awards

Research Scholar

May 8, 2022

2022 Research Scholar

Tyler Ball named 2022 Research Scholar by the University of Utah - College of Science.

Tyler Ball is a first-generation college student who grew up in Salt Lake City. She enrolled at the University of Utah in 2018 and participated in the ACCESS Scholars program as a member of the 2018-2019 cohort. Through the ACCESS program, Tyler was introduced to broad topics related to sustainability which cemented her desire to pursue a degree in chemistry. The program also enabled her to get involved with research during the second semester of her freshman year – she joined Dr. Matt Sigman’s lab in January 2019.

Her first research project was a mechanistic study of the oxidative addition of cobalt complexes into benzyl bromides using electroanalytical techniques, which was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in October 2019. She was hoping to expand on this project using different substrates, but the COVID-19 pandemic pushed her to start a fully computational project in the spring of 2020. Tyler began a project using Symmetry-Adapted Perturbation Theory to study trends within and between different types of non-covalent interactions. She is currently working toward publishing this effort in the near term. In an effort to expand the breadth of her research experience, Tyler participated in an NSF-funded REU program at the University of Minnesota during the summer of 2021. Working with Professor Ian Tonks, she evaluated cobalt catalysts for the hydroesterification of small molecules.

Tyler Ball

Tyler’s learning is propelled by her passion for sustainability. During her sophomore year, Tyler became involved with our American Chemical Society Student Chapter’s Green Chemistry Committee (GCC).

 

During the fall of 2020, Tyler applied for the Goldwater Scholarship and earned the award in March 2021. Alongside the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship, Tyler has earned various awards through the Department of Chemistry and the College of Science, including the College of Science Dean’s Scholarship and the Leon Watters Memorial Award.

Tyler’s learning is propelled by her passion for sustainability. During her sophomore year, Tyler became involved with our American Chemical Society Student Chapter’s Green Chemistry Committee (GCC). The GCC helped to introduce Kimberly Clark’s glove recycling program into teaching and research labs in the chemistry department and recently worked with the College of Science to introduce mask recycling into lab spaces. Tyler’s involvement in the GCC has also helped her to focus on outreach efforts – she has organized multiple outreach events this year, with the hope of earning a Green Chemistry Award for the student chapter through the national ACS organization.

Going forward, Tyler will be pursuing her PhD in chemistry at Cornell University. Her emphasis will likely be in green catalysis with an application to polymer synthesis and her studies will be funded by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program. She is incredibly grateful for all the opportunities the College of Science has afforded her during her undergraduate studies and the supportive community of scientists she has been able to surround herself with.

Outside of the lab, Tyler enjoys hiking and rock climbing. She is always looking for vegan recipes to cook and loves trying new restaurants around SLC.

 

 

National Academy of Sciences

May 4, 2022

National Academy of Sciences

Valeria Molinero elected as a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Molinero is the Jack and Peg Simons Endowed Professor of Theoretical Chemistry and the director of the Henry Eyring Center for Theoretical Chemistry. She is a theoretical chemist and uses computer and statistical models to explore the science of how crystals form and how matter changes from one phase to another down to the atomic scale.

Much of her work has involved the transition between water and ice and how that transition occurs in the formation of clouds, in insects with antifreeze proteins, and in food products, especially those containing sugars. Her work has implications for any process in which control of the formation and growth of ice crystals is critical, including snowmaking at ski resorts, protection of crops from freezing, preservation of human organs and tissue for transplant, and production of ice cream and gelato, her favorite food. In 2020, she and her international colleagues demonstrated that the smallest possible nanodroplet of water that can freeze into ice is around 90 molecules, a finding that earned them the 2020 Cozzarelli Prize from the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and recipient of several U awards, including the Distinguished Scholarly and Creative Research Award in 2019, the Extraordinary Faculty Achievement Award in 2016, the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award in 2012 and the College of Science Myriad Faculty Award for Research Excellence in 2011. She has also been honored by the Beckman Foundation with its Young Investigator Award, and by the International Association for the Properties of Water and Steam with its Helmholtz Award.

Valeria Molina

"There’s satisfaction that comes from seeing someone grow from the beginning of the Ph.D. into an accomplished researcher."

 

Valeria heard about her election between the news of a new publication with postdoctoral scholar Debdas Dhabal and preparations for a doctoral student’s dissertation defense. She received a phone call from colleague Dale Poulter, a distinguished professor emeritus and National Academy of Sciences member, to announce her election. “I was shocked,” she says. “To say it was a surprise would not do it justice. It was fantastic.”

Minutes later, she went into the dissertation defense, reflecting on the range of accomplishments represented by the publication, the election and the defense. “All the research is made essentially there, in the work of the students and postdocs,” she says. “There’s satisfaction that comes from seeing someone grow from the beginning of the Ph.D. into an accomplished researcher.”

Molinero is among 120 U.S. scientist-scholars and 30 foreign associates elected at the Academy’s Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. She joins 16 other current University of Utah researchers who’ve been elected to the Academy. The National Academies, which also include the National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Medicine, recognizes scholars and researchers for significant achievements in their fields and advise the federal government and other organizations about science, engineering and health policy. With today’s elections, the number of National Academy of Sciences members stands at 2,512, with 517 foreign associates.

Read more at nasaonline.org.

 

Past & Present

  • National Academy of Sciences:
    Brenda Bass, Cynthia Burrows, Mario Capecchi, Dana Carroll, Thure Cerling, James Ehleringer, Kristen Hawkes, James O’Connell, Baldomero “Toto” Olivera, C. Dale Poulter, Peter Stang, Wesley Sundquist, Polly Wiessner, Henry Harpending, Jesse D. Jennings, Erik Jorgensen, Cheves Walling, Sidney Velick, John R. Roth, Josef Michl, Ray White, Julian Steward, Jeremy Sabloff, Henry Eyring and Louis Goodman and Mary C. Beckerle.
  • National Academy of Engineering:
    Jindrich Kopecek, R. Peter King, Adel Sarofim, Sung Wan Kim, Gerald Stringfellow, Donald Dahlstrom, George Hill, Jan D. Miller, Milton E. Wadsworth, Thomas G. Stockham, John Herbst, Stephen C. Jacobsen, Willem J. Kolff, Alex G. Oblad, Anil Virkar and William A. Hustrulid.
  • National Academy of Medicine:
    Mario Capecchi, Wendy Chapman, Sung Wan Kim, Vivian Lee, Baldomero “Toto” Olivera, Stephen C. Jacobsen, Eli Adashi, Paul D. Clayton and Homer R. Warner.

National Academy of Sciences

May 3, 2022

National Academy of Sciences

Erik Jorgensen elected as member of the National Academy of Sciences.

When explaining his work, Erik Jorgensen, a geneticist who studies the synapse, can transport you to an almost galactic place–the observable universe of the brain. “Synapses are contacts between nerve cells in your brain,” says the School of Biological Sciences’ distinguished professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator who May 3, 2022 was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

“You have trillions of them. Think of all the stars you can see on a moonless night on Bald Mountain,” he continues, referring to the 11,949-foot peak in the nearby Uinta Mountains. ‘Multiply that by 100 billion. I will give you a few minutes to do the calculation. …That’s how many synapses you have – the brain can hold and process a lot of information with all of those synapses. Your grandmother lives there.” Scientists want to know how synapses work, says Jorgensen, “understand how they change to store a memory, and how they become corrupted when we forget, or why they die as we pass into dementia.”

Lighting the way for a future scientist.

"It ends up that light is too big to see the structure of a synapse. That is why we use a different subatomic particle-an electron-to visualize the structure of the synapse. We use electron microscopes."

 

As of 2020, Jorgensen has been a collaborator in the National Science Foundation-funded Neuronex 2 Project, and he knows what it takes to understand these elusive, minute gaps between nerve cells. “We need to be able to see them,” he says, “to study their architecture, and track the proteins in the synapse. How can we do that? It ends up that light is too big to see the structure of a synapse. Light is made of photons, and photons are–well, too light–they have no mass; they vibrate too much to detect objects smaller than their vibrations. That is why we use a different subatomic particle-an electron-to visualize the structure of the synapse. We use electron microscopes.”

Along with Jorgensen, the international consortium includes scientists at the University of Texas in Austin and the UofU’s Bryan Jones who studies neural connections in the retina at the Moran Eye Center’s Marclab for Connectomics. The four interdisciplinary teams share reagents, methods and data to work together to characterize the formation of synapses, their function and their decline using electron microscopes.

“Biology is experiencing a great expansion in electron microscopy,” says Jorgensen,”because of some quite amazing improvements in the capabilities of electron microscopes. We can move in closer-advancements in resolution allow us to determine the atomic structure of protein complexes. Or we can stand back to see vast fields of synapses and their interconnections.

“The University of Utah and its leadership have invested in these new technologies, and we have become a leading institution in the world exploring this new terrain of biology.” Jorgensen and Jones are part of a collection of teams receiving more than $50 million over five years as part of the NSF’s Next Generation Networks for Neuroscience program (NeuroNex). A total of 70 researchers, representing four countries, will investigate aspects of how brains work and interact with the environment around them.

Erik Jorgensen's election to the NAS, arguably the most prestigious award of its kind, speaks to the kind of mind-blowing inquiry into neurology he's known for. It also validates Jorgensen's inner galactic allusion to locating where your grandmother suffering from severe dementia lives along with "your childhood friends, embarrassment, fear, love, and hate."

Read more at nasaonline.org.

 

By David Pace, first published @ biology.utah.edu.

 

NSF Fellowship

May 3, 2022

NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Eamon Quinlan-Gallego, receives a Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.

The three-year fellowship is awarded to support future leaders in mathematics and statistics by helping them participate in postdoctoral research that will enhance their development. “Receiving this fellowship is an incredible honor, and it will allow me to dedicate myself to research full-time for four semesters and extend my stay in Utah for an extra year. It will also give me funds to travel to conferences and visit collaborators,” he said.

Quinlan-Gallego studies solutions to polynomial equations and their singularities. For example, in pre-calculus, the equation y = x^2 defines a parabola in the plane. This parabola is smooth—it doesn’t have any sharp corners; however, occasionally, polynomial equations can fail to be smooth. These non-smooth points, called singularities, are ubiquitous across mathematics, and their study is a fundamental problem.

Eamon Quinlan-Gallego

"Receiving this fellowship is an incredible honor, and it will allow me to dedicate myself to research full-time for four semesters and extend my stay in Utah for an extra year."

 

Typically, Quinlan-Gallego uses two different techniques to study these singularities. First, he can associate certain differential equations to them whose behavior allows them to be classified in different ways. Second, he can study singularities using “modulo-p.” He fixes a prime number (usually denoted by p, but in this case, for example, we could use p = 5). Working “modulo-5” means that when he looks at a polynomial equation, like y^3 = x^2, instead of thinking about it in the real-number system (as you would in pre-calculus), he thinks of it in clock arithmetic. This means that he does all of the algebra using a clock with 5 hours. For example, if our clocks had 5 hours, and it was 4 o’clock and 2 hours pass, it is 1 o’clock. In clock arithmetic, we would say that 4 + 2 = 1. Similarly, 4 x 2 is usually 8 but in our clock, we have 4 x 2 = 3. “By working in this clock arithmetic, we lose all of the “geometry,” but we gain a host of other tools we can use, and the hope is that as the prime p selected gets larger and larger, the behavior of the singularity modulo-p approaches the real behavior,” he said. He also likes to combine these two techniques and think about differential equations modulo-p.

He was good at math as a kid but until he was a senior in high school, he thought he would become a biologist. Then two things happened: he realized he only wanted to study biology because the idea of going to remote islands to look at creatures no one had seen before sounded cool, but learning about all the chemical reactions going on in the mitochondria wasn’t so exciting--and he read Stephen Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time and became fascinated by how mathematics is used to learn about things that are far away in space and time. At that point, he switched from studying biology to physics. The jump from physics to mathematics was much more straightforward when he realized he was enjoying his math classes more than experimental physics.

Quinlan-Gallego was raised in Spain—his mother is Spanish and his father is American. After high school, he left Spain to study in Scotland at the University of Glasgow. “There was this great program for citizens of the European Union that allowed me to study in Scotland for free,” he said. “I had a wonderful time in Glasgow, and I was given so many amazing opportunities.” During his undergraduate years, he also participated in an exchange program at the National University of Singapore for a year.

Once he completed his bachelor’s degree, he knew he wanted to come to the U.S. for graduate school. He was accepted to the University of Michigan and began working under Professor Karen Smith, who serves as the William Fulton Distinguished University Professor of Mathematics. He also spent more than a year in Tokyo, again as an exchange graduate student, at the University of Tokyo.

He’s looking forward to continuing his work at the U. “The department has many experts in modulo-p methods and a host of other very interesting topics, so I’m looking forward to learning as much as possible from them and moving forward in my research.”

 

by Michele Swaner, first published @ math.utah.edu

 

NSF Fellowship

May 3, 2022

NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship

Alex Rasmussen receives a Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation.

The three-year fellowship is awarded to support future leaders in mathematics and statistics by helping them participate in postdoctoral research that will enhance their development.

Rasmussen is a Research Assistant Professor in the department. “I’m very grateful to be recognized for my research and to the people who helped me along the way, including my advisors, collaborators, mentors, and teachers,” he said. “The award will allow me to devote more time to my research program. In addition, it will enable me to take on more activities to serve the math community, such as mentoring undergraduates and organizing conferences.”

Rasmussen’s work focuses on symmetries of geometric objects. Specifically, he’s interested in symmetries of spaces that are “negatively curved.” “The geometry of negatively curved spaces is quite unlike that of our own space, and it makes them exotic and also very beautiful,” he said.

A bunch of symmetries form a group, and a group can be thought of as symmetries of many different negatively curved spaces at the same time. A large part of Rasmussen’s research is spent on classifying the different spaces associated to one group. He finds the subject interesting because it allows him to draw pictures, engage his creative and aesthetic senses, and use tools from other fields, such as commutative algebra.

Alex Rasmussen

"I’m very grateful to be recognized for my research and to the people who helped me along the way, including my advisors, collaborators, mentors, and teachers."

 

In high school, he wasn’t especially interested in math. He did well at it but found it somewhat dry and mechanical. His first math class at Colby College was a multivariable calculus class taught by Scott Taylor, Associate Professor and Department Chair. Taylor used pictures of curves and surfaces in his teaching. This was a revelation to Rasmussen, who began to discover the beauty, depth, and creativity of math. From that point on, he took more math classes.

He received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and began a graduate program at the University of California Santa Barbara, where he received a master’s degree. He obtained a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University in 2020.

He has a few research goals he’d like to work on over the next few years. These include classifying hyperbolic actions of metabelian groups and classifying geodesic laminations on infinite type surfaces. Metabelian groups are a wide class of relatively simple groups that can still have complicated hyperbolic actions. Geodesic laminations are 1-dimensional objects on surfaces consisting of long straight lines interacting in complicated ways. “These are pretty hard problems that will keep me busy for a while. Along the way, many other related problems will pop up naturally,” he said.

 

by Michele Swaner, first published @ math.utah.edu

 

Outstanding Post-Doc

May 2, 2022

Outstanding Post-Doc

Amir Hosseini has received an Outstanding Post-Doctoral Fellow Award from the College of Science.

Amir received his PhD in Chemistry from Indiana University, where he trained with one of the world’s premier organic electrochemists (Dr. Dennis Peters). He then joined the University of Utah in December 2020, as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the NSF Center of Organic Synthetic Electrochemistry (CSOE) where he is working in Prof. Henry White’s laboratory.

Amir’s research project is focused on the discovering novel electroorganic transformations and using variety of electroanalytical tools to explore the mechanism of the reaction at the molecular level. Recently, he developed a new synthetic strategy for electrooxidation of alcohols that is refer to as electroreductive oxidation. The general idea is to electrochemically generate highly oxidizing radicals by reduction of a sacrificial reagent, i.e., reduction is used to initiate a desired oxidation reaction. Amir has demonstrated that this process is effective for selective oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes and acids.

Amir Hosseini

Amir is greatly passionate about mentoring and education of the next generation of scientists. He participated in the Science Research Initiative (SRI) program during the 2021 spring semester when he mentored undergraduate students.

 

This mentorship activity included defining research projects, teaching each student the basic knowledge relevant to their research project, and supervising the progress of research projects. Additionally, he has been part of ACCESS program working with other CSOE volunteers to assist students in performing at-home chemistry experiments. Finally, he mentors graduate students, teaching them the fundamentals of electrochemistry and laboratory safety, and advising them on their graduate research.

Equity and inclusion in academic setting is a very important matter for Amir. He is currently serving as the post-doc representative on the DEI committee of the Department of Chemistry. However, his outreach activities are not limited to academia. He volunteers to help new Iranian and Afghan families settling in Salt Lake City. In this role, he assists families who need a translator for taking care of paperwork, enrolling their children in school, and communicating with federal and state officials regarding their urgent needs.

MAA Teaching Award

April 25, 2022

MAA Teaching Award

Kevin Wortman, an Associate Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the University of Utah Department of Mathematics, has been honored with the 2022 Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Distinguished Teaching Award for the Intermountain Region.

Kevin Wortman

The award honors professors of mathematics whose efforts have been recognized as influential beyond their own institutions. Since 2004, Wortman is the fifth U mathematics faculty member to receive this MAA award. Previous U math faculty recipients include Don Tucker, Nicholas Korevaar, Peter Alfeld, and Anne Roberts. Wortman joined the U's Math Department in 2007.

The Mathematical Association of America, with more than 25,000 members, is the primary professional organization for teachers of undergraduate mathematics. The MAA Intermountain Region includes all colleges and universities in Utah and southern Idaho.

by Michele Swaner, first published @ math.utah.edu

 

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NSF Fellowship

April 20, 2022

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Kaitlin O'Dell awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

“I feel so honored to receive such a prestigious award,” said O’Dell. “I never imagined I would receive the amazing feedback I got while I was applying for the fellowship. The research I plan on doing is groundbreaking work in numerical methods, so to have that recognized is beyond exciting! The fellowship is really going to allow me to focus on my research and hopefully give not only the numerical community—but the science and engineering community—a great way
to model high-dimensional equations.”

O’Dell’s work is primarily focused on the numerical modeling of high-dimensional partial differential equations. She and her team specifically are developing a particle method that will preserve the energy dissipation structure of the physical systems. Once the actual numerical procedure is developed and analyzed for validity, the team hopes to test it on many physical models to gain a better understanding of these higher-order systems. These physical models can range from materials science to fluids, mechanics, and engineering.

Kaitlin O'Dell

“I never imagined I would receive the amazing feedback I got while I was applying for the fellowship. The research I plan on doing is groundbreaking work in numerical methods, so to have that recognized is beyond exciting!"

 

She excelled at math as a kid, but it wasn’t until she began doing research as an undergrad that she realized how much she enjoys math. “I was able to do research on engineering topics that I was already familiar with and combine them with my two favorite subjects—numerical analysis and ordinary differential equations,” she said. “This really opened my eyes as to what I could be doing in the field of math and the broad range of research I could perform as an applied mathematician.”

O’Dell started out studying engineering at the University of New Mexico (UNM) because of her love for space and science. She enjoyed internships and had the opportunity to work at NASA Ames Research Center. However, she began to find that she was enjoying the math modelling aspect of engineering more than the actual engineering. She decided to switch her major to applied math during her senior year, and she began doing research with Professor Emeritus Deborah Sulsky on beam theory (a way of calculating the load-bearing and deflection characteristics of beams) as part of her honors thesis.

“Dr. Sulsky is an amazing mentor, and she’s very much the reason that I’m now doing a Ph.D. in mathematics.” After O’Dell graduated from UNM in 2020, with honors from the university and honors in mathematics, she decided to apply to the U because of the reputation of the Math Department and the fact that the graduate students seemed happy. “At the time I wasn't sure what I would research, but I found a project that I absolutely fell in love with, and now I couldn’t be happier,” she said. After she obtains her Ph.D., O’Dell would like to stay in academia, but she also envisions working in industry. “I’ll most likely apply to a wide variety of things and choose which I think will be the best fit for me.”

by Michele Swaner, first published @ math.utah.edu

 

Outstanding Post-Doc

April 20, 2022

Outstanding Post-Doc

Julie Jung has received an Outstanding Post-Doctoral Fellow Award from the College of Science.

Julie Jung spent much of her time in high school roaming greenhouses working for a wheat lab at the USDA. Since then, she has pivoted her research to ecology, having worked first with owls, songbirds, chipmunks and pollinators within New England's deciduous forests.

Following graduation with honors in Biology from Williams College, Jung found herself on a plane to Panama to do field work at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute as a graduate student in biology. There she spent the next several rainy seasons studying how red-eyed treefrogs escape hatch in response to snake vibrations.

Julie Jung

"I was so excited to have been peed on by a titi monkey while walking to lab."

 

"I was so excited to have been peed on by a titi monkey while walking to lab," she remembers. During the course of getting her doctorate from Boston University, Jung slowly grew into her role as a behavioral biologist.

As winner of this year's College of Science's "Outstanding Post-Doc Award," Jung has found a scientific home in the Werner Lab still studying the phenomenon of "phenotypic plasticity"—or how the same genotype produces distinct phenotypes depending on environmental conditions—but this time in nematodes.

Jung's NSF-funded research hopes to establish a general model of plasticity across diverse systems. The pivot from field to bench work has been jarring but only partial—as she and her lab members still get out to the Great Salt Lake to collect soil specimens.

Outside of research, Julie Jung loves to climb mountains and practice the salsa dancing skills she picked up in Panama.

by David Pace, first published @ biology.utah.edu

 

NSF Fellowship

April 19, 2022

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship

Samantha Linn awarded a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

“Recognition from the NSF feels like a pat on the back from one of your greatest role models,” said Linn. “It means “well done,” but it also means, “keep up the good work.” I am grateful because the fellowship gives me more freedom to focus on research and continue my participation in organizations that I care a lot about, such as the Association for Women in Mathematics, the Prison Mathematics Project, and the Living Room Exchange of Mathematics.”

The fellowship provides three years of support over a five-year fellowship period for individuals working on a graduate degree who have demonstrated potential for significant research achievements in STEM or STEM education.

Linn’s research is focused on understanding randomness in various biological processes. In particular, she has spent time thinking about what is known as the “redundancy principle,” which is about the need of many copies of the same entity (think cells, molecules, or ions, for example) to fulfill a biological function. The redundancy principle states that while these copies may seem energetically wasteful, this redundancy is necessary for certain tasks to occur sufficiently fast. Such a task might be neurotransmitters, which we think of as random searchers, looking for postsynaptic receptors, which we think of as targets.

Samantha Linn

“Recognition from the NSF feels like a pat on the back from one of your greatest role models,” said Linn. “It means “well done,” but it also means, “keep up the good work.”

 

Linn has been working on characterizing what might be expected from the fastest searcher. “One advantage of my work is that the application doesn’t need to be solely centered on biology,” she said. “In fact, the questions I ask are often relevant to many areas of physics, chemistry, and sociology. There are many more questions to be asked, with specific applications in mind, so I’m sure this work will keep me busy for a while!”

Linn grew up loving math, and she spent a lot of her free time doing sudoku puzzles and other math games. It wasn’t until halfway through college that she became aware of the possibility of pursuing a career in mathematics.

Before moving to Utah for graduate school, she studied biomedical engineering at the University of Minnesota. She had planned to study medicine, but became concerned by the lack of math in her pre-med classes. With the help of mentors, she realized that she would be happier pursuing a Ph.D. in mathematics.

Samantha wasn’t sure where she wanted to go for graduate school—she had flights booked for graduate program visits, but everything was canceled at the last minute with the start of the COVID pandemic in March 2020. After participating in Zoom calls with at least 50 graduate students and faculty at various programs, she decided that the people in Utah were the happiest. She had never been to Salt Lake City until the day she moved here, but  it has worked out well. Linn likes the graduate program, finds it fun, and she’s very happy she made the decision to come to the U. After graduate school, she hopes to continue her research as a postdoc and, ultimately, have a career in academia as a full professor.

by Michele Swaner, first published @ math.utah.edu