The Merrill Presidential Scholars Program honors the university’s most successful seniors

Two seniors in the University of Maryland’s Department of Mathematics have been named 2020 Merrill Presidential Scholars. The Merrill Presidential Scholars Program honors the university’s most successful seniors, and each of the honorees recognizes a UMD faculty member and high school teacher who helped guide them throughout their academic careers.

“One nice thing about the Merrill Scholars Program is the aspect of it that honors mentors, because I really think that I would not have achieved a single thing that I've done without the support and kindness I've experienced throughout my life,” said Siri Neerchal, one of the 2020 recipients. 

Neerchal started out as a math major at Maryland and later decided to add a second degree.

“I really enjoy math and I knew going into college that I wanted to do something data driven,” Neerchal said. “As a sophomore, I added a second degree in history.”

One faculty member in particular was very helpful in shaping Neerchal’s academic course.

“I approached Associate Professor Colleen Woods from the Department of History for guidance in an independent study on postcolonial theory,” Neerchal said. “And since then, she has been a source of conversation, ideas and support. My discussions with her have shaped my ideas and have helped me rework existing systems and concepts into a refined critical framework that informs my approach to quantitative research.”

While at Maryland, Neerchal found creative ways to blend math with other subjects. For three semesters, Neerchal taught the course MATH299C: Mathematics & Classical Music, which explored the historical discoveries in mathematics that have influenced Western classical music, as a part of the university’s Student Initiated Courses (STICs) program. From there, Neerchal went on to help other students develop their own STICs and now serves as executive director of the STICs program. 

“I got involved with the STICs board and enjoyed helping people develop their courses,” Neerchal said. “Now as the executive director I still get to do that and work with the administration to expand the program and ensure its long-term sustainability.” 

After graduating in May, Neerchal will work as a research fellow at Stanford University’s Law School doing empirical social science research.

“The research is very quantitative work, but in a social science context, which is what I'm interested in,” Neerchal said. “It is a great opportunity to put both of my degrees to work.”

Mary Yilma, the department’s second Merrill Scholar, is also a double-degree student, pursuing degrees in mathematics and economics.

Yilma began her studies as an economics major and added mathematics this semester after she realized she had taken enough courses to qualify for the major.

“I just added the additional degree in my final year, and I think it provides a nice quantitative backing to the theory I learned in my economics classes,” she said.

Yilma almost missed her opportunity to be a Merrill Scholar because of an email issue.

“Finding out that I was being considered was pretty flattering. I didn't expect it,” she said. “I missed the email for two weeks because it kept getting caught in my junk mail. Finally, someone else emailed me and asked me if I still wanted to be considered, and that email came through.”

Yilma recognized Jessica Goldberg, an associate professor in the Department of Economics, as her faculty mentor.

“Dr. Goldberg directs PADE (Promoting Achievement and Diversity in Economics), a program that provides academic support to students with the aim of increasing diversity and achievement among economics majors,” Yilma explained. “She gave me tireless feedback on my academic choices, introduced me to some great graduate student mentors, and helped me learn about different careers in economics and what their day to day entails. Dr. Goldberg is always in my corner and willing to suggest options I didn’t even know existed. Her office is always open, and she goes above and beyond for her students. I cannot thank her enough for her guidance.”

Yilma will be working as a research associate at Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco after she graduates in May. She believes the PADE program is a great tool for students in economics looking for career opportunities.

“It's a really good option for people who are interested in pursuing a career in economics. It provides really good resources and mentorship,” she said.

In a typical year, Merrill Scholars would be honored at a reception along with their mentors, but the event was not held this year due to COVID-19. However, Yilma and Neerchal were both glad to still have the opportunity to highlight their mentors through being recipients of the award.

“I'm very glad to be able to thank my high school teacher, Mr. Moose, and my mentor, Associate Professor Goldberg, because they're both really great educators and really great people,” Yilma said. 

“It was so nice to receive this award and have the opportunity to name people who I considered mentors both before and during college,” Neerchal said. “I would not be where I am today without the mentors I’ve had in my life.”

She will use the scholarship to pursue a master’s degree in speech and language processing at the University of Edinburgh.

University of Maryland senior Nataliya Stepanova has been named one of the 46 Marshall Scholars for 2021. The Marshall Scholarship, which allows American students to pursue graduate study at any university in the United Kingdom, is considered one of the most prestigious academic awards available to college graduates.

“The Marshall Scholarship is not only immensely prestigious, but extraordinarily selective. To be amongst this new class of Britain-bound all-stars is testament to Nataliya’s brilliance, vision, and determination to change the world,” said Richard Bell, a UMD professor of history who serves as UMD’s advisor for U.K. scholarships and fellowships. He also chairs the university’s U.K. awards nomination committee.

Stepanova, a double-degree student in mathematics and computer science with a minor in linguistics, plans to use the scholarship toward a Master of Science degree in speech and language processing at the University of Edinburgh. 

“I am extremely grateful for this amazing opportunity,” said Stepanova, who was born in Russia and moved to the United States when she was 2 years old. “Receiving the Marshall scholarship would not have been possible without the endless guidance I have received from UMD programs, passionate professors and supportive research mentors. I look forward to spending my time in the United Kingdom learning from natural language processing experts and collaborating with a global network of language scientists.” 

UMD’s sixth Marshall Scholar, Stepanova has extensive natural language processing research experience, including several projects related to her career goal of deploying natural language processing techniques to combat the plague of fake news and misinformation circulating on social media.

As a research assistant in the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS), a University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) sponsored by the Department of Defense, she worked on a project investigating the impact of transcutaneous vagal nerve stimulation on foreign language learning.

“Nataliya is a gifted student and has become the bar against which all other undergraduate researchers I hire are judged,” said Polly O’Rourke, who was Stepanova’s supervisor and is an associate research scientist at ARLIS. “She excelled at every task we gave her, even when the tasks were difficult or outside her experience.”

In another ongoing ARLIS project in collaboration with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), she is using natural language processing techniques and machine learning to investigate to what extent one can predict the number of shares Eastern European social and political influencers’ Facebook posts would get, based on the topics discussed in the posts.

“By investigating social media campaigns in Eastern Europe, mainly Poland, I quickly learned that deep linguistic and cultural knowledge of the target community is vital for nuanced natural language processing analyses,” Stepanova said. 

She learned a similar lesson through a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship, where she spent a summer in South Korea. 

“Interacting with native Koreans allowed me to pick up on slang, emoticons and internet lingo that I could not have learned from a textbook,” she said. “Such informal language constitutes a critical component of social media analyses.”

Back on campus, she is a Banneker/Key Scholar, earned a citation from the University Honors program and participated in the PULSAR interdisciplinary language science program. Stepanova served as a Department of Mathematics Strauss Teaching Assistant for calculus I and II, participated in and served as a teaching fellow for the Global Fellows in Washington, D.C. program, and taught math in Russian to bilingual elementary school students. She also volunteered with the high school Maryland Science Olympiad and the Chesapeake Education, Arts and Research Society.

Stepanova’s long-term plans involve gaining expertise in natural language processing research—either through a Ph.D. program or an industry position—and acquiring legal and policy knowledge that will ensure her research findings are used to inform smart and effective policy.

“I also hope to contribute to the development of policies regulating social media content that endangers public health,” she said. “My time spent at Edinburgh will ensure that my research on misinformation is rooted in an understanding of the global trends in English-language social media propagation and can thus be used to advise social media regulation policies developed both in the U.S. and the U.K.”

Founded by a 1953 Act of Parliament and named in honor of U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the Marshall Scholarships commemorate the humane ideals of the Marshall Plan and they express the continuing gratitude of the British people to their American counterparts. The first class of 12 Marshall Scholars arrived in the United Kingdom in 1954; those elected today will enter universities in 2021. 

The scholarships, which can be extended up to three years, provide university fees, cost of living expenses, an annual book grant, a thesis grant, research and daily travel grants, fares to and from the United States, and a contribution toward the support of a dependent spouse.

We proudly recognize members of our community who recently garnered major honors, awards and promotions.

Faculty

Dmitry Dolgopyat was elected as a foreign member of the Academia Europaea.

Roohollah Ebrahimian received the Provost’s Excellence Award for Professional Track Faculty.

Vadim Kaloshin will receive a gold medal from the International Consortium of Chinese Mathematics (ICCM) for his joint paper with Guam Huang and Alfonso Sorrentino.

Gail Letzter was named a Fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics.

Sergei Novikov was awarded the 2020 Russian Academy of Sciences Gold Medal.

Konstantina Trivisa was named director of UMD’s Institute for Physical Science and Technology.

Graduate Students

Alexander Prize: Patrick Daniels and Ke Xue

Undergraduate Students

Marshall Scholar: Nataliya Stepanova

Merrill Scholars: Siri Neerchal and Mary Yilma

Alumni

Sharon Crook (M.A. ’91, Ph.D. ’96, Applied Mathematics) received the 2020 Charles Wexler Teaching Award, the highest honor a faculty member can receive from the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at Arizona State University.

Susan Ferensic (B.S. '91, Mathematics) was named Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Columbia, South Carolina Field Office.

Robert Hollingshead (B.S. ’92, mathematics; B.S. ’92 electrical engineering) was named a shareholder and chair of Greenberg Traurig, LLP’s Japan Intellectual Property Practice.

Tamara Kolda (M.A. '95, Applied Mathematics), scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, was one of 87 members elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

David Marker (B.S. ’78, Mathematics), senior statistician and associate director at Westat, was named co-chair of the American Statistical Association’s Anti-Racism Task Force.

Richard Palczynski (M.A. '71, Mathematics), founder and president of SeaTower Insurance Consulting Services, LLC was named to the Care Bridge International 2020 Advisory Board.

LaRee Tracy (M.A. '02, Statistics) was named director of biostatistics at PHASTAR.

We proudly recognize members of our community who recently garnered major honors, awards and promotions.

Faculty

Dmitry Dolgopyat was elected as a foreign member of the Academia Europaea.

Roohollah Ebrahimian received the Provost’s Excellence Award for Professional Track Faculty.

Vadim Kaloshin will receive a gold medal from the International Consortium of Chinese Mathematics (ICCM) for his joint paper with Guam Huang and Alfonso Sorrentino.

Gail Letzter was named a Fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics.

Sergei Novikov was awarded the 2020 Russian Academy of Sciences Gold Medal.

Konstantina Trivisa was named director of UMD’s Institute for Physical Science and Technology.

Graduate Students

Alexander Prize: Patrick Daniels and Ke Xue

Undergraduate Students

Marshall Scholar: Nataliya Stepanova

Merrill Scholars: Siri Neerchal and Mary Yilma

Alumni

Sharon Crook (M.A. ’91, Ph.D. ’96, Applied Mathematics) received the 2020 Charles Wexler Teaching Award, the highest honor a faculty member can receive from the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at Arizona State University.

Susan Ferensic (B.S. '91, Mathematics) was named Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Columbia, South Carolina Field Office.

Robert Hollingshead (B.S. ’92, mathematics; B.S. ’92 electrical engineering) was named a shareholder and chair of Greenberg Traurig, LLP’s Japan Intellectual Property Practice.

Tamara Kolda (M.A. '95, Applied Mathematics), scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, was one of 87 members elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

David Marker (B.S. ’78, Mathematics), senior statistician and associate director at Westat, was named co-chair of the American Statistical Association’s Anti-Racism Task Force.

Richard Palczynski (M.A. '71, Mathematics), founder and president of SeaTower Insurance Consulting Services, LLC was named to the Care Bridge International 2020 Advisory Board.

LaRee Tracy (M.A. '02, Statistics) was named director of biostatistics at PHASTAR.

Courses are taught on weekday evenings to accommodate work schedules and students have the opportunity to earn a master's in less than two years.

The University of Maryland’s Science Academy saw major enrollment growth this fall in its data science and machine learning programs for working professionals.

The programs, which are only in their second year, enrolled 54 new students, including 24 UMD alumni. The incoming class ranged in age from 20 to 54 years old and was 39% female. 

“The growth we’ve seen in our professional programs validates our commitment to diversifying educational offerings that are both of high value and of academic excellence,” said Amy Chester, director of the Science Academy. “As we navigated a new reality this fall, shaped in part by COVID-19, we shifted our programs from in-person to hybrid and online to meet our students’ needs.”

Thirty-eight of the new students enrolled in the data science and analytics master of professional studies and graduate certificate programs. The master of professional studies program in machine learning welcomed 16 new students.

Students in the data science programs learn to design, conduct, interpret, and communicate data analysis tasks and studies using methods and tools of statistics, machine learning, computer science and communications. 

Students in the machine learning program master the methods and techniques of creating models and algorithms that learn from and make decisions or predictions based on data. They also explore advanced topics such as deep learning, optimization, big data analysis and signal/image understanding.

Science Academy courses are taught on weekday evenings to accommodate working professionals. With this schedule, students have the opportunity to earn a master's in less than two years, while continuing to work. Instructors include faculty members in UMD’s Departments of Computer Science, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Mathematics. Fall course topics included probability and statistics with Mathematics Professor Leonid Koralov, principles of data science, deep learning, and research methods and study design. 

The application deadline for Fall 2021 enrollment in the data science or machine learning programs is March 12, 2021 for international students and June 30, 2021 for domestic students.

The Science Academy plans to expand its offerings in 2021 with executive education programs on climate finance and quantum computing.

“These new offerings will be short, high-impact experiences where participants can gain skills quickly and then apply what they learn to their professional work,” Chester said.

Written by Abby Robinson

Program lightens the load on students and strengthens ties with regional high schools

Two years ago, when Doron Levy served as the undergraduate chair of the University of Maryland’s Department of Mathematics, he had a question: Why not let the most advanced high school students take the final exam for second-year college math courses? If they pass and then enroll at UMD, they could earn credits for the course and the grade could be registered on their transcript. 

Advanced Placement exams already enable high school students to earn credits for freshman-level calculus I and II (MATH 140 and MATH 141). But Levy knew that students enrolled in STEM magnet schools, international baccalaureate programs and accelerated math programs often exceed that level before their junior year. Some even take multivariable calculus and linear algebra, both college sophomore-level subjects, before graduating high school. But very few colleges and universities allow students to start as freshmen with such advanced standing.

Levy, who became chair of the department in 2019, thought partnering with schools to allow credit by exam would not only benefit students, but open opportunities for recruitment. He and Mathematics Professor Lawrence Washington reached out to high schools in the region and worked with the college administration to get the ball rolling. Since then, 273 high school students have taken a mathematics exam for UMD course credit and nearly three dozen are now enrolled at UMD.

“The program has been extremely successful on many fronts,” Levy said. “It required the schools to align their curriculum to ours, which has made for a very smooth transition for students, and it has already attracted a remarkable cohort of students to Maryland.”

Of the 148 high school students who took the MATH 241: Calculus III exam in 2019, 120 passed, 35 enrolled at UMD and six are current mathematics majors. In 2020, the department added an exam for MATH 240: Linear Algebra. In total, 125 high school students took one of the two exams offered, and 112 passed. Levy expects many of them will choose to come to UMD when they graduate.

Four schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, currently participate in the “credit by exam” program—Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Poolesville High School in Poolesville and Georgetown Preparatory School in Bethesda. Teachers from these schools received mentoring from UMD faculty and access to previous exams through the math department’s test bank. 

The exams students take are selected from previous years’ unused alternate exams, which are held in the department under lock and key for administering to students who are unable to take their finals at the designated time. Using one of these exams ensures that students who earn credit by exam are on an equal footing with their peers.  

“Many students have commented to me afterward that they didn't really believe me when I said they're succeeding in a college course, but their comfort and success with UMD's exam drove it home,” said Jeremy Schwartz, a teacher in the Mathematics and Computer Science Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair High School. “These students are more confident about soon navigating the transition from high school into college.”
Ensuring the alignment of high school curricula with UMD’s math program has multiple benefits.

“There is always this disconnect between what high schools think students need to know and what we think they need to know,” Washington said. "And this helps get everyone on the same page. But also, some of these really advanced students, like physics majors and engineering majors, have so many credits proscribed in advance, anything that eases the course load and frees them up for electives can give them a real advantage. And that’s a great recruiting and marketing tool for us.” 

Schwartz said his students see credit by exam as a way to fit more advanced courses into their schedule when they get to college.

“Many of our students are chomping at the bit to dig into higher- level college courses,” he said. “In effect, these students don't cut a class out of their requirements. They replace Calc 3 with a higher-level course. For those in math, they more quickly get to the real ‘meat’ of their math major. For those in related fields, this allows them an additional space in their schedule for their primary passion.”

According to Levy, colleges across the country have waived their multivariable calculus course requirement for students who passed the UMD exam, and that benefits more than just the students. 

“The program has been very successful in making our department and university visible to the outside world,” Levy said. “Major schools throughout the country have recognized our unique approach to encouraging top talent.”

Levy plans to expand the program in the future by offering it to all Maryland high schools and possibly schools in the District of Columbia that teach advanced math classes. 

Written by Kimbra Cutlip