Dr. Ashar Ali

Abstract:

Title: “The Three Sides of a Triangle How to Become, Stay, and Enjoy Being a Mathematician”

Usually mathematics is thought of as something mysterious, enigmatic, or boring. It is only for the extremely nerdy or the talented few who are born gifted and love math and nothing else. I will show that this is not true. In addition to talent, mathematics can also be learned as a skill after proper teaching, training, and practice. Therefore everyone is capable of being good at mathematics. I will share my own story about how I became a math major and what it takes to prepare for and finish graduate studies in math. Then I will give examples of how being a math student allowed me to study and research whatever I wanted. It gave me extraordinary flexibility to choose topics and work in different fields. I will talk about my current research and projects that we are working at along with lots of examples of real world large-scale problems that need help from trained mathematicians.

Biography:

Being a first generation immigrant, I didn’t know what to do after high school so I enrolled at Los Angeles Valley College. Soon afterwards I attended a Summer PUMP seminar at CSUN and decided to become a math major. After receiving a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in applied mathematics from CSUN, I moved to the University of Colorado at Boulder to get my Ph.D. I started working at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics for my doctoral research. My doctoral thesis concerned the diffusion of electrically charged particles in the near-Earth environment. After a post doctoral research fellowship from the National Research Council, I am now a government civilian research mathematician working for the United States Air Force Research Lab. In my free time, I am a die-hard science fiction fan and love listening to classical music. I really love traveling, especially epic road trips, exploring American landscapes, towns, and cities by road.

Research Experiences in Community Colleges