Nick Gill (March 2015)

My primary role as an associate member of the EMS-CDC is to update the website. I did this throughout the year - there was no need for any great change in the website so this was very straight forward. I also spent some time preparing materials for the EMS-CDC presentations at IMC2014 and MENAO - the content was written by others; my contribution was in the design and production of the material, to make it ready for printing.

In addition, for the duration of 2014 I was a visiting professor at the Universidad de Costa Rica, San Jos&eacute, Costa Rica. I moved there with my family in February 2014 and returned to the UK in January 2015.

In first semester I taught an advanced group theory course for undergraduates. The course was in English (advanced undergraduates are expected to understand English as the best of them usually go to the USA to complete a PhD). The mathematics department at UCR is very strong, but it has a strong skew in favour of analysis. Thus the department was keen for me to bring some algebra expertise and give their students the chance to study algebra at an advanced level.

In second semester I taught two courses in Spanish. One was a service course for engineers, the other was a 2nd year linear algebra course. The courses were well-received. Some of the students were very strong and there was a very pleasing culture of active engagement in lectures - the teaching environment at UCR struck me very positively indeed. The boundary between professors and students is weaker than in the UK universities where I have taught previously - this I found very positive, as students were more willing to actively engage with lectures and to question their professor when he might have written something wrong (!!).

It might be appropriate to briefly reflect on the experience of moving from the UK to Costa Rica as an academic: the change was a dramatic and somewhat difficult one for my family, as one might expect. However my children adapted well and I think the experience will have been very positive for them at this early stage in their lives (they are 4 and 6). Clearly it would be more difficult to move with older children.

Financially it was a difficult move - San Jos&eacute is an expensive city and my salary was reasonable but not generous (the salary scale at UCR is heavily weighted to reward people who are there for a long time). Thus our lifestyle was somewhat compromised by this - of course, one should not expect to move from a rich 1st world country to a developing country whilst maintaining the same standard of living across the board. In addition there were many compensations for this change of circumstance (weather, food, adventure,...), however in the long term it would be a difficult move as the cost of visiting family and friends back in Europe would be out of range of a standard academic salary.

I did not have chance to do as much research in Costa Rica as back in the UK but this was mainly a function of the fact that I had to prioritise learning Spanish. If I had stayed longer, then there would certainly have been opportunity to do more research (perhaps collaboratively, although the aforementioned skew towards analysis made this a little difficult for me). The institution itself goes to significant lengths to provide a good research environment and there is certainly lots of good mathematics being done at UCR. Of course, if I had stayed, I would have had to accept that once one moves away from the rich nations, one is inevitably a little out of the circle of mainstream research; in particular, participation in major conferences becomes more difficult.

All in all it was a very valuable experience from which I learnt a great deal. I am very grateful to UCR for giving me the opportunity; I am also especially grateful to a number of colleagues at UCR who went to great lengths to make me and my family welcome and to offer friendship - this was, without doubt, the most important and enjoyable part of the whole experience.

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