I am originally from St. Louis- the “Gateway to the West”- as symbolized by the Gateway Arch. One might expect the Arch to be a parabolic curve, but in fact the Arch is “the most famous example of a weighted catenary” (according to Wikipedia).  A catenary curve is the curve naturally formed by a hanging chain.

I majored in math and minored in philosophy at Saint Louis University, home of the Billiken. During college I had a lot of fun (and became very good at mental math) as a grades 2-12 tutor at Mathnasium. I am an alumna of the Carleton College Summer Mathematics Program for Women, and co-wrote this blog post about my experience there. In my junior year I studied abroad at the National University of Ireland Galway.

I earned my Ph.D. at the University of Georgia, and took a year “off” in the middle of graduate school to visit the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics. I am currently (very happy to be) back at MPIM as a Postdoctoral Fellow. When not solving math problems I can be found writing poetry or running (slowly).

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States Map: I enjoy traveling, and hope to eventually visit every state in the contiguous U.S. (where a “visit” means staying to do something substantial, rather than passing through or catching a connecting flight). Here’s my progress so far (created using this site), where blue indicates a visit.

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Picture Puzzle: All of the header pictures on this website were taken by me. Can you guess where each is from? The teaching page is probably the easiest, while the research page is unfairly difficult (although if you have been paying attention, you could make an educated guess!).

Click here for the answer.