News: page 11

I came to City College as an international student about two years ago. I can perfectly remember the first day at CCNY where I struggled with the smallest things such as finding the classroom I was located in for that day. From that day, I see myself continuing my PhD at the University of Connecticut, where I will continue my studies in the Statistics Department.

Looking back at these past years, when I put the memories I have together, it is clear that I have been very lucky. I have had the privilege to work with amazing professors, have helpful friends, and overall been surrounded by great and welcoming people.
I am beyond grateful for all of my professors whom I would like to say thank you to the following people

Professor Shirshendu Chatterjee who was my statistics professor and mentor in the summer research project. Thank you, for giving me a hand when I needed it the most! The patience you possess and trust you give were two qualities that made my journey with you an honorable and important one. You believed that I had potential even when you struggled to understand my ideas, since my communication was extremely poor. Your assistance and dedication inspired me to work even harder.

Professor Zajj Daugherty - Thank you for your support that has lasted since the first day of being in your class all the way to giving me amazing advice you gave for the PhD application.

A warm thank you to Professor Blair Davey, Professor Bianca Santoro, and Professor Jack Hanson. Thank you so much for your recommendations, advice, and for being such an inspiration to me. Honestly, I feel since I am now a part of the academy, I look up to each of you as a role model.
I also want to thank Professor Thea Pignataro and Professor Stanley Ocken for believing and giving me the opportunity to be a lecturer in the Math Department. I will keep this with me throughout my life as one of the most valuable experiences I have been through.

Thank you so much to Jason Redman for informing me about multiple crucial moments including a scholarship, job opportunities, the teaching process and more. Jason, I truly admire the patience that you possess. When I kept asking you an extensive number of questions each day you always calmly explained, even if it took multiple tries for me to understand it. You are definitely one of the people that made my life easier at CCNY.

A great thank you for George Braithwaite who is one of the nicest people that I have met in my life. You have always been so helpful and so positive! According to George, he is like this because he was born where negative numbers were not invented. You are undeniably an amazing person that I will miss so extremely much.

Finally, a huge thank you to my friends. Thank you for your advice and collaboration. I wish you only the best!

We are happy to start off the summer with our 2019 Rich Summer Internships and RAMMP! The Rich Summer Internships program pairs students at CCNY with faculty mentors to work closely for 10 weeks studying various advanced topics in mathematics. The Recruitment and Mentoring in Mathematics Program (RAMMP) brings scholars in summer research activities in mathematics with the goal of culminating in publishable research. Students in RAMMP will work in groups on research programs guided by faculty members and attend weekly colloquium and learning seminars.

CCNY Mathematics Undergraduate, Pavel Javornik, has been selected as one of the CCNY Great Grads! To hear more from Pavel Javornik and hear other graduating CCNY student's stories, please see this online document.

Hear about it from Vincent Filardi

This summer I have the opportunity to participate in an 8-week immersion in Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates program with the machine learning team. My intention for attending this REU is to develop methods in Machine Learning based off techniques in Partial Differential Equations. The program is designed to provide a glimpse of the ways that advanced mathematics is used in the real world to solve complex problems. I will be working closely with a company representative to define the problem and develop solutions of immediate value to the company. The thought of our work to be used in decision making on an industrial scale excites me. I predict that these characteristics will prove themselves invaluable to my applications for Ph.D. programs.

Thank you to Professor Santoro and Professor Hanson for their kind endorsements. Special shout out to Professor Santoro, Professor Etemadpour and Professor Ramamurthy for their continual support in our research projects. I extend my gratitude to the NSF, CCNY Mathematics Department and City College Fellowships Program in their gracious financial support this summer.

To all my friends over the years at City College and Norwalk Community College: I am serious when I say I cherish the moments we have shared, without you this is all hard to imagine. The program starts on May 19th, and I will be returning on July 20th.

Hear about it from Marino Echavarria

This summer I will be going to Johns Hopkins University to do research in theoretical computer science as a part of their Leadership Alliance cohort. I chose to study mathematics because of my friend Vincent Filardi. I was a computer science major when I met Vincent in my discrete mathematics course. He asked me what my interest in computer science was and when I told him that I wanted to reason through and solve difficult problems and about how much I was enjoying the course he suggested that I should study mathematics. I was skeptical at first but soon realized that what I would find in theoretical computer science was very mathematical. I was just about done with the math courses my CS degree required and decided I would miss mathematics too much if I’d stopped, so I declared a double major by the end of the semester. I would like to pursue graduate study in either theoretical computer science or mathematics to the end of becoming an academic. I’ve loved the experiences I’ve had teaching and tutoring in the past. I’d also like to take up the torch from Professor Stanley Ocken’s efforts to improve mathematics education especially in communities like mine where most see mathematics with either disdain or apathy. The thought of doing that while doing research sounds very rewarding. I’d like to thank my family for nurturing my interests with as many books as I wanted, Vincent for brainwashing me, my friends for their support through much self-doubt, and all of my eccentric and enthusiastic math instructors over the years whose excitement about math kept me curious and whose support allowed me to persevere.

Prof. Linda Keen (Lehman College) came to CCNY to give her talk, on geometry and tiling, at our colloquium.