THE 'M' IN STEM: Kevin
Career Spotlight: Mathematician
Growing up, I never thought I would go to college. My parents never went to college and when I was in high school I had no interest in carrying on boring classes. My friends never saw continuing education as an option. I was planning to finish school to join the navy’s nuclear program. I cared so little about school that I was in jeopardy of not graduating at all and even had to switch high schools. This was a big change in environment for me. I met people that actually wanted to go to college. I started thinking, “Why can’t I do that?” I decided to apply to community college despite being at risk of not even graduating high school.
When I first started college, I was taking the lowest math class offered that taught simple concept of learning addition. I had a friend who was a philosophy major who studied Latin to learn more about knowledge. He was interested in why things are named what they are. I thought it was absurd, but as I grew up, I saw that in some respects, math is similar to that. When describing things with math, it doesn’t give the whole picture, but it does explain where key principles come from. I thought it was so powerful! Once I started taking more classes at University of California, Berkley, I realized how much I truly loved math. It became clear to me that I wanted to get a PhD in math.
I was afraid about loans and the application process. I was worried that I would never get into a good program so I started a job immediately after school. I started working at Kraft Foods and taking classes in the evenings after work. It was definitely challenging. I started with an interest in databases and analytics and using math but I realized analytics wasn’t what I had expected. I switched to Applied Math. While continuing to work, it took me four and a half years to get my Master’s degree. I wasn’t ready to keep going with my education. Luckily, one of my professors pushed me so I applied to graduate schools to study Applied Math. It was great that I had the right people in my life to help guide me along.
Now, I love grad school. I like sitting down and solving problems. I am fascinated by the power of mathematics to do so much for society. Planes take off and it’s governed by physical principles that are based off of math. That’s pretty darn amazing! What I do is use mathematics to provide structure to problems in evolution and natural selection. If you wanted to understand how organisms evolve, what would you do? What I do is take real data and fit it to models of evolution to predict how fast bacteria evolve. I’ve learned that over time, the beneficial mutations organisms develop, become less and less effective. It’s amazing that I could learn all that just through math!
About the Author: Kevin Gomez is getting his PhD in Applied Math at the University of Arizona. He got his Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Math at University of California. When he is not doing math, Kevin loves riding his bike and playing soccer.
