Women have made significant gains in STEM participation, but without visible figures in leadership roles or shaping research, systemic change is stunted and involvement will decline. Philanthropists have an opportunity to support transformative change if they invest precisely in this gap.
This has particularly been a historical challenge within mathematics. Women only made up 11% of mathematics professors in 2019/20, and only 35% of university students in 2023/24, a 2% decline in four years. Outside of academia, women made up just 32% of senior leadership appointments in the private sector, a steady decline for the past five years.
A lack of female role models in boardrooms, corner offices and departmental leadership roles within the STEM space risks perpetuating the gender gap across mathematics and the wider STEM sectors.
At the Turner Kirk Trust, we’re working to close this gap. We believe that with the right investment in the right people, the culture of a sector can be reshaped into one that is better positioned for growth and breaking down barriers. That is why we’re supporting women with the tools to dismantle those barriers, providing them with the right platform to be a catalyst.
The Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellowship was established in 2019 at the Isaac Newton Institute to further this mission. A charitable gift from the Trust has allowed the Institute to grant a research fellowship specifically to distinguished female mathematics researchers.
It presents women in senior research positions with a gateway to access funding, allowing them to develop globally recognised research, mentor early-career mathematicians, create international collaborations and influence research priorities.
In just seven years, the Fellowship has platformed 34 women at the Institute, including the first female president of the Australian Mathematical Society, Cheryl Praeger, and leading wavelets researcher Baroness Ingrid Daubechies. By giving a platform to already pioneering figures in the field, the Fellowship amplifies their voices, broadening their influence and the diversity of opinions that actually shape research.
But transformative philanthropy is not measured on that success alone, as traditional funding would be. Truly transformative investments look beyond simply supporting individuals and instead focus on how they can influence systemic change.
A 2016 study published by SAGE Publishing, identified that interactions with diverse women role models can shift girls' perceptions about who participates in STEM and increase girls' identification with the sector.
When influential female voices are in visible leadership positions, it can have effects that ripple across the whole discipline. Aspiring female mathematicians are given someone to look towards as a model of success, showing them that the field is accessible to them.
Our investments require patience and a willingness to measure impact on a longer timeline than a single grant cycle. The effects of a visible role model are not always immediate, and the reshaping of a discipline's culture and the dismantling of its historical gendered framework happen gradually, and through the accumulation of specific moments of representation.
So by widening the lens from the individual, the Kirk Distinguished Visiting Fellowship opens the door for sustainable, long-lasting change that can transform STEM more widely. The Fellowship has shown that there is no shortage of talented women in mathematics, and STEM more broadly, but a shortage of visible platforms for them to lead from.
Striving for that transformation is what sits at the heart of the Turner Kirk Trust's approach to philanthropy, and our work with women in mathematics is just one example of that philosophy in action.
"There’s a lot of critically important work being done to address the imbalance at school and university level, but it’s also important to have role models that are women at the very peak of their profession. That’s the rationale behind the Kirk Fellowships: to create a prestigious fellowship that will ensure the best possible people have access to doing the best possible things."