Robbie Bickerton

Dr. Robbie Bickerton shares his experience of getting into Academia and becoming a researcher in mathematics education.

Deciding to become an Academic

Robbie joined the academic staff at the University of Edinburgh a little over a year ago; after finishing his PhD at Newcastle University. While there, he did his undergraduate degree in Maths and it was during this time that he first realized he wanted to stay on at university. It wasn’t until his fourth year, however, that he definitely knew that he wanted to become an academic. He said, “I wouldn't say I stumbled into it, but I didn't necessarily have that aim throughout my life.”

Completing his PhD

When asked about his PhD Robbie confirmed that he wrote his on an area of functional analysis called operator algebras, titled ‘Operator Algebras Associated to Semigroup Actions’. He confessed that, “this is a fairly abstract topic built on the idea of complex variable theory and linear algebra, which is hard to explain, unless you were an analyst.”

Robbie always had a broad range of interests, he claimed that, “one of the good things about the job that we have now is that we are able to do research, we are able to teach and we are able to maintain that variety of interests.” He added that one of the perks of being an academic is that he has the opportunity to meet intelligent people with similar interests. He went on to say that he can always learn from having stimulating conversations with colleagues doing research in different areas within the Maths department.

Advice to students starting out

When asking for some advice for university students finishing their degrees who don’t have a set career path yet, he suggested not to have a complete panic. “And for those who intend to go into Academia, the best way to guarantee success in the future is by working hard and doing well on exams,” he continued, “so do not be discouraged and keep striving for what you want.”

Upon making the decision to stay in Academia, the next step a student needs to take is to find a supervisor for a PhD. Robbie notes that the difficulty he found when applying for his PhD is that there is no standard system like UCAS, every university takes a different approach. Since he did his PhD at the same university he did his undergrad in, he had had the opportunity to meet his supervisor before he started his work. He admitted that he believes, “this supervisor – student relationship is one of the most important things when doing your PhD. I considered myself a hard worker before I started and then I realized that I definitely needed a push fairly often from a supervisor, and it's also good to know you have that level of support.”

Research in Mathematics Education

At the moment, Robbie is also a researcher in mathematics education, which is quite unlike the research he used to do before that; it requires an entirely different set of skills. Yet, he said he would like to keep researching both areas to sustain his wide-ranging interests. He did some teaching previously, as PhD students commonly do. It was only when he got his job in Edinburgh did he get exposed to this field through his colleagues, who also had a very strong interest in math education. “It opened my eyes to the ways that people think about trying to improve the student experience, there are lots of potential innovations that they come up with,” he confirmed. Although there may be a history of not prizing the teaching side of mathematics as much, he said, from his experience, that this is certainly not the case anymore.

Teaching

The course he is teaching at the moment is an online one on STACK called ‘Introductory Mathematics with Applications’. It is an undergraduate course primarily for students who need Maths, but who are not doing it as their degree. As it was a new one this year, “it has not been that much in the way of uptake,” he admitted. “But once the course is written, it will stay there for a few years, so we expect that there’ll be more people joining next year.”

When it comes to teaching, he said he doesn’t have a particular favorite thing, but he enjoyed trying to teach himself how to explain things step by step, “I kind of subscribe to the idea that you don't fully understand something unless you have to teach it to someone else.” Secondly, he mentioned that he enjoyed teaching because there are a lot of different issues that come up that keep him interested. He put it as, “instead of having one task to complete over again, there is a change in what you're doing day to day.”w