User talk:NBeale/Corina Tarniţă

Notability
I suspected that it might only be a matter of time before an article on this subject cropped up (cf. here). Anyway, IMHO it's premature for an article on Tarnita since she has not (yet) anything like an established body of work. True, she's made exceptional opening running, but that's often the case for early career scientists who have a field-leading supervisor like Nowak. And long may this continue. However, at this stage, I can't see her passing any of the relevant criteria. Her recent work with Nowak might come under Criterion 1, but even then it's joint work in which she's not the first author (and it's not certain yet that this is research-for-the-ages; but it's certainly kicking things off in ethology). Anyway, I'm looking forwards to seeing what she does next, but this article is simply premature. Who knows, perhaps she'll wise up, look at the academic salary scale, then move to NYC to work for big bucks in finance? We don't know the future and should not presume a great start in academia will inevitably translate to a notable scientific career. Anyhow, I'll give it a few days before nominating for deletion in case I'm missing some other notability re: the academic criteria. --P LUMBAGO 09:04, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, so I WP:PRODed the article but this has been rescinded because: "research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline". Given my argument above, I don't buy that for this article's subject (at least, as I've already noted above, not yet).  The high impact research is, as far as I can tell, a single paper (Nowak et al., 2010) that is joint work in which the subject is not first author.  As far as I can see, the third party sources added to the article relate to this one piece of work, which is additionally a recent paper (i.e. its full impact is uncertain; and it may even get whacked).  Compare the academic record of subject with, for instance, that of her two coauthors.  Needless to say, I still think the article should be deleted, and I'll WP:AFD it next unless there's a more serious attempt to demonstrate how the academic criteria apply here.  I'm pretty sure (and correct me if I'm wrong) that a handful of papers, plus a co-authored one in Nature, is not sufficient.  --P LUMBAGO  11:53, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I know Corina so I will try to stay objective. But WRT the criteria:


 * 1) 1.The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources. NTW has had an enormous impact already, was on the front cover of Nature, and is the biggest story in theoretical biology for at least 10 years. Corina's mathematical work is absolutely central to this.
 * 2) 2.The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level. Election to Society of Fellows probably counts, as would the prize she got from the President of Romania.
 * 3.The person is or has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association (e.g. a National Academy of Sciences or the Royal Society) or a Fellow of a major scholarly society for which that is a highly selective honor (e.g. the IEEE) Society of Fellows surely qualifies for this. NBeale (talk) 11:59, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Journals (and newspapers) like stories of academic upsets - hence the interest in this paper. But it is a recent paper whose ultimate fate is, as yet, uncertain.  Why don't we just wait to see what comes of it, rather than use it, more or less, as the lynchpin of a whole article's notability?  Regarding the membership of the Society of Fellows, this is a society set up for early career scientists, so is not clearly the same in notability terms as the likes of national societies such as the Royal Society.  From what I can gather, it seems to be a neat way of directing cash to exceptional up-and-coming academics.  How many other early career members of its ranks are represented here (i.e. separate from Harvard Fellows)?  Regarding the prize, well, how does it rank in terms of "highly prestigious academic awards" in Romania?  This is also unclear.  Anyway, although academic notability is not as objective as one would like, I still can't see this even being close to a border-line case.  All that said, I do appreciate the significance of the kin selection work, and I think it would be a mistake not to revisit the subject once the fallout from said "lynchpin" is better known, but I just can't see the case for notability at this early career stage.  Sorry.  --P LUMBAGO  12:33, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Society of Fellows is not the Royal Society but is "a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society". And in addition to NTW (which caused a massive stir in scientific community before the journalists got hold of it - esp since it was the cover paper of Nature) she has been 1st author in a PNAS paper and published in Phil Trans B. I agree that this is not close to borderline - it clearly meets 1,2 and 3. But I repeat that I know her so, although I think this is NPOV, I may be influenced by personal knowledge. NBeale (talk) 14:11, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * PS about 50% of the Maths members of the Society of Fellows seems to have Wikipedia articles already. NBeale (talk) 14:14, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I looked at the Society of Fellows, but I had difficulty separating those who are (current fellows + notable) from those who are (former fellows + notable). One would like to think that people tapped for greatness by Harvard might subsequently realise it (and, thus, be notable), but I don't think it follows that all those who get the nod are, or become, notable.  And I still don't buy that the other notability criteria are met.  A handful of papers, even in prestigious journals, do not a significant impact make (consider, for instance, how many scientists grace the pages of such journals each year).  Especially when they are extremely recent papers for which it's difficult to judge long-term impact; which, knocking kin selection as it does, presumably Nowak et al. (2010) is aiming for.  Further, although I don't work in ethology or evolution, I have read of (and read works by) Nowak and Wilson, and have not the slightest difficulty in recognising them as (highly) notable.  But the same is not true for all of their coworkers, of which the article subject is just one of the latest.  Anyhow, I'll hold off AfDing for the time being, and wait to see if any other opinions appear here.  --P LUMBAGO  17:02, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I wouldn't have created the article before NTW and the SoF, but I think it is now pretty clear. She is also one of the highest profile female mathematicians of her generation (see eg this on Heavy.com) - (note FWIW the complete lack of refs for Heavy.com but no-one wants to AfD this) NBeale (talk) 17:58, 1 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't have an opinion on whether this article should be deleted or not, so readers, take the following comment however you like. Whether or not "Corina's mathematical work is absolutely central to [the Nature article]" is not really relevant to proving notability, as Wikipedia does not recognize a person's behind-the-scenes contributions to a work unless it is acknowledged and discussed in reliable sources. NBeale has made this sort of argument before in AfDs about his own biography on WP (when some people said that he wasn't notable because he was 'only' a coauthor on Questions of Truth, he responded that his contributions to the book were still very great; unfortunately, Wikipedia doesn't care who does most of the work on the book, it cares about who the reliable sources talk about, otherwise most top researchers' RAs would get articles). That being said, I haven't done any searching to determine what other stuff about Tarniţă is out there; if the only argument in favor of keeping the article is that she was a big help on that paper, then it's probably not enough, but I can't rule out that there are other sources out there too, which is why I'm not saying I personally think the article should be deleted. Maybe someone neutral will find more sources (sources from someone else would mean more than sources from NBeale, who has a history of padding articles with trivial sources and passing mentions to drum up notability). Anyway, as I said above, this is not a statement in favor of deleting or keeping the article, and if there is any AfD in the future I will not be participating and I would prefer that this statement not be counted as a delete or keep vote. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 01:05, 2 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Having skimmed through the WP:PROF guideline, I'm somewhat pessimistic. Indeed, she seems on course to meet this guideline, and much more, in a few years, but not quite yet. However, she may have received national coverage in Romania, and the fact that she is a female mathematician might inspire a human interest story about her personal role in the controversy. I will personally abstain from any potential AfD debate though... (Right now, I'm more curious about how universally supported WP:PROF even is — if I were to create stub articles on each and every IEEE fellow based on their institutional CVs and publisher provided bios, would people thank me for creating these valuable stubs or yell at me for pointy disruption?) Vesal (talk) 22:32, 2 October 2010 (UTC)