FRONTIERS BYU COLLEGE OF PHYSICAL & MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES . SPRING 2013
Animating: Combining Art with Science p. 12
Emphasizing Applied Mathematics p. 16 Science—Always Fun p. 20
FRONTIERS MAGAZINE
BYU College of Physical & Mathematical Sciences Scott D. Sommerfeldt, Dean Thomas W. Sederberg, Associate Dean Bart J. Kowallis, Associate Dean Kurt D. Huntington, Assistant Dean
Department Chairs Gregory F. Burton, Chemistry & Biochemistry Parris K. Egbert, Computer Science Scott M. Ritter, Geological Sciences Robin O. Roundy, Mathematics Steven R. Williams, Mathematics Education Ross L. Spencer, Physics & Astronomy H. Dennis Tolley, Statistics
Frontiers Production Bart J. Kowallis, Editorial Director D. Lynn Patten, Assistant Editorial Director Haley Frame, Managing Editor Danica Baird, Assistant Editor Jason Redford, Graphic Designer Levi Price, Photographer Stacie Carnley, Writer Carly Huchendorf, Writer Alysa Kleinman, Writer Curtis Penfold, Writer
Contact Information D. Lynn Patten, Marketing Manager 801.422.4022, lynn_patten@byu.edu
PHOTOS: cover and right, Levi Price
Brent C. Hall, LDS Philanthropies 801.422.4501, brenth@byu.edu
A Work of Art After the deans’ suite was remodeled, the wall across the hall looked a little drab. The deans turned to Wes Lifferth, a machinist and carpenter for the physics department, to change that. Lifferth, who graduated with a fine arts degree, suggested covering the wall in a large stained-glass tribute to the college. With the help of his students, Lifferth designed and crafted an elaborate multicolored glass panel that includes flowers and leaves representing each of the seven colleges.
DEAN’S MESSAGE
Opportunity for progress is always available where passion is explored and hard work is cultivated. I am always impressed by the way our students, faculty, and alumni prove this to me year after year. I see role models in stories like Lawrence Barrett’s winning the Innovation Idol competition (p. 11) and professor Michael Dorff receiving a $1.2 million NSF grant (p. 10) to continue the Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics.
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a new math emphasis (p. 16) option in applied math and computational math. After extensive planning and preparation work, we feel this new math emphasis will give students with an interest in applied mathematics a great opportunity for study and advancement. Along these same lines, our animation center (p. 12) has now moved into the Talmage building, home of our computer science department. Seeing that a closer interaction with computer science is crucial to staying competitive in the animation industry, Brent Adams, director of the Center of Animation, was excited to make the move. This type of commitment from attentive faculty ensure the best possible education for our students. Propelled by the desire to move forward, each of us continues, through various means, to pursue education and progress. Here in the College, we will press forward, doing our very best to create opportunities for our students to move forward and be the successes we know they are capable of becoming. I also would like to encourage each of you to remember that such progress is in part driven by the possibility of funding for research, made possible by our endowment funds. See how our fund is growing on p. 9. Wishing you all the best,
Scott Sommerfeldt, Dean
PHOTO: courtesy of BYU Photo
In a variety of occupations and fields, our alumni (p. 6) push for progress. One chemistry alum is at home with her child to help him progress, a computer science alum pushes for progress on the next release of Microsoft Windows software, a geology alum studies dinosaurs to earn his PhD, a math alum researches personnel sustainability in the Pentagon to advance financial viability, a math education alum teaches and coaches in an effort to propel his students forward, a physics alum labors to advance hybrid computer processors, and a statistics alum analyzes energy and environmental data to positively affect energy conservation legislation. Education promotes progress and the opportunities we strive to create are driven by this motivation. We study so we can expand our minds and cultivate creativity and gain knowledge. In the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, I am grateful to say we are working hard to take the necessary steps to progress. Our dedicated faculty are always looking for innovative ways to improve their contributions in their respective fields and to benefit their students. To create optimized learning opportunities, Duane Merrell (p. 20) came up with teaching solutions that energize elementary students by involving them in hands-on science experiments. Through their interactive experience, Merrell inspires further science exploration and learning. The students that benefit from Merrell’s methods of interactive teaching will perhaps go on to study science at a college level and in time, reciprocate their enthusiasm for the field to other young students. As markets change slightly and technology progresses, our programs evolve as well, in order to provide our students ample opportunities for success. Starting this fall 2013, we are offering
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PHOTOS: top Levi Price; middle Dick Rochester; bottom courtesy of Danny Young
DEPARTMENTS 6
ALUMNI NEWS
8
FRIENDS OF THE COLLEGE
9
COLLEGE NEWS
10
FACULTY NEWS
11
STUDENT NEWS
FEATURES 12
STORYTELLING
16
THE COMMON LANGUAGE
20
FUN
24
AUDACITY
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE ANIMATION
12 20
NEW MATH EMPHASIS
SCIENCE COMES TO LIFE FOR STUDENT TEACHERS
ELEMENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL CAREER
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ALUMNI NEWS
AFTER THEIR ALMA MATER Chemistry & Biochemistry 1999| Ryan Marshall (BS ’97, MS ’99, JD ’02; Salt Lake City, UT) spoke to chemistry freshmen on November 6 about his experience with Intellectual Property Law. Marshall, who was previously employed as a commissioner for Lehi City, now works for Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione in Salt Lake City as a patent attorney. 2008| Alicia Farmer (BS ’08, MS ’11 Texas Southwestern Medical; New Britain, CT) received a master’s in molecular biophysics, researching the nuclear transport of proteins by CRM1, and publishing several papers along the way. She is now at home with her young son. 2011| Aubrey Sheffield (BS ’11; Provo, UT) teaches beginning chemistry lab at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, as an adjunct faculty. She also cares for her 14-month-old daughter. 2011| Eduardo García (BS ’11; Cambridge, UK) works for the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) in the Protein Data Bank Europe (PDBe) group. He develops web tools for deposition, annotation, and validation of biomolecular structures resolved by electron microscopy. Computer Science 1985| Dale Neibaur (BS ’79, MS ’85; Pleasant Grove, UT) was recently awarded the “Computing that Serves Award” by the BYU Computer Science Department. Neibaur is one of the founders of Novell Data Systems Inc., a multinational software company based in Provo, Utah. 2011| Evan Witt (BS ’11; Redmond, WA) works in the testing division of Microsoft’s Windows Core, on a team working on the next release of Windows. Geological Sciences 2009 |Tara Allen (BS ’09; San Diego, CA) works as a staff gemologist for the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) in Carlsbad, California. 2010| L.J. (Laurel) Krumenacker (BS ’06 Idaho State, MS ’10; Bozeman, MT) is currently a PhD candidate at Montana State University under the supervision of Dr. Dave Varricchio. L.J. is studying the dinosaurs and Cretaceous paleontology of Idaho and similar age fossils from western Montana. 2011| Forrest Roberts (BS ’11; Austin, TX) is currently working on his master’s at the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University
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of Texas at Austin. He works as a graduate research assistant at the Bureau of Economic Geology, which is a part of the Jackson School. His current project is a shale gas study that analyzes future production capabilities for shale in the U.S. He also recently became the proud father of a baby girl. Mathematics 1959| Robert Sharp (BS ’59; Vancouver, WA) is the senior investment counsel for Sharp Investments. He has invested in common stock for over 40 years. Sharp has authored multiple books on investing and taught seminars and courses on investing for 15 years. Recently, after reading a math department newsletter, Sharp was so impressed by the Applied and Computational Math Emphasis that he offered the department a generous donation to support the program. 2008| Sarah Brazee Ellsworth (BS ’08, JD ’11; Kingsport, TN) graduated from the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU, passed the Tennessee bar and began working as an attorney for Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz in Johnson City, Tennessee. She works on labor and employment matters, but also does litigation and some family and estate law. 2010| Enoch Yeung (BS ’10; Hollywood, CA) is a graduate student at CalTech Institute in Pasadena, CA pursuing a PhD in Control and Dynamical Systems. Enoch researches how to synthesize gene networks that function reliably and are robust to environmental disturbance. 2010| Brigham Wilson (BS ’10; Arlington, VA) is an operations research analyst for the U.S. Air Force, working in the Pentagon. Brigham studies many issues from personnel sustainability to research and development spending to aircraft estimation. Mathematics Education 1988| Timo Mostert (BS ’88; Orem, UT) recently received the Teacher of the Year award from American Fork High School in American Fork, Utah. Mostert has taught algebra, pre-calculus, and stats in American Fork since 1998. He has also helped as the school’s cross-country coach, bringing the boys team to the state championships every year he has coached. Physics & Astronomy 2007| David Tanner (BS ’07, PhD ’12 Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Austin, TX) graduated in 2012 with his PhD in biophysics and computational biology and now works for AMD as a software engineer specializing in high-performance parallel algorithms for AMD’s new hybrid computer processors. The new processors
he is working on will accelerate high-performance computational physics such as fluid dynamics, astrophysics, weather, and biochemistry (not to mention video games). 2008| Bryan Hicks (BS ’08, PhD-MBA ’12 Cornell; Dallas, TX) works as senior product marketing manager for AT&T’s cloud solutions since finishing his MBA in 2012. Bryan also stays busy with his daughters and helping with Boy Scouts. 2008| David Hutchison (BS ’08; Santa Clara, CA) works at Intel in the photonics group within Intel Labs, while finishing his PhD part time from Cornell. He’s been with Intel since July 2012. Statistics 1990| Trevar Withers (BS ’89, MS ’90; Wadsworth, OH) is the reserving actuary at Westfield Insurance Company. His primary responsibility is to estimate the liability associated with unpaid claims, using stochastic models to quantify the uncertainty of these estimates. 2010| Erika Ball (BS ’10; Arlington, VA) works as a statistician for PricewaterhouseCoopers in their business consulting line of service. 2010| Scott Morris (BS ’10; West Richland, WA) works at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory as an energy and environmental statistician. Scott analyzes geological, spatial, economic, and other types of data, greatly affecting legislation supporting energy efficiency and energy conservation, as well as curbing the effects of climate change. 2011| Anneliese Zufelt (BS ’11; Nashville, TN) works as a health systems analyst programmer at the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research. She develops web tools for the Clinical and Translational Science Award Consortium which promotes research collaboration around the country. She also devotes some time to the Tennessee Initiative for Perinatal Quality Care project called the Golden Hour. The project focuses on prompt medical treatment in the first 60 minutes after the birth of a high-risk infant. Anneliese creates dynamic reports on hospital data from across Tennessee to track progress of this initiative.
MEMORY BYTES In this issue’s Memory Byte, alumnus Bart Kowallis, now an associate dean in the College, shares one of his experiences balancing research and coursework.
Mailing my Midterm By Bart J. Kowallis (Geology, BS ’77, Geology, MS '79 Univ of Wisc.-Madison, Geology, PhD '81 Univ. Of Wisc.-Madison; Provo, UT)
During the fall semester of 1976 I was working as an undergraduate research assistant to Dr. Myron G. Best in the geology department and also preparing to take the Graduate Record Exam so that I could begin the process of applying for graduate school. Dr. Best and one of his graduate students, Richard Holmes (BS, 1975; MS, 1978), were investigating the thermoluminescent properties of basalts hoping that they could use the technique to determine the ages of young lava flows. My role was to collect the basalt samples, which would require some travelling, including one trip to the Yosemite/Mono Lakes area of California before the weather got snowy and cold. The only week I thought I could get away was the week of my scheduled midterm exam for math 113. I was really enjoying the class, but I was afraid that my teacher, Dr. Kenneth Hillam, would simply say it was impossible to miss the midterm since these tests were monitored and timed. To my surprise, when I explained my situation, Dr. Hillam said he had a solution. He gave me the midterm in a sealed envelope, told me to open the envelope on my trip on the scheduled day, time myself, then put it in a second envelope and mail it to him. I was honored that he would trust me to be honest and to take the test on my own. So, on the designated evening, while I was staying in a cabin in Yosemite National Park, I took the test exactly as I had promised and mailed it off to Dr. Hillam the next morning. This is just one of many experiences I had as a student at BYU with wonderful faculty members who cared about me and were willing to go out of their way to help me succeed.
Have a Memory Byte to Share? You can email us your anecdotes (up to 200 words) at cpms@byu.edu with “Memory Bytes” in the subject line. We’ll publish the best stories in the next issue of Frontiers. Submissions will be edited for length, grammar, appropriateness, and clarity.
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FRIENDS OF THE COLLEGE
COMING FULL CIRCLE Text: Stacie Carnley Photo: Levi Price
"IT’S VERY REWARDING TO TURN AROUND AND GIVE BACK TO A PROGRAM THAT HAS DONE SO MUCH TO HELP YOU ALONG YOUR PATH. IT'S HELPFUL TO GIVE BACK & SEE HOW IT HAS ADDED A NEW DIMENSION TO YOUR CAREER"
Allie Tomlinson, a statistics graduate (BS '89), has helped improve BYU's actuarial science program, while serving as chairman of the advisory board.
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“First, we’ve looked at features of well-respected actuarial programs to see how we measure up and to identify aspects of our program that can be improved,” she said. “Second, we’ve recognized that establishing good communication with our alumni will be beneficial to the program. Our alumni have great skill and expertise and there are many ways that they can serve. A number of them are giving us leads on opportunities with their employers and coming to campus to interview students.” The third area the board and department have focused on has been internship opportunities for students. “As with most fields, internships are very important for the professional development of actuarial students and frequently lead to full-time employment,” she said. “The department has hired a specialist to help our students find internships and to assist them in preparing to apply.” Tomlinson’s desire to return the favor stems from her
BYU education. She was prepared as an undergrad, not only to take on the responsibilities of analyzing company risks and liabilities, but also to pursue paths of learning, generosity, and service — values she practices regularly in her mentoring activities. “BYU has a tradition of instilling strong ethics and a tradition of helping students understand what is important in a career path,” she said. “Along with developing your skills to be good at your profession, you want to develop an attitude of helping others. You pick that up along the way as a student. It’s great to now be able to give back and to be an influence for good.” Tomlinson said her participation within the department has helped keep her professional skills sharp, and encourages fellow alumni to take the time to get involved. “Being able to serve has helped me be aware of new developments within my profession and how they impact current students,” she said. “It’s helpful to give back, to see the importance of becoming involved, and to see how that can add a new dimension to your career. It’s very rewarding to turn around and give back to a program that has done so much to help you along your path.”
PHOTO: Levi Price
Some alumni feel their most valuable contribution is a financial gift, while other alumni, like Allie Tomlinson, feel their best donation is time. BYU alumna Allie Tomlinson, a graduate of the Department of Statistics, gives back by volunteering her time and expertise. Tomlinson, who graduated in 1989 with an emphasis in actuarial science, is a retired actuary and currently serves as chairman of an industry advisory board for the BYU actuarial program. Having earned the designation of Fellow in the Society of Actuaries and with over ten years experience as a professional actuary, Tomlinson takes time to help improve the department by managing the advisory board, sharing her experience as an actuary, and even reviewing students' résumés and cover letters. Tomlinson said the advisory board's purpose is to strengthen the actuarial program and, up to this point, action has been concentrated in three areas.
COLLEGE NEWS
Passing students were surprised to see dancing robots, an algebra teacher working on a moving whiteboard, and a mathematician reciting pi while being pie-d in the face, during a CPMS flash mob this October. Amidst the chaos, “Reactive Adam,” a mad scientist, emerged from the crowd waving a banner and offering a thundering speech that ended with a resounding chant: “For your brain! For your other brain! For science!”
Remodeled College Office Suite
After a summer of construction, the new college office suite is open and in use. The advisement center has now been incorporated into the college suite, creating better cohesion between college services. Together, these offices provide students with easy access to academic counselors, career advisors, and deans, all in the same place. With new space for the college marketing team, redesigned deans’ offices, and a high-tech conference room, faculty and students alike are benefitting from the light-filled space.
Celebrating Honor
Students, faculty, and staff celebrated the Honor Code February 19-22 for BYUSA Honor Week. Activities across campus celebrated students’ commitment to honor. From a game of Twister in the Garden Court to service in the Terrace, students had fun following the Honor Code.
Robert Langer-Izatt/Christensen Lecture
Dr. Robert Langer from MIT, one of the 100 most influential people according to Time and CNN, came to BYU for the annual Izatt-Christensen lecture. With over 800 issued and pending patents in medical technology, Langer is known as a pioneer in medical biochemistry engineering.
The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences has a goal of creating two endowment funds, one for undergraduate research and the other to keep our graduate programs competitive, each of $10 million. “Our main goal is to have the highest quality undergraduate programs,” 10m said Dr. Bart Kowallis. “And in order to do that, we have to have graduate students who can help to train those undergraduates and to involve them in research with faculty members.” 8m Dr. Kowallis believes that although the graduate support will only fund a limited number of graduate students, it will directly impact the quality of our graduate program and consequently undergraduate research and 6m education. Through reaching our endowment goals, CPMS will be able to solidify the foundation needed to maintain its strong commitment to undergraduate research. 4m Of course, it’s an expense to bring the best graduate students to BYU. Unlike law schools and other graduate programs, the college competes for the students rather than vice versa. 2m If we want the best, we need to be able to make a competitive offer. The endowments will give us the ability to attract top-tier students, in effect elevating the quality of all the programs throughout the college. UNDERGRADUATE MENTORING
Flash Mob for Science
STILL GROWING
GRADUATE MENTORING
CURRENT HAPPENINGS
College Awards Banquet
Faculty, staff, and their families gathered on January 31, for the Annual College Awards Banquet in the Wilkinson Center Ballroom. The University Service Awards were presented to Shane Jorgenson, Jackie Robertson, Kathy Lee Garrett, Greg Corlett, Ruth Dauwalder, Peggy Erickson, Kurt Huntington, and Kim Sullivan. College Awards went to John Ellsworth, Jeff Macedone, William Christensen, Jessica Purcell, and Dan Olsen.
HELP FUND THE FUTURE Visit cpms.byu.edu/donate, or contact Brent Hall at 801422-4501 or by email at brenth@byu.edu.
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FACULTY NEWS
GREAT LEADERSHIP, TEACHING, AND RESEARCH CPMS Faculty Continue Achieving
CHEMISTRY & BIOCHEMISTRY New Faculty: David Michaelis will join the chemistry department this April. Michaelis received his B.S. (2005) from BYU before pursuing his PhD at the University of WisconsinMadison. Michaelis is currently finishing a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. Cancer-curing Sponges: Rare sponges in Japan
may contain cancer-curing chemicals according to professor Steven Castle’s research. A compound in rare deep-sea sponges called yaku’amide A is toxic to several forms of cancer. Castle is now working on ways to synthesize this compound. Scouts for Science: Lee Hansen, a retired BYU
chemistry professor, and Thea Buell, Hansen’s daughter, have volunteered to write articles for the Boy Scouts of America magazine, Boys’ Life. The articles spark interest in science by highlighting fun experiments scouts can do at home. Chemical Contribution: John D. Lamb, a
chemistry professor, was awarded the 2012 Ion Chromatography Award for his “sustained and significant contribution” to ion chromatography at the International Ion Chromatography Symposium in Berlin, Germany. Measuring Molecules: Adam Woolley, chemis-
try professor, and his students have discovered a new way to detect ultra-low concentrations of molecules. Their experiments, published in the journal Analytical Chemistry, were able to detect as little as a single nanogram of a target molecule. This research will be useful in identifying certain diseases and cancers that were previously undetectable.
COMPUTER SCIENCE Computing Success: Eric Ringger, an associate professor of computer science, received BYU’s Young Scholar Award, an honor given for significant contributions early in a faculty member’s career. Ringger specializes in areas of natural language processing (NLP) and text mining.
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Transferring Technology: Associate Dean,
Tom Sederberg was honored with the BYU Technology Transfer Award, a recognition presented to faculty who have researched and developed commercial products. Sederberg is the inventor of T-Splines, software used in designing high-quality 3-D surfaces. GEOLOGICAL SCIENCES New Faculty: Greg Carling recently joined the geology department as an assistant professor. Carling specializes in hydrogeology and contaminant hydrology. He received his B.S. (2005) and M.S. (2007) degrees from BYU and completed his PhD at the University of Utah in 2012. Dissolving Islands: The island of Oahu is
dissolving and erosion isn’t the only factor. Professor Steven Nelson’s research recently revealed that dissolution by groundwater will eventually reduce the island to a low-lying seamount—in another 1.5 million years. Nelson’s research has been featured in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and on NBC News. Retirement: Alan Mayo, a professor of geol-
ogy, retired from BYU on November 1, 2012. Mayo has been a great asset to the geology department, maintaining a strong research and teaching program in hydrogeology. He has been a fellow at the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and a Fulbright Scholar. In Remembrance: J. Keith Rigby, Sr. died
MATHEMATICS
Master of Mentorship: Professor Michael Dorff received the Lawrence K. Egbert Teaching and Learning Faculty Fellowship for his work in mentored learning. Through an NSF grant, Dorff created and directed the “Center for Undergraduate Research in Mathematics.” Due to the program’s success, NSF renewed the grant last year. Multicultural Mathematics: Greg Conner
has been working alongside Dr. Joerg Thuswaldner from Austria who came to BYU specifically to work with Conner. Thuswaldner works with self-similar structures and hopes that with Conner’s expertise in complicated mathematical spaces they will be able to figure out how self-similar structures work. MATHEMATICS EDUCATION New Associate Chair: Professor Dan Siebert was recently appointed as associate chair of the department, replacing Blake Peterson who served for four years. PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY Red Planet Rovers: Professor David Allred, along with some BYU physics and engineering students will return to the annual University Rover Challenge at the Mars Desert Research Station in southern Utah. There each team’s constructed Mars rover must complete tasks like gathering samples and servicing equipment. Last year Allred’s team took second place.
November 13, 2012 in Provo, Utah. Rigby worked as a geology professor at BYU from 1953 until his retirement in 1991. He served as chair of the Department of Geology and dean of BYU graduate studies. Rigby was a world-renowned expert on fossil sponges and studied samples from every continent publishing more than 300 professional papers.
STATISTICS
Shrinking Himalayas: Professor Summer
Calculating Olympic Gold: In 2004, statis-
Rupper’s research in the Himalayas recently appeared in Geophysical Research Letters and the New York Times. Rupper is one of the first to examine glaciers in Bhutan and discovered that at least 10 percent of their glaciers will vanish within the next few decades. The Bhutan government plans to use this research in long-term planning for water resources and flooding hazards.
New Faculty: CPMS welcomes Matthew
Heaton to the statistics department. Heaton received his B.S. (2006) and M.S. (2007) in statistics from BYU and his PhD from Duke University (2011). He worked as a post-graduate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research before joining BYU as a faculty member. tics professors Shane Reese and Gilbert Fellingham created a statistical model to determine which skills were most critical for a volleyball team’s scoring success. It has become a sort of “coaching bible” for U.S.A. volleyball coaches. This year, they refined their model for the 2012 U.S.A. women’s team, who took the silver medal in London.
STUDENT NEWS
OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM Chemistry & Biochemistry
Physics & Astronomy
Chemistry intramurals, magic shows, and a nerd dance—these are just a few of the activities that won BYU’S Y-Chem Society the Commendable Chapter Award from the American Chemical Society (ACS). This award is the second highest recognition that a student chapter can receive and is given to chemistry chapters for special recognition on the basis of their programs and activities. This is the second award Y-Chem has received from the ACS and is the highest award they have ever received. Y-Chem performed several chemistry magic shows at elementary schools, attended the ACS meeting last March where 18 students presented their research, hosted an Open Lab Day in May designed for junior high and high school students, and hosted other activities meant to connect chemistry students and non-chemistry students alike.
Lawrence Barrett, a junior, was crowned the 2012 nanoUtah Innovation Idol. Barrett competed against PhD students and even a CEO, and still won. He and his team created a nickel microfilter using a unique fabrication process designed by researchers in the physics department at BYU. The microfilter Barrett helped create can filter both gases and liquids and has potential uses in the biofuel industry, such as helping to remove yeast from ethanol, while using less energy. Another physics undergraduate, Andrew Davis, utilized BYU’s new fabrication method to create carbon filters and then Barrett extended the method to create nickel filters, which he hopes will be even stronger. Physics students working in the lab of Dr. Robert Davis have been featured on KSL, Discovery News, Gizmo, and other venues, after creating a microscopic Cupid for Valentine’s Day, with arms the width of a human hair.
PHOTO: Y-Chem encourages participation at their events.
PHOTO: Lawrence Barrett
PHOTOS: top, Levi Price; bottom, courtesy of innovationutah.com
0101 Computer Science 1010 Computer Science grad student Neil Toronto developed a new way to encode complicated math. This made spam filters, voice commands, and artificial weather simulation easier to create. With the help of Dr. Jay McCarthy, Toronto presented his programming language at an academic conference in Japan.
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Geological Sciences
Mathematics
Mathematics Education
Statistics
Geology students have taken the initiative to expand their education beyond the BYU campus. With the help of Dr. Alan Mayo, who recently retired, and Dr. Greg Carling, students have studied different lakes locally and in the southwestern states, to find their sources in an attempt to better understand how we can preserve these important bodies of water.
At the Intermountain Math Competition (IMC), with 36 students from the intermountain area, the top six scores were all from BYU. Sam Dittmer received the top score, a perfect 70/70, while two other BYU students tied for second place. These three students, along with 37 other BYU students, later represented our college at the national Putnam Exam.
Ashley Burgess, under the direction of Professor Dan Siebert, has conducted research into why some elementary school teachers resist adopting new methods for teaching math and why they are reluctant to help students see the value in learning math.
BYU students Skyler Stice, Greg Hudnall, and Carl Peterson literally put their education to the test. These students took the initiative to study on their own for the American Society for Quality Certified Process Analysts Certification Exam and all three passed. Passing the exam provides them a competitive edge in the job market.
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STORYT T H E
Text: Alysa Kleinman Photo: Levi Price
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S C I E N C E
Pixar. DreamWorks. Disney. Digital Domain. Sony. Anyone who has seen an animated movie in the past twenty years knows these are the biggest names in the industry. Soon, representatives from these prominent studios will gather on campus to see one thing: the new Center for Animation, which has recently been relocated from the Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology to CPMS. The tale of the Center goes back a few years.
B E H I
While practicing architecture in Salt Lake City in the early 1980s, Brent Adams realized he was fascinated by computer visualization. He decided to get his master’s of fine arts degree at the University of Utah. “I realized there was a limit to how much architecture will use visualization, since it was mostly used for just floor plans,” Adams said. “I decided to get to know computer graphics better and then take what I learned back into architecture.” But Adams never went back to his career in architecture. Instead he started teaching night classes at BYU in 1982. Originally an interior design professor, Adams began
TELLING N D
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A N I M AT I O N
teaching an animation class on campus at the request of several students in 1989. Adams moved to the engineering college with the newly created industrial design program in 1997, and continued to lead students in creating unforgettable stories. Several students were able to learn from Adams’ night school class and then secure excellent jobs in the industry—with degrees in film, industrial design, interior design, illustration, computer science, or other majors. From these early beginnings, the program grew and gained national attention. The rest is history. To kick off the transfer of the Center to CPMS, an open
house will be scheduled for industry friends where artwork from some of the program’s award-winning short films will be displayed. The new animation theater being constructed in conjunction with the transfer will also be showcased. The open house is one way the Center plans to continue fostering the strong relationships it has with these studios. In addition, the open house will officially welcome the Center for Animation to the Department of Computer Science. As Adams explained, the move more closely aligns the Center with the CPMS computer science program, a reflection on the evolving industry.
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“As the animation industry continues to change how they make movies and games, it has become apparent that to maintain our successful status we needed to increase our interaction with computer science,” Adams said. “This move allows us to explore new ways to teach and prepare students for their future.” It is this attentiveness to the changing industry that makes BYU's animation program highly competitive. Students in the Center for Animation select a specialty or type of animation that matches their interests. Several professors in the Department of Computer Science mentor students interested in the science behind the story, including professors Parris Egbert, Bryan Morse, Bill Barrett, Tom Sederberg, Michael Jones, and Robert Burton. For example, Dr. Michael Jones helps students make the physics of animation appear real.
“We’ve done work in fluid simulation, movement of wind through trees, motion capture of rope, and weathering of sandstone in southern Utah,” Jones said. “Typically we will do thirty to sixty simulation steps between every frame.” Behind the captivating images seen on the big screen for films like Up and Toy Story, there is computer coding, mathematics, and hours of work by computer scientists like the faculty and students associated with the Center for Animation. With students majoring in either the Bachelor of Fine Arts program in animation or in the Bachelor of Science program in computer science with an emphasis in animation, the Center for Animation produces award-winning short films every year. These films, with a variety of heroes from imaginative toddlers to brave piñatas, have won eleven College Television Awards, referred to as “Student Emmys,”
CHARACTER BUILDING Imagine the lifecycle of a piñata. Children all gather and cheer while you get hit in the face with a bat, until you eventually produce candy. In the short film “Las Piñatas,” the Center for Animation captures the fear and excitement that result from life as a cowboy-shaped piñata, who already took a hit to the leg. With around 30 students involved in illustrating the story, the collaborative effort later received a “Student Emmy” award. Even though the Center for Animation makes storytelling look as easy as taking candy from a piñata, giving life to characters is actually a tedious process. Between scripting, voice recording, calculating the physics, 3D modeling, and making finishing touches—animation teaches design, but it also teaches teamwork, creativity, and hard work in an industry-type environment.
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PHOTOS: courtesy of Brent Adams
The animation program is more than just sketching out large cowboy hats. It involves intensive design from start to finish, developing both the character and the animator along the way.
from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation over eight years as well as four Student Academy Awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The success doesn’t stop there. Because of the high quality reputation of these programs and strong industry mentoring of students, those who graduate in animation are in demand for competitive internships and jobs. “They end up with a really good computer science education, and then they pick up a really good animation education, too,” Jones said. “They end up hirable in almost anything with computer science or animation.” In addition to using their industry partners to stay current, the Center for Animation also stretches students with new challenges like simulating screaming audiences, wispy clouds, and detailed cloth. “In each new film, we try to incorporate one or two new
Welcome to the first step in animation, the sketch. This gives the basic look of the character, along with other details like the dark shadows from his hat.
challenges that we haven’t attempted before,” said Parris Egbert, Department Chair of Computer Science. “This keeps the students current and forces them to address the tough challenges in animation.” According to Egbert, without the combined contributions of the visual arts, animation, and computer science departments, the program would not be where it is today. “The cross-disciplinary nature of the program has been the main factor in helping us succeed,” he said. Beyond the prestigious awards that the animation program has claimed, Egbert explains that the most important thing is the students’ success. “Our goal is to flood the market with animators that do top-notch work, but have high moral values and ethical standards,” said Egbert. “So far, we are doing well at accomplishing this goal.”
Next, wire framing takes the sketch and makes it 3D, with added depth. This step brings the character off the page and into life.
Rendering is the last step in the basics of animation. This builds either individual images or groups of images in preparation for illustrating the story.
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THE COMMON LANGUAGE NEW MATH EMPHASIS BROADENS CAREER OPTIONS FOR STUDENTS
Text: Stacie Carnley
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Text: Chris Scheitinger Photo: John Lloyd
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ill your knack for numbers and penchant for science be best utilized in medicine or teaching? How can you ensure that you will enroll in the program that will yield the best results for you? As students wrestle with these important questions, there will soon be an additional option for them to consider. Beginning fall 2013, students will have the option of majoring in mathematics with an emphasis in applied and
The curriculum unites mathematical and computational frameworks, and applies them to a specific emphasis of the student’s choice. “If you are interested in neuroscience and how the brain sends signals through the nervous system, those are very mathematical descriptions,” Humpherys explained. “There’s a way to break down what the body is doing in an abstract way and understand it as a set of mathematical relationships. You’ve got a lot of complexity, so there’s a need for computation.” Humpherys said the program is a great option for science and math students, especially those who can’t settle on exactly what they want to do for a career. “What we’re trying to do is create a pathway that maximizes a student’s options so that if they’re still undecided, this will provide them optimized opportunities,” he said. “Through this [emphasis], they could apply to a variety of different graduate programs.”According to Humpherys, the new emphasis will open doors to a number of other fields. “We have identified core concepts that are pervasive in the sciences,” he said. “If a student learns the mathematical and computational aspects of those topics, then they are going to be able to move fluidly from one field to the next because they’ve mastered the language of science.” Humpherys said mastering this language gives students an advantage, as many concepts can transcend areas and
MASTERING THE LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE HELPS STUDENTS MOVE FLUIDLY FROM ONE FIELD TO THE NEXT computational mathematics. The new focus will open doors for math students and prepare them for various graduate programs and industries including finance, computational science, economics, political science, and more. Director of graduate studies in the Department of Mathematics, Jeffrey Humpherys, said the program offers versatility due to a curriculum that pulls together theoretical concepts and shows how they can be applied to multiple fields. “Looking at all the different areas where you can apply mathematics, whether it is in physics, chemistry, engineering, economics, or finance—all of those disciplines utilize math,” he said. “So we took the common mathematical concepts to all of those, and that’s what we built this program on.”
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Math is in everything that we do, even in this simple gear. Math makes the world go round.
be applied to various fields. Allen Robinson, a BYU math alum and distinguished member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories, agrees. Robinson commented that learning how to communicate mathematically is extremely helpful for entering a graduate program or the work industry. “Certainly math is a common language,” he said. “Being able to speak that common language is very important.” Robinson said there are a number of key components that make a successful mathematics program. “It’s important to have a broad curriculum where the important scientific and physical ideas are internalized,” he said. “It’s also important for undergraduate students to become familiar with the languages, symbols, and constructs of high level mathematics.” Robinson, who works in the area of computational physics and engineering at Sandia, said students can maximize their career options by getting involved in research, sharpening their math skills, and exploring other areas of science. These options are all open to students who enroll in the new program. “Find some way to be involved in research as an undergraduate,” he said. “It’s critical that students try and learn as much as they can about a wide range of scientific endeavors. Every scientific field that I am aware of has become very technical and mathematically based.” The new applied math program will teach students some of these universal skills that are transferrable to many fields. Both those from outside BYU and those directly involved here on campus agree that the new math program is made of the right stuff. “In fact, we’ve heard from many different reviewers of our program that they wish they were 20 years old again so they could enroll,” Humpherys said. Many of the ideas in the new program have been tested in the math and stats departments’ Interdisciplinary Mentoring Program in Analysis, Computation, and Theory (IMPACT) for about 5 years now, with great success, Humpherys said. “We’ve got something very special and unique,” he said. “There’s nothing quite like this out there.”
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FUN SCIENCE COMES TO LIFE FOR STUDENT TEACHERS
Text: Alysa Kleinman Research: Katie Pitts Photo: Dick Rochester
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ast summer a room full of giggling fifth graders was bustling with activity. The students were wearing matching shirts they have worn since kindergarten with the phrase, “College Bound.” With hot air balloons launching and homemade lava lamps churning, it was clear this was no typical physics lesson. At one point, a student cheerfully shouted, “Where does all this random fun come from?!” The answer is simple: Duane Merrell. Merrell, an associate teaching professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, trains students in how to be excellent teachers of the physical sciences in topics as diverse as physics, chemistry, geology, and astronomy. Throughout all these fields, these future teachers are trained to incorporate interactive games and activities. This makes for not only a lot of scientifically minded students, but also some “random fun” along the way. Working in conjunction with Merrell over the years have been several clinical faculty associates (CFAs), which are school teachers who typically spend two years on
Duane Merrell helps students understand science through "random fun" Photo: Levi Price
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campus assisting in the training of future teachers. Last year, Doug Panee, a teacher at Oak Canyon Junior High, was the college’s CFA. Panee is also the President of the Utah Science Teachers Association, making his passion for interactive education a large part of his life. “[For] a lot of [the projects], the kids have to engineer, design, and control, and [then] form hypotheses,” Panee said. “We have fun. So basically that’s what we do, 365 days of the year.” When visiting these schools, they also give teaching materials to teachers for other interactive lessons. “It doesn’t do you any good to teach a workshop if you don’t leave the things for the teacher to teach with,” he said. “If they have it and it’s better than what they had, they’ll instantly implement it.” Students at Eagle View Elementary in Roosevelt, a small town in eastern Utah, are just some of the hundreds affected by Merrell and Panee’s interactive teaching methods. Many students at Eagle View live on the Indian reservations in the area and they look forward to learning about science in an innovative way. “We built our hot air balloons. The most fun part about it was building it and launching it,” said Sydney Carlos, a student from Duschene. “He taught us how to make them and he showed us how they rise. I love math.” “Math, sometimes it can be fun. Science—always fun,” said Osvaldo Neveret from Vernal. Recently, Merrell and Panee’s methodologies have gained buzz outside of fifth graders. They were awarded grants to further develop their methods and help students learn about science and math. A Summer of Innovation Grant (SOI) by NASA gives minority high school students hands on experience in the STEM fields. SOI is benefitting several students and teachers in Roosevelt. Racing cars down the hallway, launching hot air balloons, and mixing explosive combinations like Diet Coke and Mentos make for fond summer memories for all involved. A few students in SOI even travelled from the reservations in Eastern Utah to Orlando, Florida to watch a shuttle launch.
“There were so many firsts. First time on a plane, first time they’d seen the ocean, first time they’d been to Disney World,” Panee said. “Hopefully we motivated them to be more excited about science and math.” Another grant from the U.S. Department of Education called “GEAR UP” will track students involved in that trip from seventh grade until they start college. Merrell’s impact on education reaches beyond his interactive curriculum—he also impacts the lives of aspiring teachers. “Duane showed me how to teach physics using intuition, exploration, and background knowledge,” said Claira Wilson, a physics education major. “There is no way I could be anywhere near the teacher I am without the influence of Duane Merrell.” Lately, future physics teachers like Wilson have been difficult to come by. In recent years, physics graduates nationwide have been attracted to research jobs outside of education because of higher salaries. However, the CPMS physics education program is going strong. In fact, it has received national recognition for its number of high-quality, fun-loving teachers.
RACING CARS, LAUNCHING BALLOONS, AND MIXING EXPLOSIVE COMBINATIONS ADD TO A CURRICULUM THAT IMPACTS THE LIVES OF STUDENTS AND ASPIRING TEACHERS.
PhysTEC, the Physics Teacher Education Coalition, ranked BYU’s program as producing the most physics teachers annually. “The physics teacher education program at Brigham Young University is a national model for other institutions seeking to improve STEM teacher education,” said Dr. Monica Plisch, Co-Principal Investigator of PhysTEC. The physics program does not just train teachers; it provides constructive feedback for them as well. With a partnership through the McKay School of Education, aspiring teachers through all emphases are placed at local schools to gain hands-on experience. When students begin teaching at local schools, Merrell and Panee take turns evaluating their classrooms. By the end of the semester, student teachers have received feedback up to twenty eight times. In everything they do, Merrell and Panee are focused on the individual, whether that is the teacher or the student. This has created more educational opportunities and fond memories. Turns out the fun isn’t so random after all.
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Elements of a Successful Caree
ac ity
er By Danny Young
Danny Young knows the real meaning of audacity. As the director of business operations and strategy at Google, he knows that great ideas aren’t hard to come by—having the audacity to take them on is. Last year, he gave an enlightening lecture on having the confidence to carry out the big ideas that can change your career.
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About Audacity
Audacity is a word with negative connotations like rude, imposing or unkind behavior. But a positive form of audacity can spur us on to do great things. One person who has this positive audacity is Larry Page, the co-founder of Google. Through his and Sergey Brin’s imagination and determination they have taken on seemingly impossible feats. Take pictures of every yard of every street around the world? Make every book ever published available online? Create self-driving cars? All of us could think of those ideas. These great ideas aren’t hard to come by. The hard part is having the audacity to take on those ideas. Ideas aren’t premium—the willingness to dive in is. Take On Big Ideas “Have a healthy disregard for the impossible,” Page said. “It sounds kind of nuts, but it’s often easier to make progress when you’re really ambitious. You actually don’t have any competition because no one else is willing to try those things. And you also get all the best people because all the best people want to work on the most ambitious things.”
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I love that Larry Page thinks it’s easier to be ambitious because there’s not as much competition and because you’re going to attract the best talent. That’s such contrary thinking—it’s brilliant. An important part of audacity is the willingness to think big. Another part of audacity is being willing to fail. My first semester back at BYU after my mission to Japan, my roommate took CS 142. I thought it looked fun, so I took it the next semester and changed my major to computer science. While taking CS 142, I was working at a restaurant and waited a table with one American and three Japanese gentlemen who I spoke to in Japanese. The American was a professor at BYU in the electrical engineering department who was starting a new business to make computers. The three Japanese gentlemen, who were impressed that I spoke Japanese, were investors from Sanyo. The professor asked me, “What’s your major?” I had just changed my major, so I answered “computer science”. He wrote his name and number on a napkin. “We’re starting a business. Would you be interested in working with us?” That’s how I got my first job at a company called ICON. My job was to help computer engineers port Unix onto the new system. I don’t think my boss appreciated that I had only taken CS 142. I was woefully unqualified for
Even if you fail at your ambitious pursuits, it's very hard to fail completely. That's what most people don't comprehend. that job, but I dove right in. As you might guess, I was no rock star in that role. I did fine, but I had to learn a lot on the job. Unfortunately, the company failed. So…a job I didn’t do very well at a company that failed – sounds like a mistake, right? This failure had great ripple effects though. When the company failed, the great engineers I had worked with scattered to other companies across the state. Suddenly, as a very young man, I had a network that spread across Utah technology companies. Also, because I had to learn on the job at ICON, I often learned things at work before they came up in class – naturally this helped my grades. So the failure I had at ICON contributed to better grades, which contributed to my admittance into MIT for my master’s degree. Much of my career was influenced and accelerated by those events.
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This isn't a proactivity audacity to 28 FRONTIERS
PHOTO: courtesy of Danny Young
Danny Young, director of business operations & strategy at Google, knows that audacity leads to a sucessful career.
Larry Page has said, “Even if you fail at your ambitious thing, it’s very hard to fail completely. That’s the thing most people don’t get.” I challenge you to think of a time where you failed completely while trying to do something ambitious. It’s very, very hard to fail completely. That is the beauty of diving into challenging things. Don't Wait, Act Another notion of audacity is not waiting for an invitation to act. For example, the Perpetual Education Fund came from an ordinary man serving in South America who saw the plight of some returned missionaries. He went to banks and set up a fund for their education, and that became the seed that President Hinckley turned into the Perpetual Education Fund. You might say, “Danny, this isn’t audacity; this is just proactivity.” Yes, but it is also related to audacity because it takes audacity to do things that seem outside the scope of your role. Most people think “It’s not my place to do that.” The inventor of the Perpetual Education Fund didn’t wait to become the prophet to institute a program to help returned missionaries. He had the audacity to take on the problem himself and just act.
audacity; this is just y. True, but it takes do things that seem outside the scope of your role. Be Curious
Along with audacity, I have found curiosity to be vital to a successful career. When I graduated with a degree in computer science from BYU, it would still be four years before Tim BernersLee would create the underpinnings of the web and six years before the first publicly available browser hit the market. But now I work at Google, which is a web
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Curiosity and constant learning are vital to adapting to an ever-changing world. We need to branch out and learn what is related and unrelated to our field. Just think how understanding company. The entire industry I now work in did not exist when I graduated from college. The lesson is that you can’t ever stop learning. Curiosity and constant learning are vital to adapting to an ever-changing world. In my own career, I’ve tried to stay curious. One way to stay curious is what Steven Covey called “sharpening the saw,” the kind of learning that is directly related to your job and helps you stay sharp. That’s important, but I think it’s also important to branch out. For example, I recently read a book called Doing Bayesian Data Analysis. I don’t anticipate ever doing Bayesian data analysis in my job, but many engineering teams I work with at Google are using it to push the boundaries of statistical inference and AI. I’m not trying to be an expert in the field, but I’m curious and think I might do a better job interacting with those people if I understand their world better. Even further afield, I read books on topics like food science, politics, and music theory. These have absolutely
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nothing to do with my job, and yet aside from my personal interest in these topics, my experience is that I often find a connection with someone because of random interests like these. I have found that such serendipitous connections are an important force in a career. You can probably think of times when you happened to meet someone and had a common friend or interest that led to something in your career. A great example is the story I told about my first job where I waited tables. Because I had studied Japanese, I got a job in my new major of computer science that I was unqualified for. That kind of serendipity happens more often if you cast a wide net in your curiosity.
Have Trust A final trait that has been important to my career is trust. After I graduated from MIT with a business degree, the economy was strong and my classmates and I were fortunate to have quite a few job offers to choose from. My wife and I didn’t know which company to work for: Novell, Intel, Bain & Company, Microsoft, or the Swiss Bank Corporation. The Swiss Bank job was in London and offered me the highest salary. In fact, it was triple the salary of Microsoft, which was my lowest offer. It was important to us, so we made it a matter of prayer and followed the idea that you should study it out in your mind and take an answer to the Lord to see if it’s right. The salary for the Swiss Bank offer was hard to ignore, so that was the first one we took to the Lord, but we didn’t feel good about it. The job I really wanted was Bain, so we prayed about that one, but didn’t feel good about it either. Finally, after two weeks of struggling with this decision, we took Intel to the Lord and felt good about that one. Since the Intel job was in Portland, Oregon, we were able to afford our first house. And it was also close to where my mother-in-law lived. She had been in remission from leukemia, but while we were living there, it returned. Because we were in Portland, my wife and I were able to spend precious time with her before she passed away one year after I had joined Intel.
g the world through the eyes of another field could help you both in and out of the work place. Then a strange thing happened. Within two weeks of her death, one of the people I had interviewed with at Bain called me back a year after I had told them no and said, “Hey Danny, I hope you’re doing well at Intel. We were thinking about you, and if you are in the mood for a change, then the offer to come here still stands.” I ended up only working at Intel for a year, but that year with my mother-in-law was a tender mercy from the Lord for my wife and I. In all my time at Bain, I never saw anyone else called and brought back into the company a year after they had said no. The last trait of trust is really best summed up in Proverbs 3:5–6: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” I’d like to leave you with that message. I can’t promise it will lead to worldly career success, but I can promise this will, with the benefit of eternal perspective, guide you to the correct paths.
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BYU College of Physical & Mathematical Sciences
Brigham Young University, N-181 ESC, Provo, UT 84602
Your Donations Add Up to Success For Nathan Green, opportunities for growth kept popping up all over the place, just like the mathematical modular forms he studies. But he never would have encountered those equations—or those opportunities—without donors’ gifts to the college. After being recruited by his professors to participate in funded math research, Nathan became fascinated with mathematical modular forms. And that fascination propelled him into solving the mystery of how modular forms occur in the science world. His investigations led him to conferences across the United States and even to Germany. “It’s the exotic world of math conferences,” says Nathan. Luckily for Nathan, that exotic world opened up the moment he received funding for his research. “Research is really
To discuss helping the college with a special gift, contact Brent Hall at 801-422-4501 or email brenth@byu.edu
the only way to get into it,” he says. “So the funding we get for doing research is probably the most important thing for our future careers—maybe even as important as getting good grades.” Because of his research experience, Nathan is ahead of the curve in applying to prestigious PhD programs across the country. “That’s the main thing that they look for. Have you done any research? Have you published?” And now that he can answer yes to both questions, his dream of teaching math on a collegiate level is becoming a reality— thanks to donations and funded research. We invite you to help us solve more formulas to success by giving to the college online at cpms.byu.edu/about/donate/.
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