Life After Davis

Hello, UC Davis Math Department! I spent four years at UC Davis and completed my Ph.D. with Thomas Strohmer on applications of Compressive Sensing (CS) in 2009. Due to my previous time spent in industry, I was a non-traditional student. This gave me more focus because I basically knew what I was interested in.  I had experience in electrical engineering and physics, so CS was a good fit for me. (Fun fact: the Math Dept used to be in Kerr Hall. In my second semester we all moved to the newly constructed MSB!)

The last time UC Davis saw me was when graduated in the summer of 2018 with a Ph.D. in Mathematics. My dissertation was in low-dimensional topology under Abby Thompson, focusing on Heegaard splittings of knot complements in the 3-sphere (with additional mentorship of Javier Arsuaga in the application of knot theory to molecular biology, particularly the folding of chromosomes in yeast). Only a few months prior to that, I had accepted an offer to join the faculty at University of the Pacific (UOP) in Stockton, CA, as a tenure-track assistant professor of applied mathematics.

I got my Bachelors of Science in Mathematics at UC Davis in 1987. I worked as an actuary on defined benefit pension plans for about 5 years, then I worked at a management consulting firm in Menlo Park called Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) for about 5 years. At ADA we did market research, market modeling, market analysis, decision analysis, and risk analysis. I started doing pricing strategy for tech companies in Silicon Valley in 1997 and I'm still at it.

After earning her B.S. in Mathematics in 1966,  Joan Marie Peters Ogden was a GS-7 mathematician in the Ships' Engineering section in the U.S. Navy in 1966 and 1967. While there, she helped NASA with mathematic modeling for naval ships, modeling ships motions to drive the hydraulics necesary for keeping the communication dish steady, to keep the dishes trained correctly during the Apollo Program.

I spent 10 wonderful years at Davis, completing both my B.S. and Ph.D. in the Department. During my final year of grad school, I interned as a Pathways intern at NASA’s Ames Research Center, and after completing my Ph.D. in 2021, joined NASA as a full time research scientist. 

After graduating from UC Davis, I went on to obtain a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard in 1983. I taught for six years as an assistant professor at UC Irvine before moving to Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, where I still teach. Being at a liberal arts college has allowed me to stretch beyond my formal area of expertise. I have done that extensively, working in areas as far-flung as sports psychology, political geography, communications theory, public health, economics pedagogy, as well as a bit of economics. 

Swati Patel and Axel Saenz Rodriguez are Assistant Professors in the Mathematics Department at Oregon State University (OSU) in Corvallis, OR. Saenz Rodriguez and Patel were both graduate students in the Math and Applied Math Department at UC Davis, where they first met. They are now married and have two beautiful and energetic children. Patel works in math bio, modeling systems arising from evolution, disease dynamics and ecology. Saenz Rodriguez works in probability and math physics, analyzing universal probabilistic objects for one-dimensional interacting particle systems.

Recent emeritus Blake Temple is keeping busy reporting on new results.

After graduating with my Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics in 2020, I started working full-time as a Systems Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA. I had previously interned at JPL during my undergraduate and graduate years, making the transition to a permanent position relatively smooth. As a mathematician in the engineering department at JPL, I tackled a variety of modeling tasks related to both project planning and operations.

In the years 1992-94, the University of California offered a golden handshake under the acronym VERIP. In 1994, having twice refused the lure, I signed up for VERIP III, making 2024 my 30th year of retirement.

I retired in 2015 and bear a title of Professor Emeritus for more than 7 years. It is a common belief that after many years of hard work, emeriti enjoy their well deserved rest, not burdened by any formal duties. It may be true in general, but not in my case. I have an impression that never in my life I worked as hard as now. During my retirement I have never stopped teaching.

I started my Lectureship in the Department of Mathematics at UC Davis in 1982 and reluctantly retired in the spring 2021. During that time I also spent 18 years as a member of the UC Davis Men’s Basketball coaching staff, highlighted by a Division II National Championship in 1998, an exciting four-year transition from Division II to Division I, and becoming a member of the Big West Athletic Conference. It was a long, busy, and rewarding journey with many ups and downs.

Craig was my first graduate student. He has had an extremely productive and distinguished career. Over the decades since I first met Craig we have shared many adventures together. It is hard to believe that he is retiring.