MathematicalEngineering

02
Mar
2022
Karem Guzmán Elgueta

Karem Guzmán Elgueta

Born in Los Vilos, Chile • Birth year 1990 • Studied B. Sc. in Mathematics and ​ B. Sc. in Mathematical Engineering at Universidad de Santiago in Santiago, Chile • Highest degree Master in Statistics • Lives in Santiago, Chile • Occupation Financial Advisory Consultant

My relationship with mathematics began when one day in high school a classmate asked me: “Karem, you are very good at mathematics, have you thought about studying it at university?” I will never forget this question because it was this one that made me aware of my love for mathematics. Since I was little, I had a knack for numbers and the subject always entertained me, so I decided to formally continue studying Mathematical Engineering at University.

During college, mathematics opened a new world, a lot of theory and logic work. It was not easy, including many hours of study and frustrations, and not always achieving good exam results. It was a long and hard road, but with resilience I managed to finish successfully.

I liked the time flexibility these jobs gave me, but they didn’t make me happy, as I felt a sense of intellectual emptiness. This is why I decided to go back to university to pursue a Master’s degree in statistics and you can’t imagine how much I liked it!

After graduating, I worked for two years as a high school teacher and as an assistant professor at the university. I liked the time flexibility these jobs gave me, but they didn’t make me happy, as I felt a sense of intellectual emptiness. This is why I decided to go back to university to pursue a Master’s degree in statistics and you can’t imagine how much I liked it! I was fascinated by the subjects associated with models and their theories (data mining, predictive modeling, supervised and unsupervised learning as well as time series, among other models), so today I am a lover of statistics.

Could you imagine what would happen if one day you make a withdrawal from your card and the bank denies it for not having funds? A systemic shock would surely occur, so these models are essential.

I am currently working for a professional services firm and I have experience in credit risk modeling projects, e.g. provision models under local regulations and International Financial Reporting Standards, countercyclical provision models, forward looking models, management models such as admission, behavior and collection, as well as in liquidity risk projects, e.g. construction of flow projection models/methodologies. Credit risk models, in general, aim to mitigate the risk of non-compliance with contracted payments, so provision models estimate an amount of money that a financial institution could eventually lose if all its customers decide not to pay. Management models, such as admission models, aim to estimate a client’s ability to meet their payment obligations, and thus help the financial institution to select its clients. On the other hand, liquidity risk models seek to ensure sufficient cash flow to comply with all normal operations associated with a financial institution: deposits, drafts, transfers, withdrawals of investment funds, etc. Could you imagine what would happen if one day you make a withdrawal from your card and the bank denies it for not having funds? A systemic shock would surely occur, so these models are essential.

My work is dynamic and very demanding, but I love it because I never do the same thing. There are always new projects and clients to care for, so I enjoy my work every day. I invite all women who like mathematics to dare and study it without fear, and if you also have an inclination for finance, then the world is yours!

Posted by HMS in Stories
22
Sep
2021
Sofía López Ordóñez

Sofía López Ordóñez

Born in Quito, Ecuador • Studied Mathematical Engineering at Escuela Politécnica Nacional in Quito, Ecuador • Highest Degree M.Sc. in Mathematical Optimization • Lives in Quito, Ecuador • Occupation Teaching assistant and Ph.D. student

My math story started with questions, as many other math stories, I suppose. In the early years of high school, math exercises were fun and challenging. I enjoyed solving them, but I never thought I would study math as a career years later. By that time, I wanted to become an engineer, like my dad, and hopefully work at a hydroelectric power plant. But somehow, math was like gravity, and I felt more and more drawn to it. Hence, I decided to study math at Escuela Politécnica Nacional in Ecuador at the end of high school. Looking back on it, I think I was lucky. Pursuing a career in math was not common in Ecuador. I had the support of my parents and I also was encouraged by my math teacher. However, I had no idea of what math was really about.

I enjoyed the vitality of the formal math language, which brings the possibility to precisely describe a deduction process and articulate a definition from an intuitive notion.

I found the early stages of my undergraduate studies challenging and, sometimes, difficult. However, I was amazed and triggered. I enjoyed the vitality of the formal math language, which brings the possibility to precisely describe a deduction process and articulate a definition from an intuitive notion. The beauty of the simplicity and richness of math made me stay. Nevertheless, the inflection point in my math story happened when I started to work as a research assistant in a project at the Research Center for Mathematical Modeling in Ecuador, ModeMat. In this project, I worked on the numerical solution of visco-plastic fluids. These fluids have a dual behavior; they move like a solid or like liquid depending on the stress imposed on them. I found the mathematical formulation of these fluids fantastic. In this process, I learned the fundamental laws underlying fluid dynamics, optimization methods and I improved my coding skills. This was the starting point of a journey that led me through a Master’s program in Mathematical Optimization and then, like the flow of a Newtonian fluid, to the Ph.D. program in Applied Mathematics. Being part of the Research Center, ModeMat, has shaped part of my life. I have grown up there from an undergrad student to a Ph.D. student under the supervision of four great advisers: Pedro, Sergio, Juan Carlos, and Luis Miguel. Their guidance during the Ph.D. has been essential and valuable. 

I am confident things are changing. At the moment, in my Ph.D. program, we are more women than men.

Nonetheless, I have realized that every time I was part of an international conference, unconsciously I ended up choosing a woman from the Academy as a role model. This unaware action, years later, made me realize how important visibility is. There were few academic women at the math department while I was an undergrad student; therefore, I had the chance to only have one math woman professor. I am confident things are changing. At the moment, in my Ph.D. program, we are more women than men.

I am in the last year of the Ph.D. This journey has not been like the stream of a calm river. Like a visco-plastic fluid, sometimes I have moved like a solid, slowly and without any change in my progress and, sometimes, one just flows like a liquid in a stream of exquisite results. The chance to write about my story came in an opaque moment of uncertainty and lack of confidence. It took me a while to sit and write it down. However, I have genuinely enjoyed it. This retrospective exercise helped me to reconcile and reconnect. Right now, I am focused on this last year of the Ph.D. and interested in a Postdoc. My thesis is still related to visco-plastic fluids. Therefore, in some sense, I think I kind of accomplished my teenage dream. I am not working at a power plant driven by water but I have a better understanding of the fluid dynamics laws to comprehend the power of water. Finally, I would like to take the final words of Natasha Karp’s math story (which I enjoyed a lot reading) as advice: “Enjoy your journey but don’t expect to know exactly where you are going and keep growing and challenging yourself’’. I think that’s what I will do.

Posted by HMS in Stories
26
May
2021
Gabriela Capo Rangel

Gabriela Capo Rangel

Born in Pitesti, Romania • Studied Applied Mathematics at Politehnic University of Bucharest • Erasmus MUNDUS fellow in Mathematical Modeling from University of L’Aquila, University of Nice and University of Hamburg • PhD in Applied Mathematics in the Basque Center for Applied Mathematics, Bilbao, Spain • Lives in Okinawa, Japan • Works as a Postdoctoral Scholar in Computational Neuroscience at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST)

My love for math started very early on. Since I was very young, I seemed to always have an analytical mindset and I adored solving puzzles. I was always the geeky kid, that was always curious about everything and I have always been a very solution-oriented person. My parents tell me I was determined to be a researcher from the age of 5, although I am not certain I actually understood what that meant. I used to love all analytical subjects, not only math, but also chemistry and physics. In fact, choosing my career path came extremely close between mathematics and chemistry. Somehow, I always missed chemistry, this is the reason why I went towards neuroscience and every now and then I get the chance to model some biochemistry.

I grew up in a freshly post-communist Romania, where the old generation generally believed that girls should study law or biology just due to the common misconception that girls can memorize better than boys.

Being a woman and choosing to study mathematics, I had to always fight for what I wanted. I grew up in a freshly post-communist Romania, where the old generation generally believed that girls should study law or biology just due to the common misconception that girls can memorize better than boys. Well, my memory has never been very good. I was lucky, because I had an amazing family that supported me in making my own choices and encouraged me to follow my own path.

[My high school professor] was the first person who showed me how to think outside the box, he sparked my curiosity for higher-level math and he treated me as equal to the other boys when preparing for competitions.

My first role model was a young professor in high school. He was my math professor only for the first year of high school and he directed me towards mathematics contests and math olympiads. He was the first person who showed me how to think outside the box, he sparked my curiosity for higher-level math and he treated me as equal to the other boys when preparing for competitions. In most of the contests that I have been, I was even the only girl or between the very few ones. The same trend continued at the university, where I went on and studied Applied Mathematics in Engineering. I studied in an engineering university, with under 10-20% of the total number of students being women.

After I graduated from university, I got an Erasmus MUNDUS fellowship for a Master of two years in Applied Mathematics, a highly competitive master program between three different countries: Italy, France and Germany. I got to experience the educational systems of the three different places, I had the chance to live in all these different places and learn the languages. Even in this international setting, I was still living in a world of men, having very few female colleagues and absolutely no female math professors in any of the three countries.

After graduating with the Master, I was awarded a Severo Ochoa Fellowship at the Basque Center for Applied Mathematics to pursue my PhD in Applied Mathematics in Biosciences. Particularly, I was modeling the interaction between the electrophysiology, the metabolism and the hemodynamics in the human brain. This captivating research gave me the chance to study not only the mechanisms behind the normal functioning of the human brain during resting state or neuronal activation, but also during various pathologies such as brain ischemia and cortical spreading depression. We focused on understanding the strong interconnection between how the electrical signals are transmitted in the brain, the interaction between multiple biochemical species constituting the brain metabolism and the blood flow.

[During my PhD] I met my biggest role model, my PhD advisor, Prof. Daniela Calvetti. She is all I ever dreamed of becoming: extremely intelligent, successful, determined, strong, loving and caring and the best mentor I have ever encountered.

It was then when I met my biggest role model, my PhD advisor, Prof. Daniela Calvetti. She is all I ever dreamed of becoming: extremely intelligent, successful, determined, strong, loving and caring and the best mentor I have ever encountered. She inspired me to gain not only knowledge and passion in my research field, but she inspired me to fight and pursue my dreams, no matter how much work that involves. There are no words to describe the depth of my gratitude, respect and love for her. I can only hope that one day I will inspire somebody, the way she inspired me.

After my PhD, I did a brief postdoc in Bilbao, after which I came to Japan to work as a postdoc at OIST. Here, I belong to the Computational Neuroscience group and my research concerns the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls fine movement. I study the Purkinje neuron dendritic trees and I seek to understand how their morphology affects the spiking properties of these neuronal cells.

I just hope one day I will have the chance to teach and to provide my students not only with the scientific knowledge, but also with the courage and confidence to follow their own dreams.

The academic path is extremely hard to follow. I always feel like I am lacking stability. So far every few years, I have been changing between jobs, countries, friends and languages. Many times I dream about family life, stability and job security. I wanted to give up academia countless times, but I was lucky and I met people who inspired me to go on. I just hope one day I will have the chance to teach and to provide my students not only with the scientific knowledge, but also with the courage and confidence to follow their own dreams.

Posted by HMS in Stories
12
May
2021
Evelyn Cueva

Evelyn Cueva

Born in Quito, Ecuador • Birth year 1990 • Studied Mathematical Engineering at Escuela Politécnica Nacional in Ecuador • Highest Degree Ph.D. in Mathematical Modelling at Universidad de Chile • Lives in Quito, Ecuador

As a child, I did not dream of being a mathematician or a scientist; there was a total absence of that role model in my environment. My parents worked very hard so that my brothers and I could attend university. We would be the first generation to obtain a Bachelor’s degree. Living in the countryside and being surrounded by animals shaped me to study agronomy or veterinary medicine. However, my ability in mathematics motivated me to explore a career more related to numbers and abstract thinking.

Since I was a primary school kid, I have enjoyed math homework. I liked to think and invent my own problems. In high school, I was more interested in verbal math problems. I liked the process of “translating” these problems into equations. Despite my taste for mathematics, it was not until my last year of high school that I discovered a career opportunity in mathematics while reading the academic offer of a university. I did not know anyone who studied that subject or that there were jobs for mathematicians. My naive idea was that surely a mathematician knows everything about mathematics, and that caught my attention. One of the first options I considered was studying math to be a good math teacher. During my last year of high school I liked teaching math to my classmates. I was motivated by the idea of transmitting knowledge and helping others to look at problems more naturally.

Everything made sense and brought me back to what I enjoyed as a child: real-life problems translated into equations.

Once I enrolled in university, studying mathematics to be a teacher no longer seemed like a good idea. I realized that high school teachers study pedagogy and that was far from my personal interests. After exploring other options within the same university, I hesitated between chemical engineering and mathematical engineering; both attracted me a lot. The chemistry degree had a high component of physics, and I did not like it enough to study it for so long. I decided to follow mathematical engineering, even with many doubts about its usefulness. It was a kind of blind confidence that I would enjoy it very much.

University was challenging; it was a world that I mostly traveled blindly. The most abstract courses were meaningless to me because although they were fascinating and beautiful on their own, I did not know how they could be used in work life. It was only at the end of my studies that everything became a little clearer. When I did my undergraduate thesis, I connected the theory that I had studied with the world of applications. I understood why we need to seek solutions, guarantee their existence, and analyze their regularity. Everything made sense and brought me back to what I enjoyed as a child: real-life problems translated into equations.

I always had a particular interest in photography, but discovering the physical and mathematical models behind acquisition, reconstruction, and post-processing was something I did not want to stop learning about.

I worked on my undergraduate thesis with Juan Carlos De los Reyes, whom I thank for introducing me to the world of images. I always had a particular interest in photography, but discovering the physical and mathematical models behind acquisition, reconstruction, and post-processing was something I did not want to stop learning about. Since I had just found my passion, I opted for a Ph.D. program to learn more about it. I leaned towards the area of inverse problems, and in particular the modeling and reconstruction of images related to biomedicine. I most enjoyed simulating and visualizing ideas after writing them down on paper. 

This Ph.D. brought me extraordinary experiences such as visiting new places, meeting collaborators from other countries, having an excellent scientific community, just to mention a few. However, there were also challenges along my way: living away from my family, adapting to a new culture, not speaking in my native language, and dealing with frustrations and insecurities when things did not go as expected.

I wish that more and more women feel empowered to study engineering or science and do not rule it out as an option based on stereotypes.

A year ago, I finished my Ph.D. in mathematical modeling in Chile. After some post-PhD experiences as a research associate at the academy in Ecuador, my native country, I will start a postdoc at Millennium Nucleus for Applied Control and Inverse Problems in Chile this month. Although I enjoy teaching, I am happy for this new position dedicated more exclusively to do research.

As a woman, I have been able to feel equal within my workgroups. I was always the only woman, but that has never made me feel less worth than any of my male peers. I wish that more and more women feel empowered to study engineering or science and do not rule it out as an option based on stereotypes. Fortunately, nowadays, we can meet more women, we can look at them as our role models, and we can be role models for the next generations.

Posted by HMS in Stories
10
Mar
2021
Marilyn Gatica Briceño

Marilyn Gatica Briceño

Born in Santiago, Chile • Birth year 1987 • Studied B. Sc. in Mathematics and ​ B. Sc. in Mathematical Engineering at Universidad de Santiago in Santiago, Chile • B. Sc. in Mathematical Engineering • lives in Valparaiso, Chile • currently a Ph.D. candidate at Universidad de Valparaíso in Chile, and at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in Spain

Since the early years of my life, I was interested in maths because I was fascinated with the idea that everything fits. In high school, I studied in a female school and was very interested in sharing with my female classmates the solutions for the mathematical problems. Some girls had innovative ways to approach and solve a problem, and it was inspiring to hear their ideas. I loved the concept of learning and sharing.

My father’s neurologist told me: “we need mathematicians in this area”, and at this point, my journey began. Some years later, I decided to become a mathematical engineer and apply maths in neuroscience.

On the other hand, we have my other interest: neuroscience. My father has a brain tumor, and when I found out, I was intrigued to understand the brain (even though I did not like biology). This idea gathered strength when, in a routine conversation, my father’s neurologist told me: “we need mathematicians in this area”, and at this point, my journey began. Some years later, I decided to become a mathematical engineer and apply maths in neuroscience. Naturally, before starting my studies, I did not know what it meant to study mathematics and how one could apply mathematics in neuroscience.

During the first years of my undergraduate studies, I realized maths was more than calculations, there was so much logic and formalism involved. However, only in the last years of my studies, I could use maths to understand the brain, because at that moment, maths, neuroscience, and of course, computer science finally all came together. I am thankful for having had great professors who introduced me to the computational neuroscience discipline.

During my Ph.D. now, I still enjoy learning new concepts from different scientific areas and sharing research results with other people, like I already did in high school.

I hesitated to continue postgraduate studies, because in Chile there is little financial support from the government in research, and in addition to that, there are not many women working in this field. For these reasons, I worked several years as a research assistant and some months as a project engineer before beginning my postgraduate studies. Currently, I am a Ph.D. candidate in the computational neuroscience area at the Universidad de Valparaíso in Chile, and at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in Spain where I am focused on understanding the changes in the lifespan of healthy brains and also on learning about what happens in brains with pathological conditions. Furthermore, in collaboration with other colleagues, I teach introductory classes to computational neuroscience for mathematicians. During my Ph.D. now, I still enjoy learning new concepts from different scientific areas and sharing research results with other people, like I already did in high school. In the next years of my life, I expect to continue with both, research and teaching in this area.

Posted by HMS in Stories