By Johan AzambouI was born and raised in Buea, Cameroon, a small town tucked on the slope of Mount Cameroon, about 3,000 feet above sea level. It’s where I completed all my secondary education before moving to the U.S. Unlike many people, I never had trouble figuring out what I wanted to study. From a young age, I knew I wanted to major in mathematics. Besides P.E., it was the only class I truly enjoyed because, to me, 1 + 1 has always been 2 – a fact that has never changed since…
By Ben LansdellDoing a PhD is a challenge in many ways: late nights, lots of coursework, a certain pervasive "academic guilt" – the feeling that there's always more papers to read, simulations to run, and code to write. And, what can be most challenging, dealing with the uncertainties, frustrations and doubts that come with trying to advance novel research questions. I enjoyed my time thoroughly while I was a PhD student at UW Applied Mathematics. But I also struggled with some of…
Daniel Shapero and Donsub Rim, respectively at the CSDMS meeting
By Donsub RimDuring the academic year 2024–2025, I had the opportunity to return to the University of Washington (UW). My home institution, Washington University in St. Louis (WashU), grants its Arts and Sciences faculty an early sabbatical after their first three years. I decided to spend the year in Seattle: my wife was about to begin her job here, and I…
Graduation Program - Photo GalleryDoctors of PhilosophyMarlin Figgins- From Mechanism to Practice: Evolutionary Forecasting for SARS-CoV-2. Advisor: Trevor BedfordDayou Luo - Modeling and Algorithms for Nonconvex Trajectory Generation Problems: From Constraint Reformulations and First-Order Proximal Methods to Structure-Exploiting Convex Solvers Advisor: Behcet…
By Jake Price
My undergraduate years were spent at Kalamazoo College, a small undergraduate liberal arts college in western Michigan. It gained some acclaim from being featured in Colleges that Change Lives, a book presenting small, student-focused institutions that seemed to be read largely by parents in the late 90s and early 2000s (including my mom). Studying mathematics and physics there was a dream, and I benefited tremendously from the personal relationships I was able to make…
By Charlie (Yihan) Yin,
“No matter what, I’ll never work in a math or data-related job because they’re just not cool.” That’s what I swore to the moon when I was 10 years old, but eight years later, I proved myself wrong. I discovered that’s not true at all.
Fast forward to three years ago when I received my offer from the University of Washington. I was excited because Seattle is my dream city, and it was thrilling to be able to study and live there. During my first year, I…
By Jing (Julia) Xu
Unlike some with clear career paths from a young age, I found my direction through trial and error. When I started undergrad in the early 2010’s, civil engineering was one of the most sought-after fields in China. The challenge of designing high-rise buildings and constructing bridges across bays intrigued me, leading me to pursue a degree in civil engineering.
Four years later, I enrolled in the master’s degree program at the University of California,…
By Arvid Levander
Thinking back on my time at UW, I could write about how challenging the program was and the late nights of studying, but that does not stand out to me as being special to this program. It is graduate-level applied mathematics, and it is supposed to be tough. Instead, I would want to write about what got me through the program and what I believe to be special about it.
If you were part of the 2023-2024 cohort at UW Applied Mathematics you have probably seen me…
By Kyle Sledge
It was fall 2017; the leaves were changing colors, and I couldn’t shake the nagging feeling of unfinished business. A few months prior, I successfully passed the third and final exam of the Chartered Financial Analyst professional designation, after multiple years of intense self-study. Earning the right to use the CFA credential was a significant career milestone that paired well with my on-the-job training as a bank examiner with a regulatory agency. With…
