In this interview, Jeremiah Heller and Vesna Stojanoska share their experience of combining math and family life, discuss their ways to get over occasional demotivation in research and speak about social aspects of research. Jokes included!

Jeremiah's homepage: https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/~jbheller/

Vesna's homepage: https://faculty.math.illinois.edu/~vesna/

Mike Hopkins’ talk at Paul Goerss’ birthday conference: youtu.be/Ix4pg87LKVk

Chapters:

0:00 teaser

0:34 their family and other animals

4:04 kids’ curiosity about math

8:30 wishes for kids’ future

11:04 existential chat about adulthood 

13:51 research & relationship

16:13 finding friends outside math bubble

19:26 two-body problem

21:59 math talks as storytelling

27:01 approaches to doing math

31:02 getting over demotivation in research

35:23 mathematics is a social endeavour

37:12 jobmarket pressure

43:24 having kids & academia

47:18 solid advice