Hamideh Anjomshoa
Associate Professor Hamideh Anjomshoa is an Enterprise Research Fellow in the School of Mathematics and Statistics; she works with different industrial problems. One problem she is working on recently involves helping master’s students and surgeons simulate the best policy for Australia and New Zealand to match patients requiring liver transplants. This work aims to investigate which policy will save more lives.
Hamideh did her Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD all in mathematics. When she was young, Hamideh was a rock climber and professional mountain climber. She has recently gotten back into hiking and spends most of her spare time at the gym, working out alongside her many, on average, 85-year-old friends. Hamideh also does Zumba and swimming.
What is the best thing about working in maths and stats?
The best thing about working in maths and stats is we can convert real-world problems into abstract ideas and equations – that’s really cool.
What is the worst thing about working in maths and stats?
The worst part is it’s not easy to communicate with people who are not coming from a maths and stats background. In real world applications, when we want to explain to them why we come up with a decision, people can freak out a little if we talk about the equations with them. Maths is a specific language; it’s very important to learn to speak to other people who are not coming from that background so that they understand it as well; it’s an art.
If you were no longer allowed to be an academic, what would you do instead?
Coming from a mathematics background, I don’t see any limit to be honest, I feel I just need to be honest with myself to focus on one area rather than having multiple open directions with different people. As long as we are open to learn the context, we can apply ourselves in different areas like data science.
What would you like to tell students?
Students, especially girls, sometimes they feel they are not good enough. If you enjoy something, go ahead and do it. The world will need it. Trust me, most of us think in our brain that we’re not good enough. Just do it, and then you will see, you are [good enough]. I was thinking I was not good enough for previous projects and then I received several awards… My mentor kept telling me “don’t doubt yourself”, that’s one thing I want to tell students.
What do you like to do in your free time?
I like cooking different cuisine from different countries; I love to do that. Dumplings is something that I learned and started to cook; it seems my kids love it but it takes ages to wrap it and then they just quickly eat it – are you serious? They should chew them for 5 minutes before they swallow it.