Aissa Wade facts for kids

Aissa Wade is an amazing professor of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University. She is known for her important work in math and for helping to improve science education in Africa. From 2016 to 2018, she was the President of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences centre in Senegal. She was the first woman to hold this important role!

Early Life and Education

Aissa Wade was born in Dakar, Senegal, a country in West Africa. She loved math from a young age. She studied mathematics at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal. She finished her studies there in 1993.

After that, she needed to go to another country to get her Ph.D. A Ph.D. is a very high university degree. At that time, there were no programs in Africa for the kind of advanced math she wanted to study. So, Aissa Wade went to France. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of Montpellier in 1996. Her special research was about something called "formal normalization of Poisson structures." This is a complex area of math that deals with shapes and spaces. Her professor, Jean Paul Dufour, helped her a lot with her studies.

Her Career in Mathematics

After getting her Ph.D., Aissa Wade became a researcher. She worked at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics. Here, she studied advanced math topics like "conformal Dirac structures."

She also taught at several universities around the world. These included the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the USA, the African University of Science and Technology, and Paul Sabatier University in France.

In 2016, Aissa Wade became a full professor at Pennsylvania State University. This is a big achievement in the world of academics.

Helping Math and Science in Africa

Aissa Wade has done a lot to help math and science grow, especially in Africa.

• She helped edit important math journals. One was called The African Diaspora Journal of Mathematics. She also edits Afrika Mathematika.
• She is part of the scientific committee for the NextEinstein forum. This group works to connect science, society, and important decisions in Africa.
• As President of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Senegal, she led a major center for math education. She was the first woman to ever be president of this center, which is very inspiring!
• She received money from the National Science Foundation to help support a special workshop in Senegal. This workshop focused on geometric structures in math.
• She worked with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Together, they helped improve science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research in Africa. They looked at facts and figures to suggest better ways to teach and learn STEM.

In 2017, Aissa Wade was recognized as a top scientist. She became a fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. This means her work is highly respected by other scientists.

In 2020, Aissa Wade was honored by a group called Mathematically Gifted & Black. They featured her as an important person during Black History Month. This recognized her amazing accomplishments in mathematics.