Today I'm talking to Dr. Katie Steckles, a mainstay of the UK maths communication scene.

Katie's involved in more projects than I could possibly name.

Number five viewers may recognise her from videos about Rubik's cubes, pancake numbers, the Ponqueray conjecture and Langton's aunt, plus a bunch of

others. Her journey's been an interesting one full of lots of useful lessons, but beware

there may be pirates ahead. Katie, I was looking at your website earlier this morning.

You do so many things.

You have your fingers in so many pies.

What do you put on like a passport form when you've got to put like occupation?

I tend to just put mathematician.

Mathematician?

Yeah, and hope nobody asks any further questions.

I guess, I mean, there's probably some people who would

claim that I'm not really allowed to call myself a mathematician because I'm not actively doing

research in maths at a university. But I kind of feel like it's more of a state of mind than a job title.

So, you know, if you think like a mathematician, then you are a mathematician, I don't know. What do you think your family says, like at Christmas gatherings when someone says, oh, what's Katie doing these days? How do you think, you know, they would describe your job? I have no idea. You could sort of describe me as a presenter, I guess, because like most of the work that I do and get paid for is kind of communicating, presenting maths. But I guess I'm very keen to present myself as being a mathematician, because if I stand up in front of a room full of people and say, I'm a mathematician, if I can do something to kind of nudge their perception of what a mathematician is or what a mathematician looks like, I'd much rather do that. And if I stand up and I'm just another person who's like

a teacher, you know, that doesn't necessarily help with that sort of stereotype. So, yeah, well,

all right, let me decide if you're a mathematician by hearing a little bit more of your story.

Let's go to the very beginning. Where were you born? And were you born into a very

mathematical family? I'm not, I don't know, actually. think, I mean, it's, it was definitely a very kind of supportive

and, uh, you know, pro learning family, I guess. Um, so both my parents had the willingness to,

to learn and go to school and were very kind of grateful for the opportunity to go to school.

Like my mum did the exam and got into the local grammar school and was over the moon with herself. And they both actually work in the NHS or worked. They're both retired now. So my mum was an occupational therapist. Did a big long sort of training for that. And my dad was a coropidist who also had previously worked as a technical illustrator, and towards the end of his career,

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