Inclusion/Exclusion

My Story Begins with my Mother Irene

My mathematical path was influenced by my parents, especially my mom, Irene. My mom’s dad and my grandpa, Raul Yzaguirre, was in his early twenties when he was diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disorder that affected his ability to walk and breathe. Doctors told him he would not live long, and that he would never walk again, forcing him on disability. He used a wheelchair for most of my mom’s early life, so from a young age, she helped care for him.

Throughout my mom’s childhood, my grandpa frequented various hospitals, and when not in the hospital, my mom would help care for him with his endless daily medication, setting alarms for him at night so he could wake up and take them. The associated financial and emotional struggles of caring for my grandpa impacted my mom in a way that made her conscious of the stress her parents were going through, and therefore, she always pushed herself to do well in school.

My mom was one of six kids, and throughout high school, she balanced caring for my grandpa, working, and studying. She gave her paychecks to her parents, and overall she helped out in whatever way she could. My grandpa always told my mom, aunts, and uncles to do their best in getting their education, and when my mom heard him say this, she knew she had to do her best.

After high school, my mom first attended San Bernardino Valley College, a community college in San Bernardino, CA. Part way through, not finishing at Valley College, she switched to a program at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, CA, to become a licensed vocational nurse. My grandpa told her she would make a great nurse because of how she would always take care of others, especially helping him with his various tasks throughout the day. She had a discouraging experience during an internship where she was told that she would never make it as a nurse, that being a nurse was not for her, because she was not doing some tasks correctly. This was damaging enough to make her drop out of the program. She did not feel the confidence to continue. She did not complete this program, and she did not return to school. It turns out, her academic journey was very similar to and influenced my own.

K–12 Academic Experiences

My K–12 journey was injected with mathematical confidence early on, brought about by circumstance, and questioned at every step of the way, which was not unlike my mom’s own experience while in school. My schooling was done through the Rialto Unified school district in Rialto, CA. Rialto Unified was and still is, a Title I school district. [1] While I was in elementary school, my mom realized that I enjoyed things that challenged me intellectually; she sought to discuss how the school could push me academically. Because of her persistence, various opportunities arose, including being placed in a program for gifted and talented students, which helped me grow my confidence in school at a young age.

After elementary school , I attended Jehue Middle School. Jehue focused on STEM and college tracks through GEAR-UP. [2] I recall visiting local colleges, such as California State University, San Bernardino, and participating in other programs to broaden college readiness. Though my parents didn’t graduate from college, I was consistently getting the message of attending college from both my school and home. At the time, the conversation was centered on getting a bachelor’s degree, not really graduate school. In fact, throughout my undergraduate career, I was still unaware of the opportunities for graduate education.

At Jehue, I started to gain more confidence in mathematics. Towards the beginning of my sixth-grade math class, we were covering addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of fractions. We had already discussed these topics in the previous grade, so I did not understand why we were discussing it again. Maybe my boredom in the class stemmed from the curriculum, or maybe my teacher did not recognize or realize students in that area could/can be challenged and pushed more than how they were. My mom was conscious and worried about keeping me challenged.

During this time, my grandma was working towards her associate’s degree at San Bernardino Valley College. I note that my grandma did not graduate high school. She stopped going to school while in middle school. She married my grandpa at the age of 14 and spent her life caring for others, including her six kids. In the 1990s, she decided she wanted to get her General Educational Development (GED), [3] and eventually her associate’s degree; she wanted to prove she could complete a college degree. One of the last classes my grandma needed for her associate’s degree was her math class, college algebra. She had felt incapable in math, and struggled. My mom said I could help since I was good at math, and I looked at her workbook. I remember looking at this old workbook that was in typeset font with problems such as:

Distribute and simplify y²z⁴(yz+2y²–3z) + 4y²z⁵.

Reading through some of the book, I figured the problem was just a matter of following some rules or guidelines.

After helping my grandma, my mom approached my middle school counselor, Mr. Ed, with the work I was doing. The discussion was centered on how to further challenge me. They decided to pursue moving me up to the next grade in only math. Along with my mom, Mr. Ed became one of my biggest advocates. He wholeheartedly supported the move for me, and with my mom, they further advocated for me in discussions with other teachers and administrators.

To prove I was capable of doing mathematics at the next grade level, I was taken aside into a room by two math teachers: one male and one female. For some reason, I remember the male teacher being more stern and interrogative, while the female teacher, was more inquisitive. I was given a test in a classroom, then asked to explain my reasoning on various questions. After the diagnostic test, they did figure that it was me doing the math, and I had the “correct” thinking with the problems and the only remaining discussion was on the logistics to accommodate me in the next grade level. Luckily, at the middle school, it was easy enough to bump me up to pre-algebra, which was the seventh-grade mathematics class.

In the pre-algebra class, I was pointed out for being the sixth-grader. The teacher would often call on me as though I should have answers to all of the math questions. The teacher acted like I should be able to do anything thrown at me. I would answer the best I could, and this further helped me develop confidence in my mathematical abilities. Even when I got some part of the answer wrong or if I had to think more about the problem, I still answered. I was viewed by my peers as the one to ask math questions to. This also boosted my confidence since I saw myself as being further along in mathematics than my peers. I now realize that through the move from sixth-grade math to seventh-grade pre-algebra, I gained the confidence that would later propel me to choosing to be a math major.

In my eighth-grade year, I had my last class of the day, geometry, at the high school that was about half a mile down the street from the middle school. Every day, after my fifth class, I would spend fifteen minutes in Mr. Ed’s office, talking with him. He would check in with me about my classes and how things were going. I would then leave the middle school and make the walk. I was emboldened with the responsibility of making that trip every day, walking onto a high school campus before my peers. In a recent conversation with Mr. Ed, with whom I still keep contact, I found out that he would drive in his car and watch me on that walk every day; he made sure I would make it to the campus. I was shocked to find this out! I always thought I was on my own. When I found this bit of information out, withheld for so long, it made me well up with emotions. I still have trouble putting my feelings into words: thankfulness, pride, endearment, self valuation, belonging, cheerfulness. I found this out at a time when I was pondering what things along my path encouraged me to pursue a PhD math program, and that single circumstance of me walking and feeling empowered aided in that.

Throughout my early school education, Mr. Ed was an advocate that helped propel me towards becoming a mathematician. Along with my mom, his voicing support for me to move ahead in math, even taking the time to watch me walk to the high school, was work to ensure I was being challenged in mathematics. I don’t know if I would have chosen math without his and my mom’s support. After I left Jehue to attend high school, the middle school created a geometry class for students who were ready for such a challenge. I feel proud that, because of what I was able to do in mathematics, other students were being challenged and encouraged to tackle more advanced mathematics at a younger age.

Journey towards an Undergraduate Math Major

My undergraduate experiences parallel my mom’s, with the difference being the choice I made after a discouraging encounter with a professor. Growing up, I saw my parents struggle financially and, like my mom, this struggle made me conscious of the importance of my successes in school. Although my parents were proud of my every step and achievement, they could not give me guidance on navigating college. GEAR-UP and other programs helped in this regard by introducing me to colleges and by keeping the message of attending college visible.

Leaving high school, I applied to various schools and got accepted to two. I chose to attend Cal Poly Pomona because of my desire to be an architect, which I credit to growing up with imaginative play and building different structures out of Legos. Also, since I was comfortable with mathematics, a math-based career felt natural.

From the onset of college, I had to adjust and adapt. When I received my acceptance letter to Cal Poly, I learned I was accepted into the program of electrical engineering. This was my second choice since we had to choose more than one potential major in our application. I did not know that architecture at Cal Poly was an impacted major, meaning that I had to not only apply to Cal Poly, but also to their specific program. Therefore, I decided to stick with engineering because it was still math-based, and it gave me an opportunity to make good money, even though I must admit I did not exactly know what electrical engineers did.

In my first year of undergraduate education, I enjoyed and did well in my classes, riding a natural wave of classes and homework. In the fall semester of my second year, I took a digital logic class with a lab where we built various electrical circuits. In this class is where, similar to my mom, I had a horrible discouraging academic experience that greatly impacted my academic trajectory. A difference here was that I had the confidence to fall back into another subject, and that confidence stemmed from my mom and my K–12 experiences in mathematics. In the engineering lab, we were supposed to collect and put various resistors and capacitors together to successfully build circuits each week. I was left to my own devices to figure things out. I would spend hours and hours before and after class trying to figure out how to build the circuit we were supposed to build. I would ask the professor, but he would scoff at me and tell me I should be able to figure it out on my own. The grade centered on completion of the labs, and going into the fourth week, it was clear that I was not able to do them on my own. With no guidance, I would fail the course.

When I had that negative experience, I believed I did not have the skills or capability to become an engineer, and I needed to change my major. Not knowing what other major to switch to, coupled with the fact that I wanted to graduate in four years, I switched over to being a math major, which was not viewed as an “easy” major. I had confidence in math, and that confidence came from my mom advocating for me in those early years and other early experiences. This made me think about what would have happened for her if she had confidence in some other area, or had someone to advocate on her behalf. Switching to a math major meant I got some push back from some of my family because I decided I would teach high school math; at the time it was all I knew that one could do with a math degree.

As a math major, I went through my classes with a closed mindset. I would push through knowing the end goal was to go off and start teaching high school. My desire to become a teacher was reinforced through my work as a math tutor in GEAR-UP at La Puente high school in Hacienda Heights, CA, and as a math tutor for Sylvan learning center in Rialto, CA working with underserved K–5 students. I enjoyed being able to help students with their perceived struggles and also being a mentor for them, planting the seeds of attending college.

In my own math education, there were definitely classes in the major that I struggled in, including both real analysis and abstract algebra. Both real analysis I and II were difficult for me. I never really felt as though I understood the concepts, and the professor never seemed concerned. But, in abstract algebra, there was an instance that steered me towards more of a comfort with algebra as a topic of interest. In the fall of my third year at Cal Poly, my first abstract algebra class was poorly run and I did not come out of that class with much knowledge, leaving me unprepared for the next course in the sequence. I also rarely attended professors’ office hours, and I was worried about taking abstract algebra II (rings and fields). I sought out advice from the professor teaching that class, Dr. Robin Wilson. He reassured me that everything would be good, and he said that I did not need a great background of groups to be successful with rings and fields. That little moment of affirmation kept me on track. Throughout his course, he reignited my interest and confidence in algebra, which later led me to studying representation theory in graduate school, though I didn’t know it then.

Journey towards Graduate Mathematics

Leaving Cal Poly as a math major, I had one goal in mind—getting my teaching certificate. I moved to Michigan with my wife (then fiancée) and was on track to attend the University of Michigan’s School of Education. I was planning to complete a bachelor’s degree in education along with gaining a certificate, which was naive on my part because I only needed my teaching certificate. I was unaware that the government’s grants, such as the Pell grant, only help you fund one degree. Not having money for out-of-state tuition to become a high school teacher and still not knowing what to do as a math major, I quickly pivoted to pursue a master’s in the mathematics program at Eastern Michigan University. I was still leaning towards teaching, yet the graduate students at Eastern Michigan only graded or worked in the tutoring lab on campus. Through various discussions with the interim chair, Dr. Carla Tayeh, a fellow graduate student and I were able to pilot a program enabling graduate students to teach lower-division math classes. This was the first instance where I advocated for myself, and I got a taste of teaching at the collegiate level.

I already felt comfortable teaching, and doing so in college was affirming my growing thoughts of staying in the college classroom. This was another moment that could have steered me away from a path towards becoming a professor. If Dr. Tayeh had rejected my opinions of allowing graduate students to teach rather than grade or tutor, then I am not sure I would have been steadfast on teaching at the college level. The openness and willingness of Dr. Tayeh to take a chance on me was another moment of affirmation along my mathematical journey.

Based on these experiences, I began to research what it would take for me to become a professor at a four-year institution; I did not know much about doctorate degrees. I applied to four schools, three mathematics programs, and one mathematics education program, all in Southern California. I also applied to teach as a part-time instructor at various community colleges. Our plan was to move back to Southern California. Either I would attend graduate school, or teach at a couple schools. I received three rejection notices. With our move back to California and still no word from the fourth school, I did not think too much of it; my mind had already switched to trying to find work. Then, in May of 2013, I got a call from the University of California, Riverside (UCR) asking if I was still interested in their graduate program. That said, I started graduate school fall of 2013, not exactly knowing what I was heading into.

When I got to graduate school, the struggle got real. I felt woefully underprepared for all of my classes. I remember thinking I was not able to do it because I did not put in the time before as an undergraduate or as a master’s student. I realized I was in classes with people who did much more studying than I did. This realization turned fruitful because I quickly formed study groups with them and became a better student. The more I struggled and thought about the material, the deeper my understanding became; I realized the struggle was good and advantageous. Previously, I rode that wave from the attention I received in sixth grade, believing I was always “good” at math. Failing my first graduate exams in algebra and topology, others in my cohort seemed to be in the same boat as I was, and this was a saving fact. I realized we were all going through this process of learning, and supported each other throughout it; another moment of affirmation. Without this support and friendship, I would not have lasted long in the program. The community that was built early on definitely supported my successes, and still supports my successes today.

Throughout graduate school, I relied on my cohort for support with classes and began to find my way as an academic. In my third year of graduate school, post-qualifying exams (comprehensives), I distinctly remember a conversation I had with my advisor
Dr. Vyjayanthi Chari that steered me down the path I am on now. I am not sure if she knows the impact that conversation had on me. It was at a 2016 conference at the University of North Texas. At the conference dinner, she and I began talking about jobs that students want after leaving graduate school. She posed various questions to me, sorting through her own thoughts, and made me think about what job I would want. For example, she asked (paraphrasing) “Why are students getting or not getting certain jobs when they graduate?”. We had a PhD candidate graduating from North Texas that spring sitting with us who had accepted a tenure-track job offer at a four-year institution, and Dr. Chari asked the student what steps they took to get their job. The message from the student was involvement: she was involved in organizing conferences, seminars, attending various conferences, etc. The follow-up question to me from Dr. Chari was “Why or why aren’t our students doing such things?”, with a follow-up comment, “The job market is a difficult thing to navigate.” I thought much about that conversation and about exactly what job I would want leaving graduate school. Specifically, I thought: what was my end goal? I always enjoyed teaching, and working with undergraduates, so I knew I wanted to be at a four-year institution with a focus on teaching. I also wanted to become a professor at a four-year institution to continue to mentor students and hopefully be a source of inspiration for others that may question themselves as they complete their studies. From that conversation with Dr. Chari, I sought out ways to set myself apart from other job applicants, looking for opportunities to develop professionally towards that goal, not just through mathematics. I had always been interested in teaching and outreach, and that conversation with Dr. Chari empowered me to seek out such opportunities, unlocking a door that had been previously invisible.

The spring of my third year of graduate school was when I first started to get involved, and began to more actively advocate for myself. I got involved in various activities inside and outside the department at UCR, such as joining math club and attending various conferences and workshops that were offered; always intently looking for different opportunities. I never sought out such things as an undergraduate or in my master’s program, but as a PhD candidate, I finally realized I was more capable and turned proactive instead of passive. I passionately pursued things I was interested in. I formed a reading course for undergraduate students in Lie theory, which was not done before in the department. I led work with the math department to organize a math circle type program in the Rialto Unified school district. I also led work with others to organize a seminar on equity and inclusion for math graduate students and faculty. These activities helped me take steps towards my end goal of becoming a professor at a four year institution. They also challenged my thinking about how to unlock students’ potential. How can we empower and support students to pursue things that will help them reach their end goal? How can we, directly or indirectly, positively play a role in a student’s path?

My Family

Part of my testimonio and journey through academia is about my family. Having kids in graduate school was a decision that my spouse and I came to and wanted. I was met with resistance from some, receiving questions like, “Why now? Are you going to be able to keep up?” Some thought that if we had children I would not finish my doctoral degree. Those questions and comments fueled me even more to prove to others that it can be done, though there were, and still are, private moments I question myself. Those moments of creeping self-doubt would then be backed by a thought of, “Why should the profession be void of life’s experiences?” Yes, it takes extra work on my part, and it takes support from my spouse, my mom, my grandma, and others in my family. Part of the Hispanic culture, at least for me, has meant receiving unquestioned support from those around me, and that support continued throughout graduate school, still continuing today.

Being passionate about what I do, teaching and studying mathematics, made it easier to balance life and work. I gained the appreciation for the time I have to work and the time I have for my family. The tug-of-war between work and life is never-ending, always causing moments of stress through many moments of joy. Overall, the experience has been enlightening and rewarding.

Concluding Remarks

I didn’t take a traditional path to be a professor. In fact, my path towards the professoriate was laced with instances of advocacy and affirmation. My parents did their absolute best in steering my siblings and me with the resources they had. The choices my mom made in her early post-secondary career, leaving college and not finishing, turned into support and motivation for me on my academic journey. My mom’s lived experiences turned into her supporting me by ensuring I had access and confidence in academics, speaking up to teachers to challenge me in school, and advocating for me and instilling a sense of self-belief. I was also motivated by her experiences which gave me a deep desire to make my parents proud, get to the finish line of college, and prove to others that I can do it. That support and motivation eventually pushed me to successfully pursue a doctorate in mathematics. Outside of that, programming in my K–12 schools was also crucial in supporting my thoughts of continuing education beyond high school. That is to say, one way towards supporting more Latinx/Hispanic people in mathematics is to be an advocate and provide support in multiple ways; small things can make a huge impact on a trajectory of a student, for better or for worse. This is what I carry with me throughout all my work. You never know what instance may positively influence someone on their path, and it is my hope that the instances I have shared in my testimonio will positively influence you on your path.

[1] The U.S. department of education defines Title I as providing financial assistance to local educational agencies (LEAs) and schools with high numbers or high percentages of children from low-income families to help ensure that all children meet challenging state academic standards.
[2] Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs was designed to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in post-secondary education.
[3] The General Educational Development tests are a group of subject examinations which when completed are equivalent to the U.S. high school diploma.

Previous Testimonios:

• Dr. James A. M. Álvarez
• Dr. Federico Ardila Mantilla
• Dr. Selenne Bañuelos
• Dr. Erika Tatiana Camacho
• Dr. Anastasia Chavez
• Dr. Minerva Cordero
• Dr. Ricardo Cortez
• Dr. Jesús A. De Loera Herrera
• Dr. Jessica M. Deshler
• Dr. Carrie Diaz Eaton
• Dr. Alexander Díaz-López
• Dr. Stephan Ramon Garcia
• Dr. Ralph R. Gomez
• Dr. Victor H. Moll

The Early Years

I am not sure when, but part of my family came to the south of Chile from Germany as a nineteenth- century immigration policy by the Chilean government. [1] What I do know is that in the 1950s it was an established tradition in medical schools in Chile that upon graduation, doctors would serve in small towns before applying for jobs in Santiago and other large cities. My father, Victor Hugo Moll Strassburger, graduated in 1955, married Ema Lucy Becker Correa, his girlfriend since his first year of medical school, and took his first job in Cabildo, a small mining town north of the capital. In Chile you start medical school right after high school, so they dated for a long time. He was the only doctor serving several small villages.

I am the oldest of three. My sister Ana Maria, my brother Ricardo Antonio and I were all born in Santiago, since the capital had hospitals with better facilities. My parents’ families all lived in Santiago, so we often visited them. The few memories I have from that time always involve relatives coming to spend time with us, with my grandmother Clara Moll Strassburger directing the group. Those visits by relatives always involved lots of cooking and among my favorite sweets were calzones rotos, [2] which is a deep fried cookie full of powdered sugar. After my father’s untimely death in 1963, my mother and the three of us stayed in Cabildo for one more year.

So I spent my early years in Cabildo, starting my formal education in Escuela de Hombres, Número 5. This was a typical elementary school in a small town, probably with students of different ages in the same room. My teachers were Angelina Guzmán and Maria Eugenia Palacios. The photo above shows my fourth-grade class, I am the fifth from right to left in the middle row. Through social media, I have been able to reconnect with some of my classmates and with my teacher Ms. Palacios who sent the picture.

After my father’s early passing, we moved to Quilpué, a town near Valparaiso. The privilege of being the family of the town doctor had ended. My mother, then 33 and a widow with three young kids (I was seven and the oldest), had to learn how to survive. She remarried Sergio Labarca very soon after that. She used to tell me, that without a doubt, this was one of the best decisions of her life. My siblings and I gained a new father, in the complete meaning of the word. It was his opinion that education was the most important gift parents can give to their children. He found one of the best schools in the region (and one of the most expensive ones). Most of the small income our family was receiving, with both parents working, went to pay for education. Therefore, I started fifth grade at The MacKay School. My sister and my brother went to similar types of schools. This was a British school founded in 1857 to serve the community of immigrants coming from England as part of the business activities around the port. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, Valparaiso was a major port for ships going from Europe to the West Coast of the United States. It was here that my teacher, Maria Eugenia Pardo, noticed that I had some talent for mathematics. I still remember that she was very happy when I was able to show that any angle inscribed in a semi-circle was a right angle. This was seventh grade, a period in which mathematical education in Chile was being guided by abstraction and axiomatic mathematics was taught even at this level. For me, there were some inherent life complications being from a working class family and being a student at a fancy private school. The economic standing, naturally associated from being the son of a doctor, had ended. Somehow mathematics became my refuge.

I finished my secondary education at the public Liceo Coeducacional de Quilpué. It was a very stimulating time: the country was going through very interesting social changes in the early years of the 1970s and being in high school at that time offered many experiences that built character. Many of my classmates left the country after the coup d’état and are scattered all over the world. We still get together via electronic gatherings, which sometimes have to be early in the morning in order to accommodate those with very different time zones. Some years ago I had an interesting experience when I was invited to give a talk about my academic path by the office of the mayor of Quilpué. The chance to give a presentation to high school students about my academic life made me uncomfortable. The school had decreased in quality and was beginning a slow recovery period. For many years, the Chilean public had been convinced by authorities that private schools are always better than public ones. This had the consequence of depriving public schools of funds needed to function, leading to a deterioration of what was a very good school at the time that I attended. The beginning of recovery began when the mayor’s office decided to aim towards students interested in arts. During the time of my invited lecture, I met with many students, and tried to convince them that it is possible to be interested in science and not fit the stereotypes (they assume that if you liked mathematics, you had to be a nerd). I was lucky that two of my best high school friends, Kenna Meneses and Juan Francisco Carrasco, came to my presentation and vouched for my stories. At the end, they seemed to like what I was telling them. Although, I had returned to my high school with mixed feelings, having the opportunity to talk to the students made it all worth it in the end.

Undergraduate Studies

After graduation and with the knowledge that the best option for a high school student with interest in mathematics was to join an engineering school, I did so. In March of 1973, the beginning of the fall semester, I began my studies at Universidad Técnica Federico Santa Maria, one of the most prestigious engineering schools in Chile. The core part of the curriculum was common to every student, including three mathematics courses. It was there that I realized that my background was not optimal. Many other incoming first- year students had seen calculus in high school. This was all new to me. And then came the coup, September 11th, 1973. Learning integral calculus with a curfew was challenging. All of my undergraduate education was during the new regime.

The geographical isolation of Chile, coupled with a nineteenth century immigration policy that allowed only Europeans mostly from England, Germany, and Yugoslavia to immigrate, created a more homogeneous society than some of our neighboring countries. I am not sure of all the details, but I believe that this is how my ancestors came to the south of Chile. This centralized immigration policy and the lack of travelers from other countries produced a relatively racially homogeneous population. I have no early memories of African, African-American, Asian, or other immigrants being part of our town. To me, the racial distinctions were weaker than the economic ones. More than that, the concept of class was very strong. There are even Chilean terms to describe the distinction between having class versus having money. Growing up, I never felt discriminated because of racial issues.

Although I took mathematics courses at Santa Maria, I began my career in college on a track to become an electronic engineer. In the university educational system in Chile, you choose a career at the moment you enter college. There is no concept of having a major. When I arrived, studying mathematics had been closed as an option to all incoming students, even though this had been an option in previous years. Fortunately, in my third semester as an undergraduate student at Santa Maria, I managed to transfer to become a mathematics student. There were only two other students in the mathematics program.

There are many differences between the Chilean and American university systems. From the point of view of this story, the most important one is the fact that in Chile students choose a career at the end of high school. If you want to be a lawyer, you go directly to law school. No time to warm up. If you do not like it or do not do well, you have to retake the entrance exams and apply again. If you are a student with some talent in mathematics, the most natural choice is to go to an engineering school. So I did. For some bureaucratic reason, at the end of my second year, I was allowed to transfer internally. This saved me from applying to university again—my parents would have been supportive, but not happy if I had to start again. The mathematics degree was a five-year program and during the last three years it had only three students. We had mostly mathematics courses, some courses in English (my father’s plan to put me in a British school paid off) and once in a while we registered in some physics courses. Classes were obviously small, sometimes in the instructor’s office. This is where I learned some analysis and to like espresso. There were lots of independent studies courses. Essentially, it meant that the instructor would choose a book and the students would lecture each other. During some semesters we would take classes at the nearby Universidad Católica. This gave us a chance to learn material not offered at Santa Maria.

This was a period of transition in the life of the country. Among the instructors, there was a single PhD in mathematics, which was unique mostly because the university was not in Santiago: the center of everything. He was the renowned Roberto Frucht, an expert in graph theory. At a moment where I was thinking of abandoning mathematics and studying something else, a second PhD came to the department. Luis Salinas C. came back from Germany, rescued me back to the subject that I loved and became my advisor. Many times in my life I have been lucky and having him return to Chile then is among these lucky times. My last three semesters I took all of my courses with him. I owe him more than words can say.

Things have changed in Chile since my days as an undergraduate. Many Chilean mathematicians came back to the country. They have created a wonderful educational structure and Chilean students travel to the best institutions in the world to study and many renowned mathematics departments have faculty from Chile.

Graduate School

Upon completion of my undergraduate studies I was hired as a faculty member of the Departamento de Matemáticas of Universidad Santa Maria. At that time (1978) it was not required to have a PhD to teach in a university. Yet my undergraduate thesis advisor, Prof. Luis Salinas C., was always talking to me about going abroad for a graduate degree. A real opportunity to go abroad developed with the visit to Universidad Santa Maria of Prof. Eugene (Gene) Trubowitz from the Courant Institute of New York University in July 1980. Since I spoke English (having been a student at The MacKay School) it became my role to be in charge of his visit. I still remember walking on the beach, with conversations that usually started as “Victor, suppose A is a normal matrix of size n.’’ To make a long story short, I joined the PhD program at NYU in September 1980 with financial support from my school. Since I was late in the application process and had not been aware of the required forms, I went to the American Embassy in Santiago with a telegram from Gene that essentially said “Come to New York, we will fix the paperwork here.’’ As you can imagine, the first time I showed up at the embassy carrying only this telegram I was denied a visa. The next time, it occurred to me that if I spoke English to the guard my chances might improve. They did. I got a tourist visa and left for New York. The paperwork was fixed after my arrival.

It is hard to describe my early days in New York City. I came from a relatively small town without much foreign influence, where everybody looked like part of the same family. This was the time before the 1985 economic boom in Chile, when the country essentially became a 51st state. I made many mistakes in those early days. Perhaps the worse one dealt with housing. NYU owned a group of buildings nearby and studios were assigned to incoming graduate students. The first time I went to the housing office, they told me about this option and I realized that rent was about 40% of my total income. Immediately I refused the offer, much to the consternation of the person in charge. I did not understand why she kept explaining to me that these studios were my optimal choice. Needless to say, my off-campus living accommodations during the first year of graduate school ended up being inferior. Someone should have grabbed my hand and told me to sign the dotted line. It takes time to learn the American system.

The schedule at Courant was such that classes would meet once a week for two hours. For me this meant that at the beginning of being in New York, before making friends, I had no human contact from Thursday night until Tuesday night. It came as a great surprise when one day after class, in the elevator going down, this person said to me, “We seem to be in two classes together, would you like to have a cup of coffee?’’ He was Fred Schiafando,
who turned out to be a friend for life. Lectures at Courant moved fast, and soon a group of students decided to get together to study. Social life improved from that point on.

Coming from an educational system with lots of classes I was surprised when at registration I noticed that taking four classes meant eight hours of contact. Naively I asked, “What I am supposed to do with the rest of my time?’’ The response was absolutely correct: “Try to catch up.’’ I was lucky to have Prof. Henry McKean as my instructor for complex analysis. His style of lectures and his point of view of mathematics as a whole made a profound impression on me. Being his PhD student has been one of the biggest honors of my academic life. At the beginning of my second year, I met a first-year graduate student: Lisa Fauci, who later became my wife. My life with her has been great since then.

Professional Career

After graduation, I took a postdoctoral position at Temple University in Philadelphia. Recently, cleaning my office, I found a copy of my job application: it was one-and-a-half pages long. It is remarkable how things have changed. During the next two years I spent a lot of time on the trains between Philadelphia and New York. I also attended a class on elliptic functions that Henry McKean gave at Courant. I worked out all the possible details and years later Henry and I coauthored a book. [3] In 1986, Lisa and I applied for jobs together and both took jobs at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Our unspoken plan was to be in New Orleans for a short time and then move back to the Northeast. We never left.

First off, New Orleans is a great place to live in. New Orleans is not your typical American city. It is humid. Most of the time things do not work properly. Sometimes, the driver of the street car stops the ride so they can get themselves a cup of coffee and will turn around and will tell you to take your feet off the seats. Music is one of the city’s biggest priorities and soon became always present in our home. My kids, Alexander and Stefan, had a chance to become students at NOCCA (the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts) as jazz musicians. You should come visit, but come first when there are no big parties happening, which does not leave too many open days! One of my favorite events in the city is Jazz Fest, it takes place during two weekends in April-May. It was a fantastic feeling watching my son Stefan play piano on the Blues Stage. Such is life in New Orleans.

It has been great to be at Tulane University. Among the many positive aspects of working at Tulane, I must say that the existence of a great child-care program, with a dedicated group of teachers that educated our kids while we worked in peace, is one of the best benefits that I have had. In addition, the undergraduate students that I have had a chance to work with have made my job a very enjoyable one. Among the many students, I would like to single out Roopa Nalam, who worked on a research project with me involving integrals of special functions, and Kirk Soodhalter, who wrote a thesis on some interesting aspects of modular forms. Roopa went on to complete an MD-PhD program and now is an Assistant Professor at the Baylor College of Medicine. Kirk completed his PhD in mathematics at Temple University (in numerical linear algebra) and is now an Assistant Professor at Trinity College in Dublin. I am very proud of the two of them. These two students are part of a large group of students who have enriched my academic life. Some years ago I was awarded the Weiss Presidential Award for Graduate Teaching. Since this award is chosen among faculty nominated by students, this had a special meaning to me.

Research

Working with students and young faculty. Over the years I have also had opportunities to work with undergraduates outside of Tulane. One day, I was asked by my friend and colleague Prof. Ricardo Cortez if I wanted to go to a conference of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) in Portland, Oregon. I had to admit that I had never been aware of this organization. For me, one of the highlights of the conference was to meet Prof. Ivelisse Rubio and Prof. Herbert Medina. After I gave my talk, they told me about the Summer Institute in Mathematics for Undergraduates (SIMU), an undergraduate Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at the University of Puerto Rico at Humacao, and asked me if I was interested in being the senior leader. This meant being in charge of 12 students doing research for about seven weeks. I still remember their voices telling me “This is a lot of work.’’ I accepted. My family and I spent a great time in Puerto Rico. They were at the beach and I was working. Even though the workload was enormous, I still believe that the SIMU model is one of the best for undergraduate programs. The students were exposed to research-level mathematics, which opened new avenues for them intellectually, but also were told how to approach the graduate school application process, how to present a paper at a conference, what is expected of them as members of the community, and many other aspects of being a mathematician. I loved it. Luis Medina, now professor at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras, was my student at SIMU. After that, I was lucky that he chose to come to Tulane University for graduate school. We still maintain a scientific collaboration. I am very proud of him. The SIMU model was later adapted by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) at Berkeley, California in their Undergraduate Program (MSRI-UP). Participating there was a wonderful experience again, as I was surrounded by intelligent students and assisted by graduate students and postdocs. Many of the students participating in this program are now faculty members at a variety of schools.

In recent years, I have been involved in wonderful programs whose mission is to engage faculty—who work in schools with a high teaching load—in research. The programs that I have participated include PCMI (at Park City, Utah) as part of a special program in Random Matrices and the second one at ICERM as part of REUF (Research Experiences for Undergraduate Faculty). These are exceptional programs and I would like to encourage the mathematical community to participate in these programs. I am certainly planning to continue doing it.

Math interests. My mathematical work these days started when a former graduate student, George Boros, told me that he could evaluate an integral. I have told this story in detail in “The evaluations of integrals: a personal story,” Notices AMS (2002) 311–317 and “Seized opportunities,” Notices AMS (2010) 476–484. George’s comment transformed my research. In fact, the evaluation of definite integrals will take you into many interesting areas of mathematics, and you should try it.

The basic question is this: given a function f, defined on an interval [a,b] (with -∞ ≤ a < b ≤ +∞) one wants to evaluate ∫_a^b f(x)dx in terms of special values of a class of functions. This is familiar from elementary courses. On the other hand, students are often told that the function f(x) = e^{–x^2} does not have an elementary primitive, but there are methods to see that

As a freshman, I was told that this exponential function does not have a primitive. I vividly remember my reaction: “Maybe you do not how to integrate it, but I will figure it out.” Needless to say all of my efforts went nowhere.

In one of my luckiest academic moments, my former student George Boros told me that he could evaluate

in terms of some elementary radical and a complicated polynomial P_m(a) in the variable a. He had a mechanism to evaluate the integral of a rational function by doubling the degree of the integrand and, by some symmetry reduction in certain special cases, he was able to cut the degree in half. That gave him a complicated expression for P_m(a).

At the beginning, not being particularly impressed with evaluating integrals (prejudice comes in many forms), the only part that I thought might be interesting was that his procedure vaguely reminded me of Landen transformations for elliptic integrals. I started trying to evaluate this example by other methods and failed. My not knowing about hypergeometric functions ended up being a good thing. One can prove George’s result in an elementary manner using these functions. The work on this integral took us through an almost magical trip visiting many parts of mathematics which appeared to be disconnected. Many roads of this mathematical trip are mysterious. For instance, the integrals above are the (Taylor) coefficients of

expanded as a power series in c. Very strange. George’s proof uses a theorem of Ramanujan and to this day, I do not know how he thought of this. Since George passed away in 2008, the mystery will remain. For a long time I have looked for a different proof, using this double root. It should teach us something new about this problem. So far I have not had luck in this regard. It is needless to say that my original impression of George’s problems was wrong. I am glad that I did not dismiss him right away and decided to pay attention to his methods. My current students continue to surprise me like this. I do my best to listen to them. It is one of the privileges of the business we are in.

[1] In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Chile established immigration policies that encouraged European immigration.
[2] This literally translates to “ripped underwear.’’
[3] Henry McKean and Victor Moll, Elliptic Curves: Function Theory, Geometry, Arithmetic, Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Previous Testimonios:

• Dr. James A. M. Álvarez
• Dr. Federico Ardila Mantilla
• Dr. Selenne Bañuelos
• Dr. Erika Tatiana Camacho
• Dr. Anastasia Chavez
• Dr. Minerva Cordero
• Dr. Ricardo Cortez
• Dr. Jesús A. De Loera Herrera
• Dr. Jessica M. Deshler
• Dr. Carrie Diaz Eaton
• Dr. Alexander Díaz-López
• Dr. Stephan Ramon Garcia
• Dr. Ralph R. Gomez

I would like to dedicate this article to the memory of my mother Sally Gomez, my father John Gomez, and my brother Johnny Gomez.

Early Years

Lemoore. About forty miles south of Fresno, California, in the Central Valley is a small town called Lemoore. This town is but one of many little towns that comprise the majestic farm-field tapestry of the valley. My grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles all worked portions of these vast fields for many years as field workers picking plums, grapes, apricots, and peaches.

I lived at the dead end of a street which spanned six blocks. My house was uniquely nestled between a corn field and the cheese manufacturing factory, Leprino Foods. Because of the house’s close proximity to the factory, the constant noise and agitation of diesel trucks shuffling about could be heard all hours of the day. Though my street was only six blocks long, it was regarded as one of the bad parts of Lemoore, primarily because of the gang activity in the area.

In my family, I have two brothers, Johnny and Eric, and a sister Gloria (Johnny passed away in 2015). I am the youngest of the family. After being in the Navy for three years my father, John Gomez, worked in a mill called Continental Grain and kept that job for forty-two years until his retirement. My mother, Sally, stayed home and ran the entire household. When she was growing up, she had to drop out of high school to help take care of her younger brothers and sisters. Thus, she had a plethora of experience in helping others and maintaining a household.

My oldest brother Johnny and I were seventeen years apart in age. By the time I was born, he had already moved out of the house, so I saw very little of him growing up. However, the times in which I did see him usually were not the best of circumstances.

My brother Johnny. Without a doubt, Johnny was one of the most influential forces that launched me on my trajectory to eventually become a mathematician. This attribution of influence is not because he was a pristine role model with infinite pearls of wisdom and prophetic advice. On the contrary, his life became a living example of the kind of life I did not want to lead. Exactly the opposite.

Many of my early memories of Johnny revolve around going to the Kings County Jail with my mother and sister to visit him. He was in and out of jail for much of his life. I can vividly recall how one of my first visits to see him deeply and profoundly impacted me. When I was around eight or nine years old, my mom, sister and I went to visit Johnny in jail. As we entered the visitation room, we saw Johnny behind the glass partition, seated and waiting for us to take our seats. I remember looking at my mother’s face as she looked at Johnny. I could instantly read the complete heartbreak and the immense disappointment she had for him. It was during this time that I decided to follow a path which was in the exact opposite of my brother’s path if for no other reason than to spare my mother any more heartache and pain. Thus, I decided to embrace education and stay out of trouble.

Skateboarding. Admittedly, it was sometimes challenging to remain on my self-selected path of embracing education and staying out of trouble. On my street was a gang called XIV (the fourteeners), which seemed to be based on one of the more notorious gangs in Los Angeles. Around my sophomore year of high school, I seriously considered joining this gang on my street. Some of my friends had joined, and I became attracted to the gang’s stature and cohesion. But fortunately for me there was a very welcomed diversion and that diversion was skateboarding. Though I had ridden a skateboard since the sixth grade, I began to take the sport very seriously in high school. During the school day, I concentrated hard on my academics. After school, I practiced skateboarding with equal intensity. Skateboarding became my primary outlet from academics, an avenue to forget all of the daily worries and focus on improving my skateboarding skills.

From skateboarding, I sustained a myriad of collisions with the concrete; numerous sprained ankles, two broken bones, a sprained back, and many scrapes and head gashes. Hopefully I learned something from all of these injuries! Skateboarding gave me the necessary structure and the motivation to constantly improve at something. It allowed me to experience the triumph and satisfaction of learning a trick after countless failed attempts. It taught me to cultivate a deep sense of concentration and focus on something of interest—a quality that was crucial once I found my passion in mathematics.

Higher Education

Undergraduate experience. In my household, the idea of going to college was never discussed or mentioned. No one in my family attended college (although my brother Johnny was always fond of saying that he was a graduate of Penitentiary State!). College was an idea I only saw on the television. In high school, I took college preparatory classes, but there was never any intention of attending college. Taking such courses simply reinforced the idea that I was embracing education and attempting to extract the most I could from my small-town public high school. I took the usual advanced courses in English, biology, chemistry, and math. The highest math course I took in high school was precalculus. I had no idea what I was doing, nor did I have any interest in the subject.

In my senior year of high school, I decided to enroll as a full-time student at the local community college, West Hills Community College, after graduation. I had no other plans and going to West Hills allowed me to stay close to my friends who were also enthusiastic about skateboarding. During the time I started college the campus was quite small, comprised of a main building and a few portable buildings. I actually preferred to attend College of Sequoias which was another community college further away from home. It had more course offerings, but was over thirty minutes away by car. My father said there was no way the family could afford all that gas as well as the prolonged use of the family car. Thus, I enrolled at West Hills Community College, which allowed me to walk to class and back home. These walks were actually quite useful because I used to lecture aloud to myself on scientific topics while walking home. I did a lot of homework at the community college library since it was difficult to concentrate at home.

In my first year at West Hills Community College, the placement exams recommended I take trigonometry. My first math class at the college level was trigonometry! This was exactly the right starting course for me. It was during this time that I really started to take mathematics and science very seriously. I realized that doing a whole bunch of problems thoroughly and clearly greatly helped me solidify my understanding of topics. I also found that explaining the idea aloud to myself really helped me in absorbing ideas.

My time at West Hills was an exceedingly pleasant one. I had a few inspiring professors at the college. For example, my chemistry professor, Dr. Robert Holmes, was one of the few instructors with a PhD at the college and was a very encouraging person to me. He was eloquent, highly scientific, and very serious. After earning top marks in his chemistry course he gifted me a chemistry book as a form of encouragement to continue. This inspired me to major in biochemistry once I transferred to a four-year university.

I also took a history course that was highly influential in my future interests. For the final paper in the course, I had to write about an event that changed world history. I chose the topic of the development and use of the atomic bomb. During my research for the paper, I began learning about some of the scientists associated with the bomb. This in turn led me to read about some of the key contributions Albert Einstein made to physics. Soon after, I became extremely interested in the many wonderful ideas in physics. It was during this time that I began to realize the full power of mathematical thinking—its ability to describe nature. It motivated me to want to learn about general relativity and quantum mechanics. I was completely overcome by the magical beauty of how equations could so simply describe physical processes. I was particularly struck by just how geometric the universe actually is. But if I was going to delve deeper into the physics, I had to learn much more mathematics.

After two years at West Hills Community College, I transferred to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Initially, I was a biochemistry major. The transition from community college to the university was incredibly difficult for me. In fact, after the first semester, I seriously considered dropping out of college. I could not keep up with the fast-paced environment and much higher demands of homework. Most of all, I grew very disheartened by laboratory sciences. I found the labs too tedious, and I had no intellectual investment or scientific curiosity for the laboratory exercises. I missed the purely theoretical aspects of mathematics.

Realizing I would be much happier if I switched my major from biochemistry to mathematics, I changed my major. Finally, I could really spend time learning more advanced mathematics beyond calculus and try to learn some physics. I fondly remember leaving math classes with great excitement regarding all of the mathematical ideas I was learning. As a math major, it felt absolutely wonderful. I was able to think about mathematics all the time. Professor Arthur E. Fischer and Professor Anthony J. Tromba, both highly influential professors at UC Santa Cruz, completely convinced me of the incredible beauty and versatility of differential geometry. Their lectures were very enthusiastic, riveting, and inspiring.

After graduating from UC Santa Cruz with a BA in mathematics, I stayed in Santa Cruz and worked for the UC Santa Cruz math department as a grader and a math tutor. In addition, I took a couple more math classes, and then I enrolled in the master’s program at UC Santa Cruz. After writing my thesis and taking the algebra qualifying exam, I obtained a master’s in applied mathematics. After completing my degree I took some time to consider the following question: Should I go further and get a PhD? During this time of contemplation, I returned to West Hills Community College because I accepted a position as an adjunct instructor there. It was also a great chance for me to thank the institution where I got my start. Had it not been for the existence of West Hills Community College, I would not be writing this article now.

Am I Capable of Earning a PhD in Math?

Earning a PhD. As part of my decision on whether or not to earn a PhD in mathematics, I felt that it was important to go to a different institution so I could see how other places did mathematics. I wanted to study Einstein geometry under Professor Charles P. Boyer. Charles Boyer was one of the leaders in that area, having discovered a new technique of constructing special types of Einstein geometries. Einstein geometry is a type of geometry that obeys an equation discovered by Albert Einstein in his modern theory of gravitation-general relativity.

After numerous thorough discussions with friends, I decided to accept University of New Mexico’s offer to enroll in their PhD program. Part of the attraction in attending UNM involved a generous stipend sponsored by the New Mexico Alliance for Graduate Education and Professoriate (NMAGEP). This was a fantastic program that not only supported me with an additional stipend, but also provided numerous conferences and workshops for graduate students from underrepresented groups that focused on navigating the challenging road to becoming a professor. Looking back, this program was instrumental in helping me to think about what it meant to be a professor.

After postponing my fall enrollment at UNM, I arrived there in January of 2003. It was refreshing to be studying mathematics once again, and I was growing increasingly optimistic about my future career trajectory. But this optimism was cast into the shadows. In the early fall of 2003, it was determined my father had stage four colon cancer. By the time the malignant mass was found, it was too late for any procedure or radiation to prolong his life. He passed away in September of 2003. Days before he died, quitting the PhD program was weighing heavily on my mind. If I withdrew from the program, I could return home and help out my mother. My sister planned on moving back to Lemoore from Palm Springs with her family. I felt like I was abandoning my family if I remained committed to the PhD program. The afternoon before my father passed away, I was sitting next to him, telling him my final goodbyes. By this time he was extremely frail and life seemed to be visibly evaporating from him. But somehow my father was able to conjure a sentence: “Don’t let this mess up your schooling.’’ In that single sentence, the decision for me to complete the PhD was solidified. I simply had to finish now.

PhD. With my father’s support and my sister’s willingness to uproot her life to take care of my mother, I stayed in UNM’s PhD program. Around this time, my advisor Professor Charles Boyer gave me a graduate fellowship from his research grant which allowed me not to teach and focus on courses and the beginnings of research. To have a professional and successful mathematician believe in me and encourage me the way he did, instilled a great wave of enthusiasm and excitement in me as I moved forward with my total immersion in mathematics. I earned my PhD in five-and-a-half years (with distinction) and a new life was ahead!

The Professorial World

After I earned my PhD, I accepted a two-year visiting position at Swarthmore College in 2008. This was an absolutely incredible position with a reduced teaching load, and I was thoroughly excited to be there. But gradually I had the uncomfortable feeling that I did not belong at such an illustrious institution. Not seeing much faculty diversity at the college, particularly in the Natural Sciences and Engineering division, made me feel more like an outsider. It became clear to me just how different my pathway was in becoming a mathematician and that perhaps I was ultimately doomed to failure since my pathway was not more traditional. Impostor syndrome took a strong hold of me. To further complicate matters, my brother Johnny was on his way back to prison yet again to serve a one-year sentence. What other faculty member in their first year in a visiting position had to worry about a sibling heading back to prison? To my mind, this was just one of many other examples of why I did not belong.

Near the end of my two-year position, Swarthmore College was able to offer me an extension on my visiting position. This was very generous especially since this was around the time of the Great Recession. The college was actually pleased with my work and invited me to stay on for a few more years. This invitation was a clear signal that the college viewed me as thriving at Swarthmore. But there were three factors that led me to decline this offer at the end of my two-year visit. First, the desire to return to my family in California particularly because of growing worry about how my mother was handling my brother’s return to prison. Second, the personal belief that I was not Swarthmore material and thus did not belong. Finally, the need to secure a tenure-track job instead of staying in a visiting position. Not feeling like I belonged at Swarthmore was the main factor that ultimately convinced me I should move on. Thus, after my two-year visiting position I left Swarthmore college and took a tenure-track position in California. Before I left I met with Stephen B. Maurer (the chair of the mathematics and statistics department at Swarthmore at the time) to tell him the main reason why I was leaving. He sent me an email after our meeting which completely shifted my view about myself. With Stephen B. Maurer’s permission, here is the email he sent to me:

I’d like to address the worry that you were brave enough to broach with me today: are you really good enough for Swarthmore? It’s really the same issue as when we admit students who have no history in their families of fancy colleges, or any colleges, or any history of expectations as demanding as ours or of positions of substantial responsibility in society. Swarthmore’s belief is: people with the right underlying talent don’t have to be brought up to the top gradually through several generations. They can leapfrog to comfort in an environment of high expectations in a few years. If we are right about this—and surely we are right in some cases—then Swarthmore, and not more laid back places, is really the place to make these people shine. This goes for the students from humble backgrounds that you inspire here, and it goes for you.

I never responded to Maurer’s email because I did not know how to respond. It shook me to the core. I thought very hard about this email over the next several months as I adjusted to my new tenure-track position in southern California. I eventually came to the startling conclusion that Maurer was absolutely right! Moreover, I realized I was selling myself short. It is as if I finally let myself accept the idea that I did a successful job at Swarthmore. Within the first semester at my new position, I told Maurer that I was heading back on the job market. It turned out Swarthmore was able to offer me a chance to return but this time as a tenure-track assistant professor!

In 2012, I returned to Swarthmore as a tenure-track assistant professor and achieved tenure in 2017. My mother passed away in 2018 and so I am very thankful she lived long enough to see me achieve tenure. She was always one to express how immensely proud she was of me. Returning to Swarthmore College is without a doubt one of the best decisions I have ever made in my entire life. With the help of an extremely supportive department and surrounded by inspiring students, I finally feel that I belong at Swarthmore.

Advice

Because my pathway to being a mathematician was not along a traditional path, I assumed that my role as a professor would therefore be less valuable and ineffective. This point of view was highly corrosive. It took a lot of conversations with colleagues, friends, and family to realize this view of myself was completely inaccurate. Something that I would like to impart upon the aspiring mathematician is this:

There are countless paths to having a deep and meaningful relationship with mathematics.

However, like any journey along an arduous path it is immensely helpful to have useful resources. I cannot stress this enough, dear reader. Build a network of people you can reach out to for help, advice, or direction. Seek out feedback, viewpoints, and opinions from others in your support system. You may be surprised how open people can be in giving you effective guidance. A favorite teacher, professor, friend, and family members are just a few examples of people you can add to your network of support. Even more support can be found for example through the Math Alliance (mathalliance.org), which has a vast database of professors who are ready and willing to mentor students interested in the mathematical and statistical sciences. With a solid support system at your disposal you will be able to be inspired and encouraged to carry on even in the darkest hour. And carry on you must for one day it may very well be you who takes up the role as a mentor!

Previous Testimonios:

• Dr. James A. M. Álvarez
• Dr. Federico Ardila Mantilla
• Dr. Selenne Bañuelos
• Dr. Erika Tatiana Camacho
• Dr. Anastasia Chavez
• Dr. Minerva Cordero
• Dr. Ricardo Cortez
• Dr. Jesús A. De Loera Herrera
• Dr. Jessica M. Deshler
• Dr. Carrie Diaz Eaton
• Dr. Alexander Díaz-López
• Dr. Stephan Ramon Garcia