peo­ple from dif­fer­ent coun­tries and cul­tures. Our men­tors have a chance to inter­act with indi­vid­u­als from coun­tries and cul­tures that they may have nev­er vis­it­ed before. Addi­tion­al­ly, our STEMM experts dis­cov­er dif­fer­ent edu­ca­tion­al sys­tems and are able to com­pare the lev­el of edu­ca­tion in Ukraine and abroad. 
What do you think is the most impor­tant aspect of the Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing experience?
For me, the most impor­tant aspect of the Glob­al Tal­ent Men­tor­ing expe­ri­ence is the idea of men­tor­ing as an effec­tive tool to devel­op soft skills that are trans­fer­able across any indus­try. Men­tor­ing can be used to widen an individual’s per­spec­tive on dif­fer­ent fields and aspects of life. It is good prac­tice to pro­vide per­son­al men­tor­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties between col­leagues in the same indus­try or orga­ni­za­tion. We should encour­age more men­tors from the aca­d­e­m­ic envi­ron­ment as well as from busi­ness and indus­try to devel­op young tal­ent and there­fore boost eco­nom­ic growth in countries. 
Choney, Suzanne (2018, March 18). Why do girls lose inter­est in STEM? New research has some answers — and what we can do about it. Microsoft. https://news.microsoft.com/features/why-do-girls-lose-interest-in-stem-new-research-has-some-answers-and-what-we-can-do-about-it/
O’Dea, R.E., Lag­isz, M., Jen­nions, M.D. et al. Gen­der dif­fer­ences in indi­vid­ual vari­a­tion in aca­d­e­m­ic grades fail to fit expect­ed pat­terns for STEM. Nature Com­mu­ni­ca­tions 9, 3777 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018–06292‑0

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