Nadia Baker

Enigma Project, MMP
University of Cambridge

Nadia Baker, the Aussie Sheila, always had a keen interest in Maths and Science and decided to study Maths, Computer Science and Japanese at Adelaide University, Australia. She then spent time working at the Investigator Science and Technology Centre in Adelaide, where she realised her true passion for making Science and Maths fun, relevant and interesting.

In 2003, Nadia began to follow her passion by escaping the lectures and exams to join a circus! Along with 15 other Science graduates, Nadia joined the ‘Shell Questacon Science Circus’ and traveled to rural, regional, and remote areas of Australia bringing Science to life through explosive demonstrations, giant bubbles, slime, liquid nitrogen and fire! When not on tour, she was based at the Australian National University completing a Graduate Diploma in Scientific Communication.

From there, Nadia decided to take her experiences and passion for Maths and Science into the classroom and became a secondary school teacher. In 2005 she moved to England to teach Maths at a secondary school in Kent. She also spent some time teaching in remote areas of Malawi and Nepal.

From February 2007, Nadia took a break from teaching and returned to science communication to join the Millennium Mathematics Project, based at Cambridge University as the Enigma Schools Project Officer. Combining her Maths, Science Communication and teaching experiences, Nadia travels to all parts of the UK and beyond, using codes and code breaking as a way of demonstrating the exciting aspects and relevance of Maths.

When she isn’t out and about cracking codes and sharing her enthusiasm for Maths, Nadia spends time socialising, going to the gym, and traveling to various music festivals and remote parts of the world.

Home page: http://mmp.maths.org/projects/enigma.html