Mathematician Dr Jabbari visits King’s

We were delighted to welcome Dr Sara Jabbari from Birmingham University to King’s on Friday, 6th March. She is a mathematician who works as part of an interdisciplinary research team involved in the creation of the next generation of drugs to treat bacterial infections. More than 100 pupils from LR – U6 came to hear her speak in the John Moore Theatre. She spoke about her work, life in academia and her journey to reach this point. Afterwards, she was able to join mathematicians in the Sixth Form to discuss her work in more detail.

Joe A (U6) said, “I found Dr Jabbari to be a very engaging and interesting speaker, and her research was of particular interest as I am currently considering pharmacology. Her talk gave me a taste of the sort of path my university course may take and the related professions.”

Louisa (FF) said that she found it particularly useful because “She made her work and research readily understandable by simplifying it for us and explaining how she collected data to form her studies. Furthermore, I think it helped that she spoke about her everyday life and what she did as a mathematician.”

Tom A (L6) thought it was a revelation and said, “I previously perceived mathematics to be largely detached from such clinical settings and real-life scenarios, yet Dr Jabbari’s talk provided me with insight into the benefits and applications of her work. For example, I learnt how mathematics could be used to calculate the effective dosage of drugs and how bacteria populations could be calculated using differential equations.”

Some members of the Mathematics Department were able to attend her talks too. Mrs Darby said, “The timing was good as she mentioned multi-disciplinary groups and such groups will currently be working on limiting the spread of the Coronavirus.”