Alumni

Recent Alumni News

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 this… Read more
By Kelsey Marcinko It’s wild to me that I’ve been carrying the title of “Dr. Marcinko” for 3 years, and I am at the beginning of my fourth(!) year as a professor at Whitworth University, my alma mater. (Whitworth is a Christian liberal-arts university on the drier side of Washington state). Enough time has somehow passed so that most of the current Ph.D. students in the Applied Math department are students I never knew. As I reflect back on my time in the department, I remain grateful… Read more
By Natalie Sheils In graduate school, the focus was going deep. I was cultivating myself to become the world authority in one specific area. While I was encouraged to read from various areas and take classes from other departments, I also had to write a thesis which meant learning about (in my case) the Fokas transform method for linear PDEs in incredible depth. What remained unbeknown to me during those times was how this seemingly niche training, and the relationships sprouting from… Read more
By Robert Hollman When I arrived at the University of Washington in August of 2022, I felt that the skills I was bringing into the program fell woefully short of the skills required to succeed. My undergraduate experience had left me disillusioned about my place in academia – while my love of math felt simple, college required navigating a plethora of new experiences with little social support to guide my path. I chose my undergraduate major by accident and dropped out of my education… Read more
By Meghana Velegar It has been a little over two months, and I still can’t believe that my long and arduous journey towards my degree has finally culminated. Sitting in the departmental ceremony in one of the designated PhD graduate chairs felt so surreal, and yet so absolutely real. To say that my journey in Applied Math was eventful would be an understatement. I have navigated severe mental health challenges, personal loss and grief, a high risk pregnancy, new motherhood, postpartum… Read more
Doctors of Philosophy Olga DorabialaAdvisors: J. Nathan Kutz, Aleksandr Aravkin Robust Approaches for Unsupervised Learning Nora GilbertsonAdvisor: Mark Kot Dynamics in Discrete Time: Successional Communities, Spatial Models, and Allee Effects Read more
SIAM is excited to announce the 2023 SIAM Science Policy Fellowship Program recipients.  This program engages early career professionals in science policy and advocacy.  Fellowship recipients learn about the workings of science policy as it pertains to our discipline by participating in SIAM’s… Read more
By Katherine Owens Reflecting on my time as a student in the applied mathematics department at the University of Washington I feel grateful for the ways that the community has inspired, equipped, and supported me. Starting at the University of Washington as a masters, student I was uncertain about whether graduate school was for me. My imposter syndrome stemmed from feeling underprepared and lacking a clear sense that math was my only possible calling. However, between dedicated… Read more
By Yuna LiuMajoring in Applied Mathematics was a surprise for me. Before being admitted to the University of Washington, I wanted to pursue math and continue my study in a Ph.D. program. I initially applied to Applied Mathematics out of curiosity with only an obscure image of the field. I had no idea what I could find within the department. The first turning point happened when I started working at Asbury Lab as a research assistant… Read more
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