What are our alumni doing?
Stephanie Loewen
Graduation Year: ‘17
Major(s) and minor(s): math major, statistics minor
Post-grad education: University of Notre Dame ’21, M.S. in Data Science
Current position: Mathematician
Employer: US Army DEVCOM Ground Vehicle Systems Center
The most helpful aspects of my undergraduate education in mathematics were: At the heart of it the problem solving skills that I developed during my undergraduate math education has been most helpful to my career. My classes taught me that there are many ways to approach a problem and there are many ways to explain a solution. Then it is up to you to look at all the tools in your toolkit and figure out how to tackle a problem and explain that solution to others. Also being able to understand the math going on behind the models I use helps me to better interpret and explain my results. It is also exciting that I am the go-to math person. Have a question on trig, algebra, calculus, linear algebra? I am your person!
The advice I’d offer to current undergraduate students in mathematics: Never would I ever have guessed that my career would take the path it did, and that I would fall into the data analysis route. I had a career path planned out in my last year of college and I did not even come close to following it and that is ok. There are a lot of routes you can go with math. It is good to plan, but also it is also important to be open to other opportunities.
In a typical day in my work: The project I am on revolves around conducting experiments, where we host groups of soldiers and have them run through different scenarios using new concepts and technologies in a virtual environment. The goal is to understand how the new concepts and technologies are used and how they can be improved. My role on this project is to conduct data analysis. I manipulate, analyze, and visualize the data we collect from these experiments, then I write reports to inform the development of these concepts and technologies.
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