Chance encounters, life lessons, and good friends: Meet Fatma Çiçek, our PIMS PDF at UNBC.
By Lisa Sammoh, Communications and Events Assistant.
Fatma Çiçek is a PIMS postdoctoral fellow at the University of Northern British Columbia. She will be working as a postdoctoral member of the PIMS Collaborative Research Group in L-functions in Analytic Number Theory. She is working with Alia Hamieh on applications of moment method to Dirichlet polynomials and to L-functions of automorphic forms. Fatma obtained her Ph.D. degree from the University of Rochester in 2020 under the supervision of Steve Gonek. Her thesis was titled ‘’The Logarithm of the Riemann Zeta Function Near Nontrivial Zeros’’. She obtained a master’s degree in 2014 from Bogazici University in Turkey, under the supervision of Arzu Boysal and Burak Gurel. She completed her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the same institution.
We caught up with Fatma to learn more about her academic work and life since joining UNBC.
Tell us about your academic journey and what your current research is on.
I grew interested in number theory during my sophomore year, after which I took several related classes during my undergraduate and master's program. Most of the professors at my alma mater, Boğaziçi University, had done their PhDs abroad, so I decided to take a similar route. For my Ph.D. program, I moved to the USA to attend the University of Rochester. After taking some classes, I understood that I was mainly interested in analytic techniques in number theory, and started to work with Steve Gonek who later became my doctoral advisor. Living abroad on my own provided me with a lot of life lessons and good friends to appreciate. Finishing my program took me 7 years. My advisor was an inspiring mathematician who was always encouraging me, and I am very grateful for him.
I also first came upon and listened to a talk from Alia Hamieh, who is now my postdoctoral mentor, when attending a Joint Mathematics Meeting (JMM) near the end of my program. After obtaining my degree in 2020, I worked in India at IIT Gandhinagar for a year. It was an invaluable experience for me in terms of my career and personal growth. This was during the pandemic, and in the future, I hope to visit the place again. About a year ago, I finally met Alia in person at the PIMS Collaborative Research Group (CRG) postdoctoral interview. By then, I was already acquainted with her work, and the CRG itself sounded promising research-wise.
My field is analytic number theory. In general terms, my current research is on the distribution of values of L-functions and also the distribution of zeros of L-functions. These functions are arithmetically significant. As an analytic number theorist, I study them by doing various computations, estimating or averaging some averages, and later interpreting these calculations. I do this with the hope that I or someone else in the future would obtain new information about primes or other arithmetic objects. As it sounds, it is a technical field. At the same time, the motivation to discover something new about primes is so intrinsic and strong, and I find it rewarding. In the beginning, I mostly worked on the Riemann zeta-function, but more recently, I have been studying others such as L-functions over function fields and L-functions of automorphic forms.
What courses are you teaching this semester? What have you gathered from the experience?
I am currently teaching a Calculus II class at UNBC. This is my first time teaching here. I had great teaching mentors in my Ph.D. program, and I learned a lot from them and also taught a few calculus classes myself. I find that the student interaction aspect of teaching makes it very dynamic and I always find new aspects of my teaching that I can improve on. Also, recognizing the importance of sharing what I have learned or understood over the years creates more joy for both teachers and students. One other thing I learned is that the scope of a teacher’s job is not limited to just teaching some material; they should also accept and take responsibility for the fact that they are an influential model to the students.
What does research and life balance mean to you?
I used to prioritize work most of the time. I learned the importance of research and life balance during the pandemic. I realized that I was not working very efficiently and it was causing more anxiety. By living on my own without distractions, I became more aware of recognizing my priorities and what interested me outside mathematics. I started taking classes and learning Kurmanji during the two years with the pandemic. It was something that I had always wanted to try. This opened new doors for me where I got to explore a new world of literature and make new friends as well.
My Sunday highlight is having coffee while reading an interesting book. I also like taking short walks and visiting a store nearby. Ideally, I would prefer to take my Sundays off. But in the evenings, I will either prepare for my lecture if I have one on the coming Monday or instead plan and prioritize the research that I want to work on for next week.
What has life at UNBC and Prince George been like for you since beginning your postdoctoral fellowship?
My mentor Alia Hamieh and I have been working on two problems thus far. I am looking forward to bringing these to fruition as I really enjoy working with her. We also have an ongoing project with several members of our CRG team from ULethbridge. This one is more recent and I do hope we can share good news about it soon.
Otherwise, I am looking forward to getting a chance to observe the Northern lights from Prince George at a time and place where they are very visible and enchanting. I am also learning more about the Indigenous communities in Northern British Columbia, particularly the one in Prince George called the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation. I remember once when I was at a bus stop, one person shared a couple of words from his language (Carrier or Dakelh) and reminded me about the importance of remembering our ancestors and grandparents. It was very touching, and inspired me to want to create my own legacy and uphold my family’s at the same time.
Fatma will be speaking at the PIMS Emergent Research Seminar Series, on March 8, 2023, at 9:30 AM Pacific. Details on her talk and poster, Central Limit Theorems in Analytic Number Theory, can be found here.
