Senior mathematics and computer science double major Alex Yelovich’s passion for numbers helped him thrive in UMD’s Math and Robotics clubs.
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When Alex Yelovich came to the University of Maryland as a freshman in 2021, he didn’t waste any time getting involved. Before classes started that fall, he emailed the UMD Math Club’s then-president to ask how to join.
“I guess I didn’t want to leave it to chance,” Yelovich joked. “I grew up loving math all the way through high school and was inspired by my calculus teacher to explore all things math, including the history of calculus and what you can do with numbers. I couldn’t picture myself at UMD without math, which is why I joined the club and chose to be a math major as soon as I could.”
Today, Yelovich is a senior mathematics and computer science double major and Math Club president. He plans the club’s activities year-round, from guest talks to game nights (including integration bees, a bracketed competition to solve complicated integrals, or math pictionary–a club favorite!). He also orchestrates bi-weekly presentations for UMD math students, staff and faculty members that showcase the diverse world of mathematical thinking at all levels.
“The Math Club provides a platform for undergrads, graduate students and professors to present on any math-related topic of their choosing, just based on their interest or passion,” said Yelovich, who gave a talk on the history of the French mathematician François Viète and his impact on solving the cubic. “It’s a safe place where people can share their theories, ideas and projects with the rest of the department and have meaningful discussions about them beyond a classroom.”
Yelovich’s journey to leadership began almost by accident. During his first year at UMD, he enrolled in MATH 340: Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra and Differential Equations, an accelerated course designated for advanced incoming freshmen. Although it differed greatly from his high school math classes, Yelovich loved it.
“In high school, students feel like they’re on this pathway that ends at calculus,” Yelovich explained. “But MATH 340 showed me everything you could do in math beyond that. My experience in the class ignited my excitement to explore an even wider variety of math content through my activities and courses.”
Impressed by Yelovich’s enthusiasm and aptitude, Mathematics Principal Lecturer Wiseley Wong—who is also the Math Club’s faculty advisor—approached him at the end of the semester to ask if Yelovich would be interested in becoming a Math Club officer. “Alex was always on top of things in the course, even asking what to read ahead for the next class,” Wong said, noting that he was impressed by Yelovich’s math skills and love of learning.
“Long story short, I got ‘promoted’ over the years, and now I’m giving back to the organization that’s been with me since the beginning and helping the next generation of math majors get involved,” Yelovich said.
Finding new ways to explore math
Yelovich also shares his knowledge and leadership skills with UMD’s Robotics Club, where he serves as a technical lead for Qubo, one of three robots being developed by UMD student-led teams. Capable of navigating and course-correcting itself through underwater obstacles without direct remote guidance, Qubo is the club’s smallest (weighing almost 50 pounds) and longest-running robot project to date, starting development in 2014.
“Qubo is our entry for RoboSub, this annual competition where you can earn points depending on how well your robot makes decisions on its own while submerged underwater,” Yelovich explained. “We’ve equipped Qubo with pressure sensors, thrusters, stereo vision cameras and even a custom-made torpedo launch system. I started working on Qubo my freshman year, became its software manager and now I’m its project manager. All the technical decisions we make as a team go through me before they’re made on the robot and I do my best to manage Qubo’s progress.”
Yelovich began managing Qubo’s software his junior year, the same year he became the president of the Math Club. Balancing his two leadership roles was difficult but immensely rewarding, connecting his love for math with his passion for computer science and developing software. Two summers ago, Yelovich interned at Lockheed Martin, where he worked to improve the computing power of a central computer system node that he likened to a “basic four-function calculator.”
“There’s a lot you can do to connect math with problem-solving in the real world. For example, we use linear algebra for computer vision, allowing robots to interpret visual data from images taken with their camera to orient themselves,” Yelovich said. “I developed some creative thinking skills during my internship by combining the concepts of automatic differentiation with operator overloading, which essentially tells the computer the rules of differentiation for various expression, such as the chain rule or well-known derivatives of elementary functions, enabling the computer to compute both the functional value and its derivative at a point. They’re all connections between math and computer science that aren’t so obvious.”
After he graduates, Yelovich plans to move to Atlanta, where he landed a job as a firmware engineer at Mueller Systems, the oldest manufacturer of water meters in the U.S. Looking back, Yelovich feels grateful for the skills he developed at UMD and hopes that students just beginning their journeys at UMD will make the most of the opportunities available to them on campus, just as he did.
“Take advantage of the excellent professors in the math department,” he said. “Go to office hours. Even if you’re already comfortable with the material, get to know your professors and have conversations and grow from them. You never know where these moments will take you.”
Written by Georgia Jiang
