How a Waterloo researcher is partnering with underprivileged mathematicians to increase equity in mathematics
Dr. Roberto Hernández Palomares grew up in a working-class family in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, where a career in mathematics often felt like an impossible dream.
Despite the odds, Hernández Palomares earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics at Mexico’s Universidad de Guanajuato, then pursued his MSc. and PhD at Ohio State before accepting post-doctoral fellowships at Texas A&M and later at the University of Waterloo in the department of Pure Mathematics. Today, he credits much of his accomplishments to the support from his community and involvement in the ‘Centro de Investigación en Matemáticas’ (CIMAT) mathematics research program. To pay it forward, Hernández Palomares launched an initiative called “Outsourcing Math Research.”
“The overarching idea,” he explains, “is to create a two-way bridge to help students overcome the additional barriers that becoming a researcher poses when you are part of a disadvantaged population.” Every summer since 2022, Hernández Palomares has partnered with promising students from Mexico as well as countries in Central and South America to help him with his work on operator algebras — a branch of pure mathematics related to quantum information and quantum physics. In return, he provides them with mentorship, networking opportunities and a stipend that he pays out of his pocket.
“Companies are happy to use these countries for resources or cheap labour,” Hernández Palomares says, “but they’re often overlooked as places where research talent can come from too.” He shares that supporting student collaborators doesn’t cost him much since $200 USD will cover a student’s living expenses for the summer. At the same time, the program allows him to help break down the same barriers that made his academic journey difficult.
Wealth inequality, expensive administrative barriers like visa applications, English language tests, and the prohibitive cost of conferences and travel all make it hard for students from developing countries to succeed as math researchers.
“There are only a handful of centres of mathematical research in a region that contains more than 500 million people. We need to invest in these scholars’ training and provide them with resources if we want to see them succeed,” he says.
Though the program has only existed for three summers, Hernández Palomares has already seen exciting results. One of the students he mentored in 2022 — José Manuel Barrientos López — is now pursuing a PhD at Purdue University. Another, Violeta Martínez Escamilla, began her PhD at Waterloo this fall.
“Outsourcing Math Research had a profound impact on me as a researcher,” Martínez Escamilla says. “It guided me toward a research direction and provided a broader perspective on the academic process.”
Waterloo researchers unlock barriers by working together across disciplines and borders, and for Hernández Palomares, Outsourcing Math Research is a way to give back while also addressing the “brain drain” that frequently affects developing countries. “If the quantum revolution is constrained to only a handful of countries, the existing inequalities we see will only be sustained or aggravated,” he says. “This project is an attempt to think globally about how we can lift up everyone.”
Though Hernández Palomares created the project and currently funds it out of his own salary, his goal is that Outsourcing Math Research will become self-replicating and grow beyond him, creating a web of researchers who invest in the communities they came from. “This sponsorship comes with a price,” he says, “but I don’t want them to pay me back … I want them to pay it forward. If all of us come to more developed countries and don’t help the societies that raised us, then we are part of that same problem.”
“The Outsourcing Math Research program is clearly a labour of love for Dr. Hernández Palomares, and one that provides extremely high-level training in mathematics to a host of students who would otherwise be unable to access it,” says David McKinnon, chair of Pure Mathematics. “This is the human side of mathematics at its finest.”
“There are brilliant people around the world who can do incredible research, but they are often prevented from doing so because of a lack of money, access or security. Knowledge isn’t meant to be private property,” Hernández Palomares says.
You can learn more about Outsourcing Math Research and explore opportunities to contribute on their website.
