The Virtual Encounter with Outstanding Mathematicians #53 took place on Thursday, May 28th, 2026 from 5 pm until 6 pm. Rocio Leonel Gomez, Professor at the Department of Science of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), was our invited speaker. This virtual event was free and open to the general public.
On this Encounter, Rocio Leonel Gomez shared anecdotes of her personal life and her professional journey as a female mathematician. The speaker also presented on “Between Codes and Mathematical Curiosities”. In this virtual event, Rocio Leonel Gomez defined what amicable numbers, perfect numbers and prime numbers are and noted that the prime numbers allow us to build all the positive whole numbers greater than 1 through multiplication. The speaker also explained what cryptography and the Caesar cipher are and mentioned that the fact that finding the prime factors of a really big number is so difficult is the basis of many cryptographic systems.
