I decided to join the Math Department in the spring of my sophomore year switching my major from Environmental Science to Applied Mathematics. I loved learning about the real-world applications of the math I was learning in my classes. From there, my involvement in the department, the relationships with faculty and student, and the opportunities that I have taken have far surpassed my expectations for my undergraduate career. I was so lucky to have had really inspiring and amazing professors including but not limited to Dr. Kirtland, Dr. Nguyen, Dr. Reid, and especially Dr. Glomski who is my academic and research advisor for everything that I am involved in now.

Something I am really grateful for is being hired to join the Math Lab as a tutor my sophomore year of which I am now the Lead Tutor. Connecting with and helping students in this awesome community has been such a gift. I am also President of the Math Club this year which, while different with the impacts of COVID-19, has been such a blast connecting with other students, planning events, and getting to be my typical enthusiastic self for a Zoom audience.

With my courses and experiences in doing research in the Math and Environmental Science Departments at Marist, I was accepted into an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) the summer before my senior year at the University of Texas at Austin’s Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Science. There, I began research on systems dynamics inspired recurrent neural network models for predicting solutions of ordinary and partial differential equations. I was able to continue this research with my UT Austin advisor there in the fall of my senior year. That was such a fantastic experience that felt like the perfect next step in preparing me for grad school. None of this would have been possible without the Marist Math Department’s dedication to their students and I am eternally grateful to have stumbled upon such a fantastic department.