The sum total of a math degree

Suzanne P. McGrath (‘70)

More than 40 years later, Suzanne McGrath still uses her math degree. A science education gave her the fundamental skills and solid foundation that would shape her interests and lead her down three different career paths: high school math teacher, accountant and investment manager.

“I hope students know how flexible a science degree is,” says McGrath. “You can really go anywhere and do anything. It teaches you how to think critically and how to investigate and solve a problem.”

After three years teaching high school math, McGrath yearned for a change. So she became a CPA, transitioned to investment banking and today runs the private investment firm, Vision Capital Management, Inc., in Portland.

Expounding on the value of a mathematics degree, McGrath says, “You learn how to study, how to think critically, how to analyze data and how to solve problems.”

“The science of quantity” was how Aristotle defined mathematics and American mathematician Benjamin Peirce called it “the science that draws necessary conclusions.”

McGrath’s ability to master the science that “draws conclusions” is precisely what contributed to her success. As a type of female Lone Ranger, McGrath adapted her mathematics degree and forged a path as one of a few women accountants in Oregon in the 1970s and then as a rare female investment manager in the 1980s. McGrath seized the opportunities and blazed the trail for women to follow in her footsteps. She estimates that today more than half of the accountants in Oregon are women.

Although that scenario may smack of a bygone era, women may still be underrepresented in STEM fields (Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). McGrath was not surprised to see just two women when she met recently with the Oregon State Investment Group, a student-led organization that actively manages a $1.2 million equity portfolio on behalf of the OSU Foundation.

An ardent champion of mathematics, McGrath has parlayed her education and experience into extraordinarily successful careers. Today’s outlook for mathematics graduates looks quite promising. A quick Google search reveals a tremendous number of promising careers for mathematics majors. CareerCast ranked mathematician as best job for 2014 based on environment, income, outlook and stress. A study by PayScale shows that the top 15 highest-earning college degrees have a common element: mathematics.

Both McGrath and husband/math alumnus Bernie McGrath (’70, ’74) have had fruitful careers and have chosen to give back. They have generously supported OSU across a range of interests, from science scholarships to athletics. McGrath sees their gifts and the resulting impact as a way to “pay it forward” and compel others to respond, amplifying their support.

“A lot of people helped me along the way,” McGrath says. “So I want to help many people succeed to make the world better. The biggest gift and the most joy is for the giver.”

McGrath has been paying it forward in countless ways to the community: as member of the College of Science Advisory Board, an honorary trustee (retired) of the OSU Foundation, a board member at the Susan G. Komen Foundation of Oregon and SW Washington, a partner Social Venture Partners Portland and a member of ARCS (Achievement Rewards for College Scientists) Portland Chapter. She is also a past President and former board member of the Oregon Society of CPAs Educational Foundation. McGrath continues to support the organization and has endowed an accounting scholarship at Oregon State to ensure the future of future accountants.

Recently the McGraths received the Martin Chaves Lifetime Achievement Award by the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics presented its to were honor their exceptional contributions to OSU Athletics, particularly the baseball program. In addition, the McGraths have been volunteer fundraisers for the renovation of Goss Stadium and the creation of the Pat Casey Baseball Endowment among other projects.

The employment surge for statisticians along with Oregon’s drive to increase the number of students pursuing degrees in STEM fields has led the Department of Mathematics at Oregon State University to offer a new undergraduate degree option in mathematics allowing an emphasis in statistics. Developed in close collaboration with the Department of Statistic, this new concentration prepares students for the current marketplace where statisticians have a professional edge, according to recent surveys and studies.

Mashable, an online news site that covers digital culture and technology, labels statistical analysis and data science as 2015’s “hottest profession.” In the last five years, such enthusiastic epithets have been increasingly applied to the field of Statistics, once viewed as an esoteric and unexciting discipline.

Amstat News—the magazine of the American Statistical Association—cites data that tracks this revolutionary shift in attitude toward statistics and statisticians. Amstat’s comprehensive mathematical sciences survey reveals a 78% increase in undergraduate statistics degrees from 2003 to 2011 and a 40% increase from 2009 to 2011.

Suddenly, it seems, everyone from Google and Netflix to Walmart, Gap and the federal government are hiring people with statistical skills and expertise.

Susan Dunham, the first mathematics graduate with the statistics option at OSU, found that her training made her a frontrunner in the job market. She was hired by a top insurance and finance company, before even completing her degree in December 2014 with a BS in Mathematics, a statistics option, and a minor in actuarial science.

Dunham, who has always enjoyed data analysis, honed her talent in the area through the seven statistics courses she took during her undergraduate career, five of which have counted towards her statistics option. She recently started working as an actuarial analyst trainee at State Farm’s auto pricing unit in its corporate headquarters in Bloomington, Illinois.

Dunham said her statistical skills and knowledge helped her land an internship with State Farm’s research unit last summer. When she impressed her managers with her abilities in data analysis, it helped pave the way for a full- time job offer.

“The statistics courses I was able to take at OSU definitely have an impact on my career."

"My managers are very excited about my coming into the company with this knowledge. One of my managers I spoke with today was actually really excited to hear that I had some experience with R—the data analysis software—(thanks to ST 411 and 412) and wants me to use it in my job for certain tasks,” Dunham wrote in an email. “The courses in the statistics option helped give me a good base knowledge for some of the actuarial exams I will be taking in the next few years as well.”

Statistics 411 and 412 are called Methods of Data Analysis and give students training in statistical applications.

Besides the promising job potential of a degree in statistics, the discipline itself has achieved impressive gender parity. According to a recent article in The Washington Post, statistics is ahead of all other STEM fields in “attracting, retaining and training women.” More than 40 percent of the degrees in statistics go to women, and they make up 40 percent of tenure-line faculty in departments. In the Department of Statistics at OSU, 50 % of tenured or tenure-line faculty are women.

OSU’s Department of Statistics is the only one of its kind among public universities in Oregon. It does not itself currently offer a undergraduate degree, so the new statistics option in mathematics offers a unique opportunity for students.

“The new Statistics option for mathematics students gives an avenue for undergraduates to develop an expertise in statistical applications together with an understanding of the mathematical theory underlying statistics,” says Mina Ossiander, professor of Mathematics and undergraduate advisor for the Statistics option.

Dunham, who says that she would have majored in Statistics if OSU had offered it, had already taken many statistics courses in high school when she started as a math major in 2011.

Although Dunham began with a minor in Statistics, she found herself wanting more challenging, upper-level statistics courses.

“The minor in Statistics required a lot of basic statistics courses that I had gained experience with in high school, or skipped and gone straight to the upper division classes,” says Dunham.

Dunham jumped at the chance when Ossiander, who had taught Dunham and was well aware of her career goals and preferences, told her about the newly developed Statistics option.

“I preferred statistics more than the pure mathematics focus of the major. I told Mina I'd sign up as soon as possible!” says Dunham. “So in short, I chose the stats option because it let me take more statistics courses, which was where I wanted to focus.”

With this new degree program, OSU joins other high-impact public universities such as UC Berkeley, University of Washington and University of Utah that offer similar degrees in the mathematical and statistical sciences.

The Statistics option has succeeded in attracting attention from mathematics majors. Currently, there are about a dozen Math majors who are enrolled in the Statistics concentration. Ossiander predicts that there will be 5-10 Statistics Option graduates annually.

What do a coffee cup and a donut have in common? It’s not a trick question, and there’s no punch line. The answer? Other than the fact that one might be dunked in the other occasionally, both have one hole.

It’s a really simplified explanation of the kinds of questions Christine Escher, associate professor of mathematics, asks in her basic research in algebraic topology and differential geometry. While at the higher levels this research is esoteric, essentially it involves the study of spaces, and it is a major field in theoretical mathematics.

Let’s get back to the coffee cup and the donut. In algebraic topology, the donut and the coffee cup share the same topological classification, because if they are stretched or otherwise distorted in two-dimensional space, they’ll retain their common characteristic - the single hole. Likewise, a sphere and a football share the same classification because neither has a hole.

Although Escher is a basic researcher and does not work on applied projects, her contributions to the fields of algebraic topology and differential geometry – another way of studying spaces – can provide foundational knowledge to those who do. Basic research in algebraic topology, for example, eventually finds its way into practical applications – to develop large-scale data mining computer programs that help tease the meaning out of huge data sets.

"There is so much data being generated out there. How do we access it? How do we get information out of it? Topology is a good tool. Algebraic topology uses tools from abstract algebra to study these topological spaces."

In differential geometry, the foundational concepts Escher and her colleagues work on can even have life-saving results. Research in this field has helped advance improvements in diagnostic radiology, for example, enabling CT (computerized tomography) scanners to produce three-dimensional images of the brain and other parts of the body, she says.

A time for research

Escher, who also serves as assistant chair of the mathematics department, is in charge of all planning and course scheduling for mathematics faculty, and also carries a teaching load of 3-4 courses per year. Given these responsibilities, it’s hard to find the time to press forward full bore with her research.

But that is changing. In 2012-13, her Women in Science Fund award will permit Escher a teaching buyout. Essentially it means Escher can dedicate an entire year to research alone.

For those like Escher, dedicated, mid-career faculty at the height of their intellectual development and career potential, these types of awards exemplify a commitment shared broadly at the university to reach higher and extend the boundaries of knowledge in all directions.

“Having the funding to give me relief from teaching at this point will be fantastic,” Escher says.

Escher will be working with Senior Visitor, Catherine Searle, who shares Escher’s research interests and who will be joining the department for a year.

With Searle, Escher plans to complete at least two joint research projects. They are planning to apply for National Science Foundation funding to support their work on topological classifications.

The Women in Science Fund award also will enable Escher to pursue collaborative research with Wolfgang Ziller, the Frances J. Carey Term Professor in Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, with whom she is completing other topological classification work. The two have one article published and a second submitted.

A change in the field

Escher, from a small town in Germany west of Frankfurt, has been a faculty member in the College of Science since 1993, when she completed her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. In some ways Corvallis reminds her of her home: deep forests, a decidedly rural flavor, but with much better weather.

She enjoys her life in Corvallis, especially her rides in the forest on her horse, Foxxy. In Germany, she says, keeping a horse was too expensive to be practical.

How are women faring in the field of mathematics? Escher says many more women now take her vector calculus class (a class of 100) than did in the early 1990s, when the classes were predominately male.

“About half of the students in these classes now are women,” she says. But it remains a challenge to attract women Ph.D. candidates.

“The math department has changed since I first arrived. There is a lot of new blood, and this is great. It is really nice to share research interests with new people. We have had one post doc in differential geometry who is leaving for a tenure track position and I am always trying to interest talented women students to become math majors,” she says.

The Women in Science Awards

Many women science faculty at Oregon State and elsewhere face what’s been dubbed a mid-career bottleneck. Just as they reach the point at which their research can attract national and international attention, other demands – family, heavy teaching loads, lack of travel flexibility – claim the extra energy and time they need to vault them to the next level.

By issuing its first three Women in Science Awards this year, OSU’s College of Science is attempting to help eliminate that bottleneck. The $8,000 individual awards are made possible by the Women in Science fund and departmental funding in a 50/50 match.

This year’s recipients are Christine Escher, associate professor of mathematics, Alix Gitelman, associate professor of statistics, and Oksana Ostroverkhova, associate professor of physics. They plan to use their awards both to advance their research and to present at national and international conferences. This, in turn, should lead to new research opportunities and funding for them and the College of Science.

The Women in Science fund was created in 2008 by Dawn Mellis with a gift to come from her estate. She is committed to helping professional women in business, government or education achieve their full career potential. In her career, Mrs. Mellis was a probate and estate tax paralegal and is now a trust, probate and estate tax consultant. Her late husband, Alan, graduated from OSU in 1949 with a bachelor’s degree in science.

Other current-use donors have contributed to the fund since it was established, making it possible to provide the current award, and additional donors have the opportunity to make a major impact next year as even more women rise through the ranks.