Lakshmi Chandrasekaran

Lakshmi Chandrasekaran

@lakshmic.bsky.social

Freelance science writer covering technology, math, computer science- https://lakshmichandrasekaran.contently.com/. Words in @quantamagazine.bsky.social, @sciencenews.bsky.social & others. Please subscribe to my blog here: https://scieye.wordpress.com/

361 Followers 794 Following 51 Posts Joined Nov 2024
Posts Following
1 day ago
Graphic layout featuring a dark blue header with the “HMS – Her Maths Story” logo at the top. Centered below is a black panel displaying a gold tree made of numbers, mathematical symbols (including π), and teal flowers, with the word “Mathemagica” in gold beneath it. The lower section has a light textured background with the title “The Magic in the Numbers: The Story of Mathemagica” and the byline “By Shreya Roychoudhury.”

Check out our latest blog post by Shreya Roychoudhury, the founder of Mathemagica (Instagram: @math.emagica): “I am an engineer, a founder, and a woman who refuses to be subtracted from the equation.”

➡️ hermathsstory.eu/the-magic-in...

#Teaching #WomenInSTEM #WomenInTech #HerMathsStory

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2 weeks ago

This was a fun piece to write! I learnt quite a bit about the evolution of #math symbols while working on it. Thank you Alex Bellos, Amir Alexander, Kate Kitagawa, Raul Rojas & @sarah-hart.bsky.social for the nice conversations.

#algebra #MathHistory #geometry

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3 weeks ago
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Exploring challenges in optimization with Thomas Rothvoss Thomas Rothvoss, a University of Washington computer scientist, received the inaugural Trevisan Prize for his significant contributions to approximation algorithms in optimization, particularly for…

For my latest blog, I spoke to Thomas Rothvoss @uwcse.bsky.social, inaugural recipient of the Trevisan Prize about his journey into #computerscience, challenges in #optimization, his latest exciting research projects & open problems in the field - scieye.wordpress.com/2026/02/06/e...

#algorithms

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1 month ago
Portrait of Christina Runkel, a postdoctoral researcher, smiling at the camera. She has long hair, is wearing a brown coat and a maroon turtleneck and sits outdoors on a city street, where historic buildings are in the background. The image includes the Her Maths Story logo and her name and title.

“Becoming part of a mentoring scheme is also some of the advice I would give to my 18-year-old self too — to look out for networking opportunities and mentorship programmes; to find people who have chosen a similar path.” - Christina Runkel

➡️ hermathsstory.eu/christina-ru...

#HerMathsStory

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1 month ago

This is such a cool take on snakes and ladders, never thought of it this way! @peterrowlett.net

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1 month ago
Portrait of Nishu Kumari, postdoc researcher at the University of Vienna. She has black hair, wears glasses and a red patterned blouse, and sits under a tree against the backdrop of an entrance to a building. The image includes the Her Maths Story logo and her name and title.

“I feel that many women (…), might not know what (…) a career in maths actually means (…). I believe it is important to tell them that this is an option.” - Nishu Kumari

➡️https://hermathsstory.eu/nishu-kumari/

#HerMathsStory #Academia #Combinatorics #Europe #Postdoc @randomstructures.bsky.social

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1 month ago
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Constructing indistinguishability obfuscation schemes in a hardness rich world Rachel Lin’s talk, “Expedition to Obfustopia,” at the Simons Institute examined indistinguishability obfuscation (IO) in cryptography. She highlighted the challenges in constructi…

In my latest blog, I discuss the challenges of building a powerful #cryptographic technique that aims to “obfuscate” the internal implementation details of programs- lnkd.in/gT3smPZh
Thanks Seyoon Ragavan and Rahul llango for the nice chat about their works @simonsinstitute.bsky.social!
#TCS

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1 month ago
Portrait of Lisa Hefendehl-Hebeker, a senior professor, smiling at the camera. She has short curly gray hair, wears glasses and a blue patterned blouse, and stands in front of a blue FAU backdrop. The image includes the Her Maths Story logo and her name and title.

“(...) It is possible to create an authentic picture of #mathematics and convey an impression of how mathematics forms its own world of well-ordered structures with a striking internal consistency (...)” - Lisa Hefendehl-Hebeker

➡️ hermathsstory.eu/lisa-hefende...

#HerMathsStory

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2 months ago

One of our founders is posting about Her Maths Story on this fantastic #scicomm account, where each week, a different scientist posts about their work.
@realscientists.de
@realscientists.bsky.social

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2 months ago
The catalog photo of Fundamentals of Lace, a knitted wall hanging. The piece is a rectangle of blue knitted lace lashed to wooden dowels at the top and bottom. The fabric has white, yellow, and red beads knitted into the lace. The rectangle is divided into a 3 x 3 grid of different lace designs, and each section has its own pattern of colored beads that mark the symmetries of the design. The white beads, which are always in vertical or horizontal lines, mark the axes of reflection (mirror) symmetries. The yellow beads (also in vertical or horizontal lines) mark the axes of glide reflection symmetries. The red beads, which are slightly larger and more spaced out, mark centers of rotational symmetry. Fundamentals of Lace after blocking and before attaching to dowels, lying flat on a wooden deck. Each of the nine lace designs is made up from smaller lace motifs arranged in four rows and six columns. Disregarding any beads, the motif in the upper left corner of each design is identical, a rectangle with eyelets along one diagonal and half of the other diagonal forming a lowercase lambda. The part of the motif under the lambda is an eyelet mesh, while the regions above and to the left are solid stockinette. The rest of each design consists of the same motif in various orientations, some like the original, some flipped vertically, some flipped horizontally, and some rotated by 180°. Mathematically, the motif is a “fundamental region” for the design; hence, the title of the work. Fundamentals of Lace, pre-blocking. The lace is rumpled and uneven, and the lines of beads are much wobblier than in the finished work. Algebraically, we can prove that there are exactly nine possible symmetry structures for a design in a non-square rectangular grid repeating in two directions. The structures are expressed by the beaded markings: for instance, the middle panel gives an example of a design with no 180° rotational symmetries that has both reflections and glide reflections, and any repeating design that has evenly spaced, parallel symmetry axes that alternate between reflections and glide reflections and nothing else except translations (just sliding the design without twisting or flipping) has the same abstract symmetry structure.

#ShowMeYourKnits #knitterschoice

Fundamentals of Lace, 2025: the newest #mathart I’m exhibiting at the Joint Math Meetings next week. Details (like the allusion in the name) are through the link and in the alt text.

🧶 #knitsky #mathknitting #symmetries

gallery.bridgesmathart.org/exhibitions/...

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2 months ago
Flat lay of a cozy winter scene on a wooden table with a mug of frothy coffee, a deep red knitted scarf, matching yarn ball, red berry branches, and small star and snowflake ornaments arranged around the cup.

As we march towards the end of 2025, we reflect on the amazing mathematical journeys that our contributors have transported us to! In total, we published 11 stories and 4 blogs this year. 1/8

Photo by Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash

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2 months ago
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Extracting Insights while Protecting Privacy: The Promise of Homomorphic Encryption Smartphone security now uses homomorphic encryption to label unknown calls as potential scams without accessing contact lists. This cryptographic tool allows computations on encrypted data, enhanci…

What does it mean to compute blindfolded? A curious topic how #homomorphic #encryption helps safeguard privacy while allowing extraction of insights from #data. Learn more here- bit.ly/3XMMT8R
Thank you Alexandra Henzinger! @vinodnathan.bsky.social @csail.mit.edu @simonsinstitute.bsky.social

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3 months ago

Happy to share Surya Mathialagan's #math journey in @hermathsstory.bsky.social! I met Surya at @simonsinstitute.bsky.social & found her path to #cryptography research fascinating - from her early love of puzzles to #MathOlympiads! Hope you enjoy reading it!

#TheoreticalComputerScience #Proofs

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3 months ago

The latest post in @hermathsstory.bsky.social
features how to #breakbarriers in #math! Thank you Ashleigh Ratcliffe & Rosie Evans for your thought provoking article!
#academia #invisibleworkload #allyship

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3 months ago

Today @hermathsstory.bsky.social is happy to feature Ilse Fischer's journey in #math. IIse works on enumerative #combinatorics. Not sure what that is?! Check out her story where Ilse provides fun everyday examples of where you might be using them!

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4 months ago

When a perigee and full moon collide, this bold, beautiful lunar event can rise. This week’s word is supermoon. https://www.snexplores.org/article/scientists-say-supermoon-definition-pronunciation

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4 months ago
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From Butterflies and Shakespeare to Estimating Quantum States It is expected that any complex calculation performed on an error-prone quantum computer will result in an output in the form of a random quantum state. This random state itself is a probabilistic …

My latest blog covers how scientists Ewin Tang, John Wright and colleagues derived inspiration from studies in #linguistics to estimate #quantum states: scieye.wordpress.com/2025/11/06/f...
Thanks to @simonsinstitute.bsky.social for the opportunity to talk to researchers about this exciting work!

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4 months ago

It was a pleasure chatting with Yael and Daniele about several developments in #cryptography! Thank you @simonsinstitute.bsky.social for this opportunity!

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5 months ago
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This Year’s Nobel Prize in Physics Is Awarded to Three Scientists for Work in Quantum Mechanics John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work showing how bizarre microscopic quantum effects can infiltrate our large-scale, everyday world

John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work showing how bizarre microscopic quantum effects can infiltrate our large-scale, everyday world

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5 months ago
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1/2 How can one make sense of dolphin vocalizations and behavior? First, "use machine learning to rediscover human words by just watching unlabeled videos of people talking about things," said @mit.edu's Mark Hamilton, speaking at the Simons Institute. Video: simons.berkeley.edu/talks/mark-h...

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5 months ago
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1/2 While in Hawaii during the pandemic, Markus Freitag realized he should take whale language translation seriously. "I really fell in love with whales. You could just lay in the water and you could hear them singing," he said at the Simons Institute. Video: simons.berkeley.edu/talks/markus...

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5 months ago
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I had fun speaking today at the Quantum World Congress panel on Demystifying Quantum: How to Communicate Cutting Edge Science to Diverse Audiences. Alongside the fantastic moderator @csrday.bsky.social and esteemed panelists @nicoleyh11.bsky.social and Ben Stein #QWC2025

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5 months ago
Welcome - ScienceWriters2025 ScienceWriters is an annual conference for professionals and students who produce material about science, health, engineering, and technology for the public.

Early-bird reg. discount for ScienceWriters2025, the annual conference for science journalists and science writers, ends next Weds (Oct 1). I plan to attend SciWri, as usual. It's always great. Let's all attend to re-energize, learn, make job connex & hang out in Chicago. sciencewriters2025.org

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5 months ago

I was intrigued to find out what are "Mechanical #quantum memories" & listened to this latest episode @newquantumera.com! It was fun & I enjoyed learning about how to extend a quantum state of a #qubit!

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5 months ago
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Exploring algorithms and privacy in big data with clément canonne In this age of identity theft and privacy invasion, could you order a bowl of chips online, without giving away your mother’s maiden name? Gathered in a local pub in Sydney, computer scientist Clém…

Here's my latest blog alert on sublinear #algorithms and #differentialprivacy in a wide-ranging conversation with @ccanonne.github.io!

scieye.wordpress.com/2025/09/17/e...

#randomness #BigData #SciComm @simonsinstitute.bsky.social @sydney.edu.au

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5 months ago

Thank you @simonsinstitute.bsky.social! I enjoyed this conversation with Moni!

#cryptography #AI #encryption #complexity

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6 months ago

We are happy to feature Mihyun's story today! Please check it out to learn about Mihyun's #math journey and her research that spans interdisciplinary fields #Combinatorics #StatisticalPhysics #NetworkScience and others!

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6 months ago
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🎉 We’re back! After a refreshing summer break, Her Maths Story is returning with more powerful and personal insights into the lives of women in mathematics. (1/5)

#HerMathsStory #WomenInMaths #MathsInTheWorld #WomenInSTEM #STEMStories #InspiringWomen

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6 months ago

Our team member and co-founder @joanagrah.bsky.social was invited to take part in a discussion round with Women in Vision Siegen. What a great initiative! 🫶 Looking forward to following your activities!

#WomeninMaths #WomeninComputerScience #WomeninVision

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6 months ago
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Did you know that you won‘t miss any of our posts by clicking on the bell icon on our profile page and opting to get notifications about our posts & replies?

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