News: page 8

Abdullah Khan is a double major in Physics and Mathematics at CCNY. He is also the recipient of the Dr. Barnett and Jean Hollander Rich 2020 Summer Internship where he worked with Prof. Tamara Kucherenko.

Hear more about it from Abdullah himself!

My name is Abdullah Khan and I interned for Professor Tamara Kucherenko during this past summer. The duration of my work consisted of characterizing the continuity class of a roof function which is part of Prof. Kucherenko's first explicit example of suspension flows with non-unique measures of maximal entropy in her joint paper. Additionally, I sought to find new roof functions in more restrictive classes of continuity supporting the same types of suspension flows. These tasks involved understanding and applying notions from analysis on metric spaces and appropriately utilizing mathematical results from literature to construct different lemmas and their proofs.

Immersing myself in research with Prof. Kucherenko made my summer much brighter - honing my creativity, constructing rigorous proofs and becoming a careful thinker has been such a rewarding experience. With the Professor's kind and friendly encouragement, I'm more excited about research and my major than ever before.

My sincere thanks to my parents - Fouzia and Moin - for their continued support and love, to my partner, Searra, for always being there for me, and to her parents - Corrine and Frank - for generously supporting me in every way they could.

Brenda Delamonica is a student in the Master of Science (M.S.) program in Mathematics at CCNY. She is also the recipient of the Dr. Barnett and Jean Hollander Rich 2020 Summer Internship where she worked with Michael Shub.

Hear more about it from Brenda herself!

My name is Brenda Delamonica and I worked with Professor Shub to study how concepts in dynamical systems apply to models of metastatic cell behavior. What I enjoyed the most was seeing how these mathematical concepts apply to real world problems and questions and in particular, I liked collaborating and learning from others in various fields such as biologists at Stonybrook, and computer scientists at the University of Michigan. I've always enjoyed math, it's fun to get lost in problems and I like discovering various applications of math in other fields.

This Fall, I will start my Ph.D in Physics at the University of Texas at Austin. I was admitted to the City College of New York in 2015 with the goal to pursue physics for my bachelor’s degree. When I was a sophomore, I declared my major to be physics but I felt unsatisfied to leave mathematics. A few days later, I declared my second major to be math with a concentration in pure mathematics. Pursuing a double major in physics and mathematics at CCNY opened the door for me to meet with a lot of people from whom I have learned a lot in and outside of academia.

I want to thank my research supervisor, Professor Alexios Polychronakos, for giving me the opportunity to perform my honors thesis under his invaluable guidance. He has taught me how to be resilient and how to overcome frustration. His sincerity, kindness, and love for physics have inspired me. Also, thanks to Professor Parameswaran Nair for giving me the chance to conduct two independent studies over the topic of particle physics and for the invaluable discussions I had with him, which opened a new door of interest to me in physics.

I would also like to thank Professor Christian Wolf from the Mathematics Department for showing me the beauty of mathematics and for his support in graduate school applications. His enthusiasm and motivation towards mathematics have inspired me. I am thankful for all the support and guidance he had offered me in these past two years.

I would be a remiss if I didn’t mention Professor Timothy Boyer who has been my role model as an amazing instructor. I am deeply grateful to have learned from him how to be an advocate for one’s opinion in science even if it is against the flow. I also want to thank Dr. James Hedberg, Professor Joel Gersten, Professor Alexander Punnose and Professor Joseph Bak for their council and advice throughout the past 5 years.

I also want to thank my cohort in the physics and the math department for being who they are. I honored to be one of them, as they were very encouraging, loving, and wonderful colleagues in every meaning of the word.

I am grateful for the people who gave me opportunities, and I regret that I couldn’t thank each one of them as I have intended to do so. Lastly and above everything, I want to thank god for the love, support and guidance he has given me to pursue this academic path against all odds set before me. And also for giving me the opportunity to meet those wonderful people and be a part of the CCNY community, which has offered me more than what I have dreamed of as an immigrant wishing to study physics. I appreciate every single moment I was able to go to school and be part of such a wonderful community. With that said, I am looking forward to joining UT Austin’s community and I am excited to see what UT Austin is holding for me.

Joseph Winter graduated from CCNY in 2019 with a M.S. in mathematics. He is now working as a data scientist with Moat!

Hear about it from Joseph himself!

I completed the Master’s program in the CCNY Department of Mathematics in the spring of 2019. After graduation, I did research with Professor Christian Wolf over the summer, where I honed some computer programming skills as a resident at the Recurse Center in the early fall, and then found a job as a Data Scientist at Moat.

Moat primarily does measurement and analytics for online/digital advertising. My specific team is research oriented: we try to discover and implement new methods for detecting ‘invalid traffic’ (which includes both benign bots and active fraud operations). A lot of the math that I make use of as a data science is statistics (ironically, a course I never took at CCNY!), but I think the range of graduate-level work in mathematics gave me the confidence to approach difficult technical questions.

Math in ad-tech is certainly not always the most sophisticated, but I think my research experience and coursework at City allows me to tackle more interesting problems and understand the tools of data science more deeply, ultimately making me better at my job. There a quite a few math people on my team at work: we read and share mathematical papers on a regular basis. One of my projects currently involves reconstructing continuous gestures made by mobile devices from discrete data, a project where I’ve applied both algebra (group theory) and analysis. I feel luck that even working in industry, I found a place where I can explore open-ended questions.

I came to CCNY more than decade after I finished my previous degrees in Art. In 2016/17, I took a few semesters of calculus along with linear algebra at Laguardia Community College, and all of a sudden I found myself in a mathematics graduate program! I love that the CCNY gives people from unconventional backgrounds a chance to dive into math. The affordability and evening-centric course schedule of the MS program are only outshined by its talented faculty. After spending a few weeks in a classroom with Professors Zajj Daugherty and Christian Wolf (with whom I worked for 2 and 4 semesters, respectively), I knew I was in the exact right place. Thank you for your wisdom, guidance, and encouragement.

This fall, I will start my Ph.D in math at the University of Illinois Chicago. I entered the masters program at City College thinking I wanted to do applied work; my motivation for studying math was to build a theoretical foundation to work in climate research. Under the guidance and support of the professors here, I became more interested in theoretical coursework, and decided to pursue a doctorate degree in math.

I have experienced both intellectual and personal growth while at CCNY; I attribute this to the wonderful people here. The student body is diverse in every sense, and I have become friends with people of exceptional backgrounds and varied interests. My perception of what mathematical research is and who can participate has changed for the better in my two years here.

There have been many people who helped me along the way. I am particularly thankful for: Jason Redman who has been a cheerleader and ally; Prof Wolf who has been nothing but enthusiastic and encouraging; Prof Daugherty who has been a great source of advice, both personal and for AWM; and Prof Hanson who helped spark my interest in probability theory, and who has been a kind and patient mentor through my application process and our remote independent study. I regret not being able to thank each of you in person.

Finishing my degree remotely has been a strange way to close this chapter, and this makes me think about how fundamental the community around school is to my academic journey. The flavor of math is different when you sit alone at a desk from when you sit in a room together with peers. With this in mind, I look forward to entering a new community, and I am excited to see in what directions UIC takes me.