News: page 13

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.

This summer, I am attending The Leadership Alliance Program at the University of Chicago. I will spend the summer studying and working on a current research topic in Astrophysics and/or cosmology. Currently, I am studying Physics and Pure Mathematics at the City College of New York.

I am planning to apply for graduate programs in theoretical physics. My research experience at the City College is drawing my attention towards Cosmology. At the present time, I am conducting research in the physics department with Professor Alexios Polychronakos on gravity. The main focus in my research is to investigate some modifications to general relativity theory to resolve some theoretical issues resulting from adding a cosmological constant. I am certain that this summer program will add much to my understanding and will expand my knowledge in the field. In addition, I will learn some computational tools that I will need in my graduate studies.

I am grateful to my professors in the Mathematics and the Physics department. I was lucky to attend classes with Prof. Wolf, Prof. Kucherenko from the Math department and Prof. Polychronakos, Prof. Nair, Prof. Boyer and Prof. Hedberg from the Physics department. I ‘d like to thank each of these professors for helping and encouraging me in my undergraduate studies. In particular, I would like to thank Prof. Polychronakos for his guidance, his support in the application process and his great advice.

The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) and the Math Club put together a Graduate Panel to talk about what it takes to pursue a Ph.D. and how to bolster your chances at getting into grad school. Special thanks to the speakers Tai-Danae Bradley, Prof. Jozef Dodziuk, and Anna Tao.