Experiences Panel

A group of current and recent undergraduates (just like you!) who’ve participated in a variety of summer/semester career-building programs will share their experiences and answer your questions. 

Full bios will be published soon!

Panelists: 

• Stanley Pritchard

  • Stanley Pritchard is a first-year PhD student at Duke University. His work is in knot theory and low-dimensional topology. Stanley received his bachelors of science in mathematics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. During his time there, he participated in the Directed Reading Program (DRP), organized an undergraduate mathematics seminar, and participated in two REUs (one at Georgia Tech and one at Rutgers). Stanley also has some experience in applied topology; he briefly worked on a research project with a biology lab and a physics group while at Georgia Tech.

• Stephen Hu

  • Stephen Hu (he/they) is a first-year math PhD student at the University of Georgia, interested in algebraic number theory. They graduated in 2023 from Rutgers University - New Brunswick where they majored in Mathematics and minored in Astronomy. During undergrad, Stephen was the head of the Rutgers Undergraduate Mathematics Association, as well as participating in an REU at Ursinus College in 2021. In 2022, they were a counselor at the Program in Mathematics for Young Scientists (PROMYS), and liked it so much that they came back to be a head counselor for the 2023 camp. Stephen is passionate about teaching and mentoring students, especially queer and minority students who may feel marginalized. 

• Daksh Aggarwal

  • Daksh is currently a PhD student at Brown University studying algebraic geometry. He graduated from Grinnell College, where he majored in math and computer science. During his senior year, he studied abroad in the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program. He did theoretical physics research with a faculty member at Grinnell during his first summer and spent the next two summers working on number-theoretic projects in the Fields Institute summer research program (FUSRP). He also participated in a number of short courses/schools like the PCMI undergrad summer school and had a short stint as a part-time research associate at Wolfram. All of these were important experiences that convinced him math grad school was the right next step for him and he is happy to talk about any of these. 

• Jess Wang

  • Jess Wang is a first-year math master student at Humboldt University at Berlin. Before then, she graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a bachelor in mathematical sciences. During her undergraduate degree, she participated in several research opportunities, including the Polymath Jr REU and Texas A&M REU. She also spent a semester in Hungary via the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics program, during which she took courses and conducted research with mathematicians form the Rényi Institute. In addition to doing math, she is passionate about teaching and mentoring –– she was a counselor at the Ross Mathematics Program the last summer, teaching high schoolers about number theory.

• Jillian Cervantes

  • Jillian Cervantes (she/they) is a fourth-year undergraduate at University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, studying math and computer science. She researches graph theory dominating sets at her home institution through the UW Milwaukee Support for Undergraduate Research Fellows program. In summer 2023, she participated in the MSRI-UP research experience for undergrads in Berkeley, CA, where she worked with a team of three to conduct research in machine learning and topological data analysis. Jillian has presented her research at various conferences and symposia. Additionally, from 2021-2023, Jillian worked as an intern in the IT department at Artisan Partners Asset Management, where she worked on software development and systems analysis. Jillian plans to start a PhD program in mathematics in fall 2024. She hopes to become a math professor after completing her PhD, and that her work in mathematics will inspire other Latinx mathematicians to remain persistent in pursuing their goals.

• Ashley Harrison

  • Ashley Harrison is a first-year applied math Ph.D. student at Arizona State University. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Math with a minor in Chemistry in 2023 from the University of Pikeville, a liberal arts university in Pikeville, Kentucky. During her undergraduate studies, she participated in various opportunities related to her studies. She worked on a problem related to mathematical physics as part of the REU in Mathematical Analysis and Applications at the University of Michigan-Dearborn in the summer of 2022. More recently, she attended the EDGE 2023 Summer Session held at Brown University. Related to teaching, she was a teaching assistant and a tutor for the last three years of her undergraduate studies. Beyond doing math herself, she is passionate about making opportunities (math-related or otherwise) more accessible to students from institutions in underserved communities.