Our Honor Students
Ye He is a senior mathematics student in the math honors concentration. After consulting with her professors in her sophomore year, Ye switched to the mathematics major from her previous major in electrical engineering. This allowed her to pursue high-level mathematics classes such as topology and abstract algebra.
“In these higher-level math courses, I was trained to solve more complicated and abstract problems, which I think is beneficial to develop my problem-solving skills as well as mindset.”
Ye wrote her honors thesis under the supervision of Professor Joan Lind, on the topic of Spanning Trees in Graph Theory. After graduation, Ye plans to continue with a doctoral degree in statistics. She already has several offers from excellent universities.
Gesa Nestler is a senior mathematics student in the honors concentration, with a minor in physics. In her four years at UT, Gesa had the chance to take a wide range of courses including graduate level sequences in analysis and algebra. She was also very active in research, and was awarded a Summer Undergraduate Research Experience at Pomona College. Her poster on Galois Groups of Fields Generated by Points of Curves, which was based on her summer research, was awarded an Honorable Mention at the MAA MathFest 2022 in Philadelphia. During the past year, Gesa wrote an honors thesis on modular forms and knot theory under the supervision of Professor Marie Jameson.
“Something I would like to say about my academic experience at UT is that my teachers were very approachable and dedicated to helping students understand the course material, and this really helped me in my classes and prepared me for my Undergraduate Research Experience.”
After graduation, Gesa will pursue a doctoral degree in mathematics at Duke University.
Spencer Catron is a senior mathematics student in the honors concentration. Spencer started taking classes at UT while still in high school, being one of our top students in 300-level courses. During his undergraduate career at UT, Spencer took very advanced mathematics courses, including 600-level graduate courses. He also worked on research in math biology under the mentorship of Professor Suzanne Lenhart, and later wrote a thesis in differential geometry under the supervision of Professor Theodora Bourni. After graduation Spencer will pursue a doctoral degree in mathematics.
“My most memorable experiences were taking the honors analysis sequence and the graduate real/complex sequence my freshman and then sophomore years. These courses were the first times I experienced problems that the proofs were not necessarily natural or easy. Most of the problems were, in fact, quite the opposite. This was the case especially for the graduate sequence taught by Dr. Vellis. There were many nights that spring sophomore semester I remember not sleeping because I got caught up in the homework problems. I remember completing homework that I thought were perfect to receive 4/10s and so on. This is all to say that these sequences humbled me by quite a large bit, and I appreciate them for that. You do not really know who you are until you hit a brick wall. I would also like to say that I am really going to miss this department. I have thoroughly enjoyed the professors and students that I have grown close to these last few years. You all will remain in my heart always.”