Pedro Saenz
Pedro Saenz
July 21, 2021
Pedro Sáenz is an assistant professor and director of the Physical Mathematics Laboratory in the Department of Mathematics within the UNC College of Arts & Sciences. He works to demonstrate that some odd behaviors displayed by electrons and other atomic-sized particles can be recreated with larger particles visible to the human eye.
This interview with Dr. Saenz was featured in the July 2021 issue of UNC’s research magazine, Endeavors
Q: When you were a child, what was your response to this question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
A: I grew up in a very rural part of Spain, in a village of just 400 people, so my interests at the time ranged from things like construction — building cabins with my friends — to exploration of the nearby mountains. In college, I ended up studying mechanical engineering, and now I teach mathematics and do research in physics. I guess I have always liked interdisciplinary work.
Q: Share the pivotal moment in your life that helped you choose your field of study.
A: My father was a farmer and my mother a factory worker, so for me to go to college was already a big step for my family. Then I moved to Edinburgh for a gap-year with the intention of eventually coming back to Spain. After a series of unplanned events, I started my PhD there. That’s when I really discovered my passion for fundamental research.
Q: Tell us about a time you encountered a tricky problem. How did you handle it and what did you learn from it?
A: Once, I had been working on a project for months and, toward the end, thought that measuring and averaging the amplitude of very small waves might yield an interesting observation. This was an unexpected — and frustrating — last-minute thought for an otherwise complete work that I wanted to submit for publication as soon as possible. The measurements I wanted to make were challenging and could have delayed me for weeks, even months. By distancing myself from the problem, I realized that all I needed could be done with data we already possessed. In the end, it took me 10 minutes to make the calculation, and the prediction was correct.
When I find myself in front of a problem that I’m struggling with, I try to recognize it and do something different. I’ve lost count of the number of times when I’ve felt stuck and frustrated. Oftentimes, I stop working, go for a run, and come up with an idea that allows me find a way around a problem.
Q: Describe your research in 5 words.
A: Large-scale recreations of atomic processes.
Q: What are your passions outside of research?
A: Coming from Spain, cooking and socializing over food is a big part of my culture. During the summer, we often get together to cook paella and spend the afternoon eating and chatting about anything.
I’m also a regular runner and love doing exercise outdoors, things like kayaking in summer and skiing in winter. I enjoy going on hikes and road trips. Visiting any national park is a great excuse that allows me to combine both.
The image above shows Dr. Saenz hiking Yosemite in 2019.
With Permission from Endeavors Magazine
SIAM NExT Fellow Manuchehr Aminian
SIAM NExT Fellow Manuchehr Aminian
Congratulations to a Ph.D. graduate from our department. Dr. Manuchehr “Nuch” Aminian, has been selected as the recipient of the 2021 SIAM Project NExT Fellowship!
SIAM recognizes the importance of supporting the professional development of junior faculty, especially in the areas of teaching and applied mathematics education. While the Activity Group on Applied Mathematics Education, SIAG/ED, certainly addresses this need, SIAM began annually sponsoring two Project NExT, New Experiences in Teaching, Fellows for the first time last year.
Project NExT, which is run by the Mathematical Association of America, MAA, supports the professional development of new or recent Ph.D.s in the mathematical sciences. As per the MAA, the program “addresses all aspects of an academic career, improving the teaching and learning of mathematics, engaging in research and scholarship, finding exciting and interesting service opportunities, and participating in professional activities.”
In 2020, Carl Giuffre, Adelphi University, and Lidia Mrad, Mount Holyoke College, became the first two SIAM Project NExT Fellows. The 2021 SIAM Project NExT Fellowship was recently awarded to Manuchehr Aminian and Alvaro Ortiz.
Aminian is an Assistant Professor at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. His research interests include the analysis of passive tracers in advection-diffusion systems, anomaly detection and feature selection in large biological data sets, and mathematical data science in general.
Aminain strongly believes that genuine application problems and numerical mathematics can positively impact both mathematics students and other majors. Math educators must take a leading role in familiarizing students – the future leaders – with modeling, data, and algorithms, all of which already play a central role in everyday life. He has incorporated these ideas into a variety of classes during his early teaching career, ranging from first-semester calculus for biologists to undergraduate numerical analysis.
Aminian has found his SIAM membership to be extremely useful for keeping up with the cutting edge of applied mathematics via conferences, activity groups, and the print version of SIAM News. Project NExT complements his objectives by promoting evidence-based teaching practices&mdashsuch as inquiry-based learning and projects&mdashand providing a peer network of early-career faculty with whom to compare notes and effect broader change in the applied mathematics community and beyond.
Christianson Excellence Award
Christianson Excellence Award
Congratulations to Hans Christianson, one of two faculty members at UNC to receive the 2021 Johnston Teaching Excellence Award! Carolina honored twenty-five faculty members and teaching assistants for their accomplishments with 2021 University Teaching Awards. Given annually, these awards acknowledge the University’s commitment to outstanding teaching and mentoring for graduate and undergraduate students.
“Throughout a challenging year in the midst of a global pandemic, the winners quickly adapted to new ways of teaching. They persevered to maintain their focus on helping students become critical thinkers and problem solvers, while inspiring them to take on the most important challenges facing society,” said Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Robert A. Blouin. “Our award winners are shining examples of the University’s commitment to effective, innovative teaching.”
Excerpt from award citation – “Dr. Christianson’s classroom is also a collaborative space, where students work with him to consider, reconsider and parse through strategies to approach and solve a problem. Dr. Christianson’s students also see that he is committed to meeting them where they are to ensure they get as much out of his class as possible”.
Who was the best teacher you had and why?
As an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota, I had two great professors who influenced me a lot. Dennis Hejhal and Victor Reiner both taught me that education does not end outside the classroom, and an “A student” goes to office hours at least four times a semester. I tell this to all my students. They both also taught me that original research in mathematics is attainable as an undergraduate and can be one of the most influential parts of education.
What does it take to be a good professor in 2021?
Teaching in 2021 is so intertwined with the pandemic that it is difficult to separate what parts of the job constitute teaching and what parts constitute student support. It is always important to respect and listen to the students and even more so with remote instruction. Taking time to listen to the concerns and struggles of students helps make sure they know there is a human being on the other end of the line whose top priorities are the health and safety of the students, as well as their academic success, and informs the instructor about the pace and content of lectures. With so many unknowns with remote teaching, being flexible and patient with students, and colleagues!, is essential.
Tell us a story about something creative you’ve done to engage your students.
Teaching evolves constantly, and remote instruction presented us all with new obstacles. I like to interact with my students a lot during lectures. One thing I tried, whihc failed, last semester was to get a laugh track going that I could play whenever I tell a joke. One thing I tried, which suceeded, was to frequently change my Zoom background with photos I have taken in the last few years. I started my lectures with “Broadcasting today from in front of [insert photo quip]…” My favorite was a giant apple pie at Thanksgiving. At the end of the semester, a student posted on our Piazza forum: “Full Collection: ‘Today we are broadcasting from…’”, with a list of my quotes – they had been keeping track all semester! Knowing I was reaching my students, if only for a laugh, during the most difficult semester any of us have had was one of the high points in my career.
Women in Science: Yaiza Canzani
Women in Science: Yaiza Canzani
When you were a child, what was your response to this question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
When I was younger, it was much easier for me to think about what I didn’t want to be. I knew, for example, that I would never end up doing anything related to sports — I’m too much of a couch person!
Share the pivotal moment in your life that helped you choose research as a career path.
I come from Uruguay, and over there you choose your career when you are 18 years old. Then, you spend the four years of your undergrad taking courses directly related to your election. I think I was too young to make such a decision. What I knew at the time was that I was good at math, and that I really liked chemistry.
There is only one public university in Uruguay, and the buildings for the different careers are spread across the capital, Montevideo. I chose to do math because the math department was a 10-minute walk from home, while the chemistry building was an hour away by bus (ha!). I was 18 — what can I say! After starting the career in math, though, I realized that I loved it, and it became clear to me that doing research in math would lead me to a happy life. So I kept going.
What’s an interesting/funny story from your time doing research?
Doing research in pure math means that you spend endless hours in front of a blank page of paper. One time, when I was stuck on one of my research projects, I learned to decorate cakes — something that, it turns out, helps my brain find peace. So I guess this hobby could be considered a byproduct of my research experience. But I should disclose that I don’t actually like eating cake!
What advice would you give to up-and-coming female researchers in your field?
Have fun challenging yourself. Math research can sometimes be very hard since most of the time you will not have a clue of how to attack a problem. But that’s the fun part: You get to push your own boundaries — and you may end up proving something new that wasn’t known until you put your mind to it. So push through the hard times. Don’t quit. Remind yourself that you are in it for the fun.
Also, never isolate yourself. Get out of your office, talk to colleagues, go to conferences, share your work, and try to constantly learn as much as possible from others. And, most importantly, while doing these zillion things make sure you also have a happy life outside academia. That will help you get through those hard moments where you are dead stuck — it definitely helped me.
Jason Metcalfe Recognized
Jason Metcalfe Recognized
Congratulations to Jason Metcalfe who has been appointed Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professor in the College of Arts & Sciences!
The Bowman and Gordon Gray Professorships support excellence in undergraduate teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. They were established in 1980 – though funding was available to appoint the first Bowman and Gordon Gray Professors in 1979 – by Gordon Gray and the estate of his brother, Bowman Gray Jr.
Bernard Gray, UNC Class of 1972 and Gordon’s son, significantly enhanced the professorships with a gift in 1999 that doubled the annual salary supplement, extended the award period from three to five years, provided an annual fund for research support and included a highly valued sabbatical. They remain today among the University’s most esteemed awards for outstanding undergraduate teaching.
These professorships bestow special recognition on College of Arts and Sciences faculty members for their distinguished undergraduate teaching. Any tenured associate or full professor in the College is eligible for the five-year, non-renewable professorship. To date, more than 70 faculty members have been honored as Bowman and Gordon Gray Professors.
Inaugural MPE Prize
Inaugural MPE Prize
The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, SIAM, and the SIAM Activity Group on Mathematics of Planet Earth, SIAG/MPE, have announced the establishment of a new prize, the SIAG/MPE Prize, to be known as the “MPE Prize.” The Prize will be awarded every two years, beginning in 2020, to one individual for significant scientific work in topic areas that are relevant to MPE or for sustained or seminal contributions to the scientific agenda of the SIAG/MPE.
The inaugural MPE Prize has been awarded to Professor Christopher K.R.T. Jones, the Bill Guthridge Distinguished Professor of Mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Director of the Mathematics and Climate Research Network, MCRN. The award recognizes Professor Jones for his leadership in engaging mathematicians in climate research, and for fundamental research contributions to Lagrangian data assimilation.
McCombs Awarded Tanner Award
McCombs Awarded Tanner Award
Tanner Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching – this award was created in 1952 with a bequest by Kenneth Spencer Tanner, class of 1911, and his sister, Sara Tanner Crawford, and by them also on behalf of their deceased brothers, Simpson Bobo Tanner, Jr. and Jesse Spencer Tanner, establishing an endowment fund in memory of their parents, Lola Spencer and Simpson Bobo Tanner. The award was established to recognize excellence in inspirational teaching of undergraduate students, particularly first- and second-year students. Each of the five winners receives a one-time stipend of $7,500 and a framed citation.
Marc McCombs has been a Teaching Professor of Mathematics at UNC since 1989
Hometown Kind of hard to say. I was born in Huntsville, Alabama. By the time I graduated from high school, my family had lived in Tennessee, Florida, Virginia, Germany and North Carolina. I entered Carolina as a freshman in 1978 and promptly decided that I had finally found my hometown.
Excerpt from award citation “When I look back on my time at Chapel Hill, I am reminded of the impact that Professor McCombs’ class had on me. One of the most fundamental lessons I learned was how great things come from small intentional actions adding up.”
Who was the best teacher you ever had and why?
Carolina math professors Sue Goodman and Karl Petersen continually inspire me through their unflagging commitment to helping students recognize that mathematics is not a secret club, accessible only to an exclusive few. Nor is a mathematics teacher some inscrutable fountainhead of complicated equations and esoteric jargon. The specific content details are, of course, important in a math class. Far more important, however, is creating an environment in which students can discover their ability to approach a complicated task both creatively and analytically.
What is something you’ve learned from your students?
Eight years ago, a student in my first year seminar on math and art asked if the course syllabus included origami techniques. When I told him that I had always felt too intimidated to try to make origami, he volunteered to teach some of his favorite folding techniques to the rest of us. Thanks to his enthusiasm and generosity, I discovered an artistic voice I never believed I had.
What is something people would be surprised to learn about you?
My origami sculpture and fractal artwork were recently exhibited in the Swedish Museum of Science and Technology in Stockholm.
What does it take to be a good professor in 2020?
A good professor in 2020 must effectively meet the challenge of inviting and fostering engagement and participation in courses whose class roll exceeds 150 students. The UNC Center for Faculty Excellence and the BeAM makerspaces have been invaluable resources in my efforts to help students stay connected to the human relevance of academic explorations. Mary Oliver’s poem, “Instructions for Living a Life,” articulates with sublime eloquence the importance of this connection.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
What’s the most creative thing you’ve done to engage your students?
I’ve enlisted my 8-year-old chocolate lab to be the official mascot for my classes. Uma frequently stars in class examples and test questions and currently has 241 followers on Instagram, uma_mccombs. I bring her to campus every couple of weeks to hang out with students and share her math insight and encouragement.
Story by The Well, February 26th, 2020
Malawsky Named Churchill Scholar
Malawsky Named Churchill Scholar
It was one of Winston Churchill’s wishes that bright American students be able to study at Churchill College, the school of mathematics, science and engineering named in his honor within the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England.
Next year, a UNC student will be among them.
Daniel Malawsky, a senior biostatistics and mathematics major, is one of fifteen American students to receive the Churchill Scholarship to study at Churchill College. Malawsky will be using the scholarship, in addition to the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, to work on his Master’s degree and Ph.D., respectively.
“I worked in the lab at Oxford last summer and really loved England, and I thought, ‘I have to be in the U.K. for graduate school,’” Malawsky said. “I love the science culture there, and I love the institutions there so I looked for scholarships that would allow me to study in England and I found those two.”
The Churchill Scholarship is a science, engineering and math scholarship that allows scholars to conduct independent research while completing their graduate studies.
Malawsky works in data analysis in the Gershon Lab, helping with neuroscience research that looks into why certain kinds of brain tumors are resistant to some treatments.
For his graduate work, Malawsky hopes to study population genetics for groups that are typically underrepresented in medical research.
David spends almost twenty hours a week in the lab and is skilled at finding data differences that most people would overlook, Seth Weir, a research technician in the Gershon Lab, said.
“Aside from his scientific prowess, Danny is an ideal friend and lab member to have because of his easygoing personality and ability to connect and talk with anyone,” Weir said.
A mission of the Gershon Lab is to include undergraduates in research, said Dr. Timothy Gershon, an associate professor of neurology and principal investigator for the Gershon Lab. Gershon said he prioritized hiring Malawsky because of his skill set in computational work that complemented the lab.
“The lesson that I would hope people would take from reading about Danny’s story is to feel empowered, to feel like you can be successful as an undergraduate,” said Gershon. “You don’t need to feel intimidated by issues of hierarchy or status.”
Discovering New Underwater Force
Discovering New Underwater Force
An extremely broad and important class of phenomena in nature involves the settling and aggregation of matter under gravitation in fluid systems.
In a study, published in Nature Communications, researchers from the Department of Mathematics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in collaboration with colleagues from the School of Engineering at Brown University, and the Department of Physics and Center for Biological Physics at the Arizona State University, observe and model mathematically an unexpected fundamental mechanism by which particles suspended within stratification may self-assemble and form large aggregates without adhesion. This phenomenon arises through a complex interplay involving solute diffusion, impermeable boundaries, and aggregate geometry, which produces toroidal flows.
The Team members show that these flows yield attractive horizontal forces between particles at the same heights. They further observe that many particles demonstrate a collective motion revealing a system which appears to solve jigsaw-like puzzles on its way to organizing into a large-scale disc-like shape, with the effective force increasing as the collective disc radius grows.
Control experiments isolate the individual dynamics, which are quantitatively predicted by simulations. Numerical force calculations with two spheres are used to build many-body simulations which capture observed features of self-assembly.
New Revelations in Nepal
New Revelations in Nepal
An interdisciplinary team of Carolina researchers recently returned to the Himalayas to continue studying the effects of climate change on Buddhist holy lakes. A major goal: To retrieve data from instruments they installed 15 months ago.
Windy. Cold. Wet. Those were the conditions one October day as a team of Carolina researchers tried to retrieve instruments left behind 15 months earlier in a remote lake in Sagarmatha National Park, the region of Nepal dominated by Mount Everest. The thermistors were supposed to measure lake temperature and pressure at different depths every 15 minutes, for more than a year, but whether they had survived monsoons and freezing temperatures was an unknown.
Day one was not a success. The afternoon winds were too strong.
Climate change is impacting the Gokyo Lakes, there are six in total – and these holy lakes are very important to Himalayan Buddhists. They lie next to the Ngozumba glacier, the largest glacier in Nepal. The team of interdisciplinary explorers who made the first trip to study the lakes included mathematics professor and chair Rich McLaughlin, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Mathematics Roberto Camassa, associate professor of religious studies and anthropologist Lauren Leve and marine sciences professor and chair Harvey Seim. Joining the same crew for the return trip was new team member Emily Eidam, an assistant professor and marine geologist.
Seim, who was battling an intestinal illness, had guided Eidam, Camassa and McLaughlin on locating the instruments on lake 4, relying on notes and GPS coordinates from when they were first deployed. But it turned out it would take multiple tries.
Day two dawned clear and calm, but the winds began to pick up in the 15 minutes it took to load the boat. This time Camassa and Eidam, joined by porters who also acted as paddlers and pullers, managed to snag the line 50 meters below with a grapple hook and pull up all 15 thermistors, along with three very heavy bags of rocks that helped to anchor the instruments. The haul was, in McLaughlin’s words, a “beautiful data set that shows over a year’s time what has been happening in the lake.”
“Getting more than a year of data at multiple elevations in a remote lake is the type of thing that makes science extremely rewarding, both from a logistical perspective and what we’re learning about seasonal lake dynamics,” Eidam said.
After collecting the data, the team redeployed all 15 thermistors. They will leave them there for about two years.
“We recognize that studying just one season doesn’t necessarily give the complete picture,” Eidam added. “So being able to redeploy them means that we have a chance to do a much more comprehensive study of how the lake responds to changing snow and meltwater inputs, variable air temperatures, et cetera.”
The team also measured the depth of lake 4 again. A Kathmandu University colleague had measured its depth at 62 meters in 2009; the Carolina crew measured it at 45 meters in spring 2018. It rose to 57 meters in fall 2019, likely due to monsoon rain and the fact that the lake does not have an outflow river source, McLaughlin said. It undergoes cycles of draining and filling. The mathematicians will be working on modeling what’s happening with the depth fluctuations.
“We’d love to create a permanent way to keep measuring these lakes,” McLaughlin said. “Our feeling is these are critical lakes for assessing climate change and it’s happening here faster than in other parts of the world.”
Challenges and Opportunities
A required permit that didn’t come through until the last minute. Possible food poisoning. A broken tooth. Garbled data and a faulty piece of equipment. Spotty communication access. A longer-than-normal monsoon season. Surviving below-freezing night-time temperatures. A yak stampede. Hours of backed-up traffic at Ramechhap Airport for the journey to Lukla. It’s about a six-day hike from Lukla to the lakes. –Welcome to the world of the field scientist.
Despite the expedition challenges, Leve, who is an expert on Himalayan Buddhism and has been traveling to Nepal for nearly thirty years, said she thought the journey went smoother the second time.
“In my experience with the way things work in Nepal, I expect not to have complete control,” she said. “And our communication with the local community far exceeded my expectations this time.”
“I was pleasantly surprised to get as much done as we did,” Seim added, noting that Eidam was a brilliant addition to the group.
“Emily’s expertise aligned nicely with what we were interested in doing; she is much more familiar with glaciology and geology so she added another strength to our interdisciplinary team,” Seim said. “She brought some lightweight sensors with her that we didn’t have last time that measured turbidity, cloudiness of the water, and chlorophyll.”
Eidam added that she benefited from working with seasoned scientists. “Working with mathematicians and physicists helps me expand my way of thinking about fluid motions, in an out-of-the-box way for a geologist. And teaming up with experienced faculty, including an expert on cultural matters in Nepal, is always educational for navigating field studies in international locations,” she said.
The team continued their earlier research on lakes 2, 3 and 4. They had a new opportunity to explore lake 5, even though the instrument they were using on the new lake bungled the data.
“Lake 5 had not been studied that much,” Camassa said. “The quality of the water there was also moderately different than the murky color of lake 4; it was much more transparent and blue like lake 3.”
The team also collected water samples from the lakes that will be analyzed for isotope concentrations to try to determine the source of water to the lakes — is it primarily surface water or groundwater?
In addition, Camassa and McLaughlin made connections with scientists who work at The Pyramid International Laboratory/Observatory, a research station in the Khumbu Valley, which could prove useful in gathering weather and atmospheric data to correlate with the lake water data.
And sometimes, despite the obstacles, you just have to stop and enjoy the beauty of Nepal. “One night the stars were magnificent and the view of the Milky Way was incredible,” McLaughlin said.
Communicating Science, Developing Best Practices
For Leve, one of her key goals has been to work with community leaders and the national park service in Nepal to help them develop helpful information for future researchers — and to find a way to share the scientific data the Carolina team is collecting.
Before heading to Gokyo, the team members gave a presentation in Namche Bazaar that was attended by key stakeholders – from government, nonprofits, the national park and more. They shared details about the first trip and fielded questions. Leve then stayed behind for a few days to attend a meeting with local elected representatives. She is working with the parties to develop a best practices guide for scientists seeking to do research in the national park.
“While various parties may have conflicting ideas about how to best show respect for an environment that is locally perceived as living and sacred, in the end we are all invested in understanding this land that means many different things to different individuals,” she said. “We share the same concerns about what it means to protect this world. We have to figure out how to do it together.”
After returning home, Leve led a panel at the American Anthropological Association conference in Vancouver, presenting on “Climate Contradictions: Sacred/Sentient Mountains, Science and the Anthropocene in the Andes and the Himalayas.”
What the Nepali people want is a partnership with future researchers, an opportunity to be a part of the conversation, Leve said.
“UNC is modeling best practices, but it’s a work in progress; this is just the beginning,” she said. “They have a great interest in seeing science happen and in building these collaborative relationships. At a certain point it will be in their hands entirely, and that’s the goal.”
Philanthropic support from Cosby George ’83 and the College of Arts & Sciences helped to fund the return research expedition.
Story by Kim Spurr, College of Arts & Sciences