The credentials for and the setting of a career in academic mathematics are fairly well understood: earn a doctorate in one of the mathematical sciences and work in a university department much like the one in which you were trained. University employers have two demands: Teach well and write good papers. The ratio shifts from institution to institution, but the fundamental ingredients are invariant.

The corresponding expectations of employers in business, industry, and government are less well known. Comments from more than 40 nonacademic mathematicians describe an environment in which there are neither fixed expectations nor an assured niche for mathematicians.

FORMAL TRAINING

Formal training in mathematics is much less a prerequisite for employment in business, industry, or government than in academia. And a good deal of what those trained as mathematicians do in industry might not qualify as mathematics by the standards of many universities. Literacy in some other field of science or engineering is often essential in industry, however.

Many people who do applied mathematics in industry have earned terminal degrees outside the mathematical sciences. For example, a consultant and head of a scientific computing group at a major pharmaceutical concern has a doctorate in chemistry. There are also individuals working as applied mathematicians who were trained in ‘pure’ mathematics. For example, a member of the research group for one of the big three auto manufacturers has a PhD in differential topology. Others have more conventional backgrounds in engineering, scientific computing, and applied mathematics.