Chocolate and mayonnaise are two of our all time favourite foods, particularly in the holidays. This is why we were very happy to get the chance to talk to Valerie Pinfield, Professor of Engineering at Loughborough University, who has used maths to work on both chocolate and mayonnaise.

We talked to Valerie in the spring at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Cambridge where Valerie was co-organising a research programme on the mathematical theory and applications of multiple wave scattering. As we will find out, this has a huge range of applications, from understanding mayonnaise to making invisibility cloaks.

While Valerie is a professor at the University of Loughborough now, her career path has also involved work in industry and time out for kids, so we also asked her for some advice for women mathematicians and scientists wondering how to build their career.

For more content about the research programme on multiple wave scattering at the INI, see here.

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Return to the Plus advent calendar 2023.

This podcast was produced as part of our collaboration with the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (INI) – you can find all the content from the collaboration here.

The INI is an international research centre and our neighbour here on the University of Cambridge's maths campus. It attracts leading mathematical scientists from all over the world, and is open to all. Visit www.newton.ac.uk to find out more.