What is your academic history? I graduated with a BS in Mathematics from Western Washington University in 2010. In 2013 I earned a MS in Mathematics from Western Washington University, after taking a year off. Then I spent about a year teaching Mathematics in community colleges around Seattle and two years teaching Computer Science at Western Washington University. I started earning my PhD in Applied Mathematics in 2016 here at MSU.

What is your research focus? My research is centered on data science, specifically geometric data analysis, which has applications in machine learning, imaging problems, computational sciences etc. Currently I am working on problems related to finding the dimension of an underlying manifold generating a data set and other geometric characteristics of that data set, specifically a growth boundary and skeleton.

What is/are your career aspiration(s)? After graduate school, I am hoping to move into a post-doc position which would lead to a faculty position at a university. I would love to work at a school that either has a data science program or would be interested in starting a data science program focusing on interdisciplinary research.

Why did you choose MSU for grad school? I picked MSU for grad school because they have a lot of Applied Mathematics faculty and the Mathematics department is very open to inter-disciplinary research. Coming from Bellingham, WA, I was also attracted to the small-town feel of Bozeman and the different recreational activities.

What is one non-academic interest that you have/do? When I'm not doing math, I am usually playing with my dog, headed out to some sort of national park/forest, or knitting while watching a movie.