Why did you choose graduate school at IUPUI?
I did my undergraduate work at IUPUI, and met my advisor (Maxim Yattselev) my senior year while attending his graduate class. After some discussion, I decided to continue working with him!
What has been your favorite academic accomplishment since you’ve been here?
I think becoming a PhD candidate is my proudest achievement at IUPUI (so far). It’s the culmination of everything I’ve worked for up until this point!
What do you enjoy most about life in Indianapolis?
Since I’ve moved to Indy, I’ve gotten into rock climbing, and one of my favorite things about Indy is how close it is to some world-class climbing! The Red River Gorge has some of the best sandstone sport climbing and is about 4 hours away. However, my favorite spot is Stone fort, a boulder field near Chattanooga, TN with THE COOLEST classic boulders. It is about a 7 hour drive and easily my favorite weekend destination!
Please provide some details about your work/research as a graduate student and/or any activities you are involved in.
My research revolves around orthogonal polynomials; special families of functions that appear in several applications like physics and approximation theory, amongst others. Of course, being a graduate student comes with some teaching responsibility, and I take pride in doing the best job I can to describe why mathematics is literally the best thing ever. Apart from research and teaching, I serve as the secretary of the American Mathematical Society [AMS] graduate student chapter. Part of my responsibility is to help organize events for graduate students like problems-solving sessions, inviting and hosting speakers, student mini-courses/presentation, and qualifying exam workshops. Recently, I have gotten involved with a group of School of Science graduate students organizing a multidisciplinary research symposium over the summer. Our inaugural symposium was quite a success, and I’m very excited for our second go this summer.