Read more about the members of our community who have been honored recently for their outstanding contributions to the university and the field of mathematics.

Faculty

• Doron Levy elected 2024 Class Fellows of AMS
• ​​Abba Gumel - 2023 Arthur Beaumont Distinguished Service Award (CAIMS)
• Abba Gumel was elected as a Fellow of Unesco’s World Academy of Sciences (TWAS)
• Partha Lahiri appointed as the President-Elect of the International Association of Survey Statisticians
• Chris Laskowski named Distinguished Scholar-Teacher

Student

• Perrin Ruth and Elliot Kienzle receive the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
• Deven Bowman receives the 2023 Goldwater Scholar Award

AMSC Ph.D. student Alice Oveson is creating a mathematical model that mimics how people decide whether to adhere to public health interventions.

Growing up, Alice Oveson was always fascinated by numbers and the certainty they provided. 

“Math was special because it’s based on logic and reasoning,” she explained. “I loved how black and white it was, how you could look at things in the world and express them in a mathematical, concrete way.” 

But she wasn’t totally convinced that it was her calling—not until one of her high school teachers gave her a little push in the right direction with a backhanded compliment.  

“I was always a little scared of this teacher because he was strict, both about the dress code and about math,” Oveson said. “Funny enough, he told me that even though I wasn’t his smartest student, I worked the hardest. According to him, that meant that I had the potential to embark on a career in math.” 

True to her teacher’s prediction, Oveson is now making waves as a Ph.D. student in the Applied Mathematics & Statistics, and Scientific Computation (AMSC) program at the University of Maryland. 

Under the guidance of Mathematics Professor Abba Gumel and Physics Professor Michelle Girvan, Oveson studies behavioral epidemiology, an up-and-coming field that seeks to understand how human behavior impacts the spread of disease. 

“Behavioral epidemiology combines a bunch of other subjects, from sociology to statistics,” explained Oveson, who said she chose to apply to the AMSC program due to its commitment to interdisciplinary research. “It helps us see how people’s decisions and actions can shape the progression of an epidemic.”

According to Gumel, Oveson’s work addresses a new and growing problem in public health: how people react to infectious disease in light of the spread of disinformation and increasing mistrust towards public health practitioners tasked with implementing control and mitigation measures. Oveson hopes to realistically incorporate these trends into mathematical models simulating disease transmission and control efforts.

“Alice exudes an amazing level of scientific curiosity,” said Gumel, who also holds the Michael and Eugenia Brin Endowed E-Nnovate Chair in Mathematics and joint appointments in the Department of Biology and Institute for Physical Science and Technology. “Formulating a mathematical model that reasonably mimics how humans choose to make decisions on their adherence to public health interventions is a remarkably challenging undertaking. She is determined to use mathematics, together with data analytics and computation, to solve some of the most pressing grand challenges of our time.”

Inspired by Gumel’s work in epidemiology and her own interest in human behavior, Oveson works on mathematically defining concepts like opinion dynamics—how individual opinions form and evolve over time—and applying that mathematical definition to simulation models of how epidemics grow or wane. To accomplish this, she considers three variables that impact the formation of an opinion: an individual’s own experiences, the opinions of others in the individual’s social network and current circumstances happening around the individual. Using these variables, Oveson can predict possible outcomes of a pandemic.  

“Our opinions shape how we act, and they also change a lot over time, especially when the topic of our opinion is fairly new,” she explained. “For example, the first few months of COVID-19 were crucial to how we ended up reacting to the pandemic. It was during that time that we cemented our opinions on COVID-19, whether it was worthy of concern and whether we should wear masks. Opinion shifts over time influenced how COVID-19 spread.” 

Oveson hopes that her work can one day help public health officials and medical workers fight pandemics by pinpointing when and where their control efforts would be most effective. 

“Knowing how a person feels about wearing a mask versus if they actually wear a mask during a pandemic can tell us if things like whether mask mandates or social pressures work in curbing disease,” she said. “Math can help us understand people and how to help them and even save lives.”

Making math more accessible

Oveson’s belief in how math can help people extends well outside the ivory tower of academia. This philosophy is why she also loves teaching math and is committed to making the subject more accessible to anyone.

“There’s math in so many things we do in life,” she said. “Math has the ability to lift people up, whether it’s giving you better job prospects or just raising your self-esteem when you’ve figured out something difficult.”

Even as a student herself, Oveson has taught a wide variety of students across many institutions. Some were high schoolers looking for a tutor; others were young undergraduates taking introductory calculus courses. More recently, she was part of a UMD Department of Mathematics initiative that allowed her to bring her teaching abilities to a correctional facility in Washington, D.C. 

There, she and several other volunteers from the department offered lessons to incarcerated individuals looking to build a better understanding of math concepts that could be helpful in their day-to-day lives.

“The inmates were exceptionally enthusiastic and willing to learn, more so than almost anybody else I’ve ever taught,” she said. “For them, math was something to look forward to.” 

Oveson’s experience working with incarcerated students reaffirmed her passion for math. Now, she hopes to continue her math outreach to the greater community through teaching, curricula planning and behavioral epidemiology work.

“My research is really fulfilling and so are my teaching efforts,” Oveson added. “Looking back, it’s because I was lucky to meet the right teacher at the right time at every step of my education. I hope to do the same for new generations of students.” 

Written by Georgia Jiang

Maria Nikolaitchik and Karthik Sellakumaran Latha honored teachers and professors who guided, inspired, tutored and challenged them during their academic journeys.

Outstanding graduating seniors at the University of Maryland have analyzed drought patterns, researched diabetes and tutored elementary school students in math. One plans to be an eye surgeon; another, a human rights attorney.

But as varied as their aspirations and accomplishments are, each of the 20 students chosen as 2023-24 Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars shares a deep conviction that they could not have achieved so much without teachers and professors who guided, inspired, tutored and challenged them during their academic journeys.

The program, named for the late university benefactor and Washington-area publisher, highlights the importance of mentorship with $1,500 scholarships, each of which is given in the K-12 teacher’s name to another student from their school district who will attend UMD the next academic year.

The 2023-24 Philip Merrill Presidential Scholars include:

• Maria Nikolaitchik, Statistics and Atmospheric and Oceanic Science major
• Karthik Sellakumaran Latha, Mathematics major

 Maria Nikolaitchik

Nikolaitchik honored teacher mentor Jeremy Brenneman from Middletown High School in Middletown, Maryland, and UMD faculty mentor Timothy Canty, an associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science.

“In high school, Mr. Jeremy Brenneman taught my very first class in statistics. He made the class fun and engaging by giving real-world examples, from horse racing to football,” Nikolaitchik said. “I came into UMD as a statistics major, but in part thanks to Professor Timothy Canty’s engaging lecture style, I was soon hooked on the world of atmospheric science. From Professor Canty I learned about the ins and outs of atmospheric science research.”

Canty also serves as the faculty advisor for Mesoterps, a student-led project to install weather stations across campus. Nikolaitchik serves as the project lead. 

“Both Mr. Brenneman and Professor Canty helped me better who I fundamentally am as a person: someone who loves numbers and clouds,” Nikolaitchik added.

Karthik Sellakumaran Latha

Latha honored teacher mentor Marisa Reinsch from Skyline High School in Sammamish, Washington, and UMD faculty mentor Roohollah Ebrahimian, a principal lecturer in the Department of Mathematics.

“I was lucky to have Ms. Marisa Reinsch as my calculus teacher in high school. Ms. Reinsch motivated me to study math in college, fostering my love for the subject and instilling a desire to teach in the future,” Latha said. “Her class was instrumental in my decision to serve as a teaching assistant for Calculus I and II at the University of Maryland.”

Latha conducted number theory research at UMD with Ebrahimian, solidifying his passion for math and convincing Latha to pursue becoming a math professor in the future.

“Dr. Ebrahimian is an amazing lecturer and is always willing to help his students,” Latha added.

About the Program

“The late Philip Merrill established this program to foster a community of scholars, faculty members and K-12 teachers who understand the pivotal role of mentoring and educating the upcoming generation,” said UMD President Darryll J. Pines. “We are profoundly thankful for all the individuals, including the many teachers, who have significantly influenced our students' academic progress.”

The program also spotlights the work of the graduating seniors, who are selected by the academic colleges and schools. In addition to internships and research projects, the honorees were involved in a range of campus activities, from matching students with service projects to marching in the marching band.

“The accomplishments of these scholars stand as a testament to the enduring influence of teacher excellence in shaping outstanding student achievements,” said William A. Cohen, associate provost and dean for undergraduate studies. “It is a special joy to celebrate student achievements alongside those individuals who helped foster their success. The Merrill Presidential Scholars Program is creating an essential legacy by emphasizing the mentorship that makes academic and personal triumphs possible.”

Anne Jorstad (Ph.D. ’12, applied mathematics & statistics, and scientific computation) leads the data team at Switzerland’s national science agency.

Anne Jorstad was born and raised in a Seattle suburb and spent much of her 20s on the East Coast. So when the University of Maryland alum received a postdoc offer in Switzerland, she decided it would be fun to live abroad for a little while.

“When I got the postdoc in Switzerland, I thought, ‘I’ll do that for two years, come back to the U.S. and move on with my career,’” said Jorstad (Ph.D. ’12, applied mathematics & statistics, and scientific computation). “But it turns out that Switzerland is really nice, so I didn’t come back.”

Jorstad now leads the data team at the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the largest state agency to fund research in Switzerland. Her team of eight data scientists and statisticians is dedicated to identifying trends, removing bias and increasing efficiency in the funding and review of research. 

“We are lucky because Switzerland invests a lot of money into research and we have an entire team dedicated to data analysis,” Jorstad said. “I don’t think such a large team exists at any other public funding agency in the world.”

Jorstad’s commitment to equity and affinity for data-based decisions—two qualities she honed during her time at UMD—have served her well in this leadership role.

Promoting inclusion in STEM
While looking into applied math Ph.D. programs in 2007, Jorstad felt that many schools were merely tacking applied math principles onto a pure math curriculum. She wanted something more practical and interdisciplinary and found it at UMD.
“The fact that there was an applied math program that wasn’t just pure fluid dynamics, but was actually applying math to other disciplines, is really what interested me,” she said. “I think for people like me who want to do something useful with math, the UMD program is an amazing fit.”

While Jorstad worked on her doctorate at UMD, she spent two summers interning at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. There, she enjoyed using math for good—for example, one of her projects involved developing a computational geometric model of a human heart, with the goal of designing a tool surgeons could use to practice complex surgeries before operating on a patient.

Jorstad also joined UMD’s Graduate Student Government (GSG), taking an interest in policies that could make science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs more inclusive. As a woman in math, she was keenly aware of the biases in academia; GSG helped expose her to other issues and nudged her career path toward policy.
“Wanting to counteract sexism was my entrance into government and policy, but then it became a broader awareness of all the ways in which the world is not fair to lots of people for various reasons; wanting to fight for not just equality, but equity; and wanting to promote diversity in programs,” she said. “I was interested in trying to make a difference.”

Through her advocacy with GSG, Jorstad helped to extend the health insurance coverage of Ph.D. students who were about to graduate and did not have insurance lined up for the summer. When it came time for her own graduation, she decided to move abroad and expand her worldview—and her reach—even further.

Heading to Lausanne

Jorstad moved to Switzerland in 2012 after accepting a postdoc position at EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. In this role, she led the development of computational tools that used geometry and image processing to compare neurons from young and old animals—research that could then be applied to understand degenerative brain disease in humans.
She then joined SNSF in 2014 and has been in Bern—a German-speaking region and the de facto capital of Switzerland—ever since. She studied French in high school and college and now takes German lessons, but most of her work is conducted in English.

Because SNSF is by far Switzerland’s largest national research funder, it’s a dream destination for data analysts.
“In the U.S. there’s the NSF and NIH and a bunch of other agencies, but in Switzerland, the SNSF funds everything and everybody,” she said. “Because it’s all in one database, we can ask and answer interesting questions about the research that’s being done in Switzerland.”

Jorstad’s team tapped into that database to analyze the number of women who applied for grants during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. They found that fewer women applied during this period, and women in the social sciences and humanities were the most heavily affected. Though it’s illegal to collect data on race and ethnicity in Switzerland, Jorstad hopes to find data proxies that can help identify whether and where biases exist. She believes her work could lead to policies that strengthen diversity, equity and inclusion.

“When there’s no data to support that there is bias against different ethnicities, it’s hard to convince people that we need to work on this problem,” Jorstad said. “It’s very important to me that we try to figure out proxies for different types of diversity.”

Jorstad is also passionate about effective science communication. She encourages her team to write “data stories”—articles about their data analysis projects—that are intended for nonexperts.
“Communicating to the public is a completely different skill set but it’s extremely useful,” she said. “It’s something we probably should all practice during our Ph.D.”

When she isn’t crunching data, Jorstad spends her time hiking Switzerland’s scenic trails, swimming in the Aare River that bisects Bern or playing oboe in a local wind ensemble that moonlights as a marching band in the summer. She’s also involved in local organizations that work to make a social impact.

Whether it’s in her community or in her work as a data scientist, Jorstad is committed to making a difference.
“At SNSF, we want to enable better policy decisions based on data,” she said. “Using evidence to make the world a better place is very important to me.”

Written by Emily Nunez

Gift will provide mathematics majors with financial, mentoring and networking opportunities.

A University of Maryland alum recently made a major gift to establish the Nancy Lee Hurtt ’70 Maryland Promise Scholarship in honor of his late wife. 

This gift will support mathematics majors from Maryland and Washington, D.C., who demonstrate exceptional leadership and academic potential, providing them with financial, mentoring and networking opportunities. The gift will also be matched by the A. James & Alice B. Clark Foundation as part of its Building Together investment in the university.

Hurtt was the first in her family to attend college and had to pay the full cost of her education herself. And it wasn’t easy—she cobbled together small scholarships, part-time jobs and summer work to pay the bills. 

“Money was a constant worry,” her husband said. “The margins of her books are covered with calculations. Not calculus or physics—arithmetic, as she tried to figure out how to pay for this lab fee or that textbook.”

Despite her financial hardships, Hurtt graduated in four years with her bachelor’s degree in mathematics and membership in the Phi Kappa Phi and Pi Mu Epsilon honor societies.

Hurtt went on to receive a master’s degree in computer science from the Polytechnical Institute of New York. She had a career as a computer programmer and was a key contributor to the system-managed storage subsystem of IBM’s flagship operating system. Hurtt passed away in 2015 after a 30-year battle with cancer.

“I think Nancy would be pleased to know that the Nancy Lee Hurtt ’70 Maryland Promise Scholarship will spare others the financial worries that she had in college,” her husband said.

Interested in establishing your own Maryland Promise Scholarship? Contact Megan Carnell at 301.405.0205 or for more information. Contributions will continue to be matched until March 1, 2026, or until no more matching funds are available, whichever comes first.

He and his brothers built two successful tech ventures and launched a startup incubator at UMD.

When Zeki Mokhtarzada (B.S. ’01, computer science and mathematics) delivers his commencement speech to undergraduates this May at the University of Maryland’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, he’ll be speaking from a wealth of experience—and UMD memories. His own graduation 22 years ago was more than special. Two of his siblings also received their degrees from Maryland that day, but that commencement event—or more accurately, the moment he snuck out of it—marked the start of Mokhtarzada’s hugely successful career as a tech entrepreneur.

"I remember my brother Haroon and I snuck out of graduation to go over to the Skinner building—they had open computers there—so we could check the numbers for our new company Freewebs,” Mokhtarzada recalled. “We’d just launched a week before that and when we checked the sign-ups, we realized we had 34 users that day. That was actually the moment we realized, ‘Oh my God, this is going to be a big business—34 people signed up, this is gonna be huge!’”

And it was. In the years that followed, Zeki and his brothers climbed the charts to superstar status in the tech startup world. By 2011, they sold their College Park startup Freewebs (later renamed Webs, Inc.) to VistaPrint for a cool $117.5 million. Then in 2021, Rocket Companies snagged the Mokhtarzada brothers’ next venture, the multimillion-dollar subscription management app Truebill, for $1.275 billion. (It has since been rebranded as Rocket Money.)

Now, with years of experience as an entrepreneur, consultant and tech advisor, Mokhtarzada serves as chief technology officer for Tenovos, a New York-based startup leading in next-generation digital asset management. He’s also a familiar face on the UMD campus as a mentor and advisor for student entrepreneurs, through the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship and his family’s own startup incubator called the Mokhtarzada Hatchery. For Mokhtarzada, working with the UMD startup community is all about giving back.

“To me, it’s just a way to pay it forward,” he explained. “It’s a way to show my gratitude for all the people who helped me along the way.”

Programming computers—in elementary school

Born in Turkey, Mokhtarzada spent the first years of his life in Afghanistan. When he was five, his family fled from the turmoil of the Soviet invasion and came to the U.S. as refugees, settling down in Montgomery County, Maryland. By the time Mokhtarzada was in elementary school, his parents had started a home-based business and his father encouraged him to start experimenting with computers.

“We had computers in our house before most people did—it was part of the office—so I learned a lot about office computing through that experience,” Mokhtarzada recalled. “We had this big IBM PC with two floppy drives, and my dad said, ‘Hey why don’t you learn to program this thing.’ So, I was pretty much self-taught.”

Mokhtarzada’s interest in computers and programming grew, and by the time he finished 10th grade, he was taking college-level courses at UMD.

“We connected with Dr. John Gannon, who was the department chair at the time, and he became a mentor for me,” Mokhtarzada said. “I started taking classes at Maryland that summer and again the summer of 11th grade and then 12th grade I did dual enrollment, half the day I was at high school and then I was at the University of Maryland taking classes.”

When it was time for college, Maryland was the obvious choice. Mokhtarzada spent his college years building a strong skill set for the next-generation tech he wanted to create.

“At Maryland, that’s really where I learned how to code and design programs and how data structures work, how databases work, how the machine architecture itself works,” he explained. “It gave me a really strong foundation, skills I still use today.”

Dropping out—and rushing back

In 1999, Mokhtarzada dropped out of college to join a startup called HyperOffice, gaining valuable expertise in web development along the way. But when dot-coms started going bust, so did the job. Mokhtarzada knew what he had to do.

“I remember I didn’t waste any time,” he recalled. “I got laid off at like 10 in the morning and I went straight to the Mitchell building and I told them ‘I have a couple missing credits I need to finish.’”

By the time he graduated in 2001, Mokhtarzada had picked up a second major in mathematics. He went all in with his brothers as they grew and sold their first startup Webs, Inc. and then brainstormed and built the blockbuster personal finance app Truebill. For Mokhtarzada and his brothers, it was a rollercoaster ride to startup success.

“I think I gravitate toward those early days, that’s kind of the sweet spot,” he reflected. “Once you’ve got customers it’s just so exhilarating because you’ve got someone using your product and you’re so motivated because there are people counting on you.”

In 2016, when startup accelerator Y Combinator invested in Truebill and made a commitment to help the company grow, Mokhtarzada’s brothers Haroon, Idris and Yahya headed for the West Coast to take advantage of the opportunity. But Zeki decided to stay in Maryland and apply his entrepreneurial experience as a consultant to the startup community. By 2019, he joined Tenovos as chief technology officer, helping to build the business, one step at a time.

“What I like about this, and startups in general, is you get to build a team piece by piece, you get to build processes, you get to look at what’s working and what’s not working and make drastic changes because the company isn’t huge, there’s not a lot of bureaucracy,” Mokhtarzada explained. “We can all can get in a room and say, ‘Hey guys, let’s change the way we work,’ and then do it, and I really like that.”

Putting Maryland tech on the map

Through his work with startups and his commitment to mentoring students in programs like the Dingman Center and the Hatchery, Mokhtarzada hopes to advance an even bigger mission—putting Maryland on the map as a powerhouse tech ecosystem.

“We have so much going for this area, there’s no reason why we don’t have a stronger tech hub here, specifically in Maryland,” he noted. “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be competing on a high level.”

Mokhtarzada also devotes as much time as he can to working with local and national nonprofits.

“I think that’s part of giving back and being a productive member of society,” he said. “I’m the president of the Montgomery Blair High School Magnet Foundation and we help by paying for programs that are no longer available because of budget cuts, things like lab equipment and teacher training. I’m also the treasurer of the One America Movement and we’re addressing toxic polarization in America, bringing groups of people together who typically wouldn’t interact with one another.”

Of all the things Mokhtarzada does to pay his own success forward, his work with student entrepreneurs is especially rewarding, a very real reminder of just how far he’s come.

“I definitely love interacting with those kids and remembering where I was when I was at Maryland myself—and that’s energizing as well,” he explained. “These students are so with it, so impressive with what they’re doing that I kind of wish I’d spent my time as intentionally as they do. For me, it was more about luck, and I happened to be at the right place at the right time.”

Now, as Mokhtarzada looks ahead to his speech at this year’s commencement ceremony, he hopes his success story can inspire the class of 2023 to make their own mark on the world, in whatever way they can.

"It's an exciting time to be alive and I look forward to sharing my experiences and lessons learned,” he said. “I hope that I can inspire the graduates to build the future they want to live in."

Written by Leslie Miller