Amy Wesolowski

Runnemede, NJ

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What has been your favorite class at COA? Why?

My favorite course has been Linear Algebra. This tutorial, taught by Dave Feldman, was my first introduction to abstract structures of mathematics and formal proofs.

What classes have you taken at COA?

Human Ecology Core Course

Ecology: Natural History

Art of the Puppet

2-D

Renaissance Art History

Philosophy of Education

Advanced Drawing

Independent Study

Watercolor Painting

Nature of Narrative

Fear, Paranoia, and Conspiracy

Introduction to Linguistics

Calculus II

Calculus III

Physics III: Quantum Mechanics

Linear Algebra

Applied and Mathematical Statistics

Differential Equations

Research Projects in Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics

I also have a year of courses at Smith College, which is why my list of COA classes is shorter than most juniors.

What was your favorite lesson/lecture/discussion/project at COA? Why?

My favorite final project was the paper I wrote for Nature of Narrative. I used ideas and theories from chaos to help understand Alain Robbe-Grillet's, a French novelist, work "Jealousy." In particular, I tried to draw connections between Robbe-Grillet's sense of temporality created in the novel and sensitive dependence on initial conditions.

What is your dream occupation?

My dream occupation is to be a professor of Applied Mathematics at a college or university.

Do you work on or off campus? If yes, where?

When I'm at COA I do work on campus. Most recently I have been a teaching assistant for Dave Feldman. I've also worked in the Registrar's Office, assisted Sarah Luke, and ran the Blum Gallery as the student director.

What do you see yourself doing after COA?

I see myself attending graduate school for Applied Mathematics.

Have you had an internship? If so, doing what? Where? If not, what are your plans, if any, for your internship?

Yes, I have had an internship. Last summer I was an REU (National Science Foundation funded research experiences for undergraduates) intern at Lafayette College. I worked with faculty in their mathematics department on graph theory and combinatorial geometry.

What are your ideas for your senior project? If you have already done one, what did you do?

This summer I am researching at the Santa Fe Institute. I will be working on networks, which are graphs with particular mathematical features. I am going to be focusing on the growth dynamics of networks and I hope to continue this work for my senior project.

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

I am not a biologist, but from an evolutionary stand point I believe the egg came first since its structure is less complex than a chicken.

Why did you choose to come to COA?

Originally, I did not want to go to COA. I had grand ideas of going to a larger college in a much warmer place. However, when I visited, COA was too friendly, warm, inviting, and beautiful to pass up. So, I decided to try COA for a year. If I wound up hating COA, I could always transfer and Acadia is a nice place to live for a year. However, I think its more interesting to determine why people choose to stay at COA. It's easy to go to COA straight out of high school, but its an entirely other matter to stay at COA. With COA's size, it's very easy to feel as though you need more out of your academic institute. Very few COA students study advanced mathematics so it is difficult to find the courses to take to help prepare me for graduate school. However, I am choosing to stay at COA for Dave Feldman. He has guided me on every step of my academic path and has been an amazing adviser, professor, and mentor. I think these unique bonds between faculty members and students are why people choose to stay at COA.

What do you like to study?

In the future, I want to study complex systems. This field has always intrigued me for its breadth of applications of mathematics, rigor, and the importance it puts on collaborations with other disciplines. Since its conception, the field has relied heavily on multidisciplinary study whether with biologists, ecologists, sociologists, or physicists that is essential to understanding these systems. I hope to further refine my field of research to information theory, complex networks, and mathematics motivated by natural systems, in order to understand and study the multidisciplinary connections that tie together artificial, human, and natural systems. I want to study how the three topics can be intertwined, their applications for other disciplines, and how theoretical models can be motivated and improved with real world computational data that is supported with a strong theoretical understanding.

What historical figure do you most admire?

I admire Évariste Galois. Galois was a boy-genius mathematician during the 19th century. While he was a teenager he developed extremely sophisticated mathematics, without any formal training. In a few years, he accomplished a remarkable body of work that laid the foundation for Galois theory, a branch of abstract algebra. Almost all undergraduate mathematics majors learn his work in college. However, he lived a rather political life and continued to do mathematics while in jail. Unfortunately, at the age of 20 he was killed in a duel.