Anna LIttle: Above the Noise


August 13, 2025
Above: Anna Little, awardee of the NSF Career Grant

In the constant chaotic communication of the modern day it is vitally important to find promising individuals and raise them above the noise. That is the role of the National Science Foundation’s CAREER program: to find talented researchers and give them funding to catapult their work to new heights.

Anna Little has earned her place amongst those recipients, which includes her colleague Harold Bloom, receiving a grant of $550,000 to advance to the next stage of her career.

A Duke University alumna, Little received her Ph.D. in mathematics there before moving on to a teaching position at Jacksonville University. In an ambitious gamble she left that tenure track position for a research postdoctoral researcher appointment at Michigan State, which clearly paid dividends by setting the groundwork for research she’s being rewarded for today here at the U. 

Little’s work focuses on using geometric methods for high-dimensional data analysis, a particularly useful subject. While current technology allows us to collect huge amounts of data, it is often difficult to analyze that data in numerical form. But analyzing it geometrically can circumvent this issue, visually presenting shapes and patterns amongst the chaos. It is an approach that can be applied to many forms of data, and as Little describes, it really helps break up the “noise.”

“If you’re trying to take a picture of a molecule, you’re going to have a lot of noise in that data,” Little explains, defining that “by noise I mean measurement errors, random shifts or rotations. You’re trying to extract data from a complicated setting.” Noise of this kind is often unavoidable and can start corrupting data, but that’s where the math comes in to repair those gaps. 

On top of this high dimensional analysis, Little is also interested in inverse problems and signal processing. In particular, the analysis of mathematical models inspired by biological applications such as cryo-electron microscopy.

While she isn’t looking for these patterns inside the noise, she often spends her time assisting others to take a break from their own noisy lives. In an initiative that was also supported by her award, she led a retreat for doctorate students and postdocs. In such a highly strenuous field like STEM it can be challenging to find time to take care of oneself, leading to unsustainable performance. Little explains that “It’s important to work smart, to avoid burning out, and to understand one’s limits.”

Whether it be the noise of her research or the noise of life, Anna Little is taking the steps to both overcome it and help others do the same. And thanks to this award she’ll be able to continue to do so for many years to come.

by Michael Jacobsen

Watch for the story (forthcoming) about Harold Blum, Anna Little's colleague in the Department of Mathematics who is also recipient of the prestigious NSF Career Award. 

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