Spotlight Series: Cosmos Professors
Explore the expertise of COSMOS professors through our interview series. Discover their groundbreaking research and insights into why they are dedicated to teaching at COSMOS, a leading summer program in science and engineering. Gain firsthand knowledge of their inspirations, discoveries, and commitment to mentoring future innovators.
Dr. Jessica Jaynes
Dr. Jessica Jaynes, an assistant professor of Statistics in the Department of Mathematics at Cal State Fullerton, is currently teaching Cluster 1: Exploring the Application of Data Science in the Biomedical Sciences. Before joining Cal State Fullerton as a faculty member in 2015, she worked at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for two years. It is her first year at COSMOS, but she has had multiple years of experience with UCI’s other high school programs.
Interview Q&A
​Interview conducted by Jade Iry & Lucia Zhang
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Q: What is your educational background?
A: I received my undergraduate degree in Mathematics with a concentration in Probability and Statistics at Cal State Fullerton before acquiring my master's and PhD in Statistics at UCLA. I never thought I’d stay for a PhD when I started my Master's at UCLA, but I enjoyed the teaching and research aspects. Getting to blend those two and share that research with undergraduates and now high school students fueled my passion for wanting to teach more.
Q: What inspired you to study Statistics?
A: I enjoyed math in high school, so I decided to major in math in college. At that time, the rise of data and statistics was coming about. As an undergraduate, my highest-level statistics course, a theoretical statistics class, had only five people. I now teach that same course with 45 students, which is a lot for Cal State Fullerton. We try to keep our classes small, many of them with around 25 to 30 students, which shows that there is a massive demand for statistics, which is what I saw as an undergraduate. As an undergraduate, there were only two known paths: I could become a teacher or an actuary. I did start down that actuarial path, but I saw the data and tools coming about then, and I was hooked and intrigued by what would happen.
Q: What does your job as a professor and researcher entail? What are some recent or current projects you have been working on?
A: It's multifaceted. Cal State Fullerton is a teaching institution in the sense that my number one priority is to be an educator for my students. As I said, we have small class sizes, so it’s typical for me to get to know all my students, which is quite beneficial because I learn where students perform well and where they could also use some help. In addition to that, I also conduct research, so I still work in experimental design and publish papers.
My newest adventure has been grant writing. I’ve been writing a lot of grants to train students in data science, and for the past few years, I have been collaborating with UCI to create an undergraduate program focused on data science. It runs simultaneously with COSMOS, so sometimes I teach Cluster 1 and other times with my undergraduate students. I aim to diversify where I can bring in data science for students. In particular, data science can complement any type of degree. One of my most prominent advocates for data science is that it doesn’t have to just be in data science. We just hosted a conference two weeks ago, and our keynote speaker was a faculty member from UC Berkeley in computational biology. Still, he is a big consumer and user of data science, and I think it’s essential to recognize that data science lives beyond math, statistics, and computer science.
Most recently, we received another grant to train faculty in data science. Students must learn data science to ensure its sustainability, and we also need to train faculty in the tools they can bring into the classroom. So, for example, in a program I am working on right now, we teach faculty from public health, psychology, and business.
Q: What’s your favorite part of your job?
A: My favorite part of my job is getting to know all the students. It’s the reason I do what I do. Maybe it’s the mother in me, as I have two small children, but I also feel like my students become my adopted children at some point. When my students graduate and go on to graduate school or get jobs, we stay in touch. One of the students I did research with as an undergraduate, who was my master’s student, is now getting his PhD in statistics at UCLA with my advisor, so our advisor. So it’s nice to see that sort of lineage continue.
Q: What was your most memorable/favorite class you took?
A: When I was an undergraduate at Cal State Fullerton, one professor in particular was the most demanding professor you could have. But I’m the type of person who can't tell me no when it comes to schoolwork or my job. If you tell me no, I’m more determined to do it. So this professor, now my colleague I respect, was the most challenging professor I’ve ever had. The goal was to get us to learn as much as possible, so one of my favorite classes was probably one of my most challenging classes, a theoretical statistics course. It just had an impact like okay, you have to work on this.
Q: What are the most important strategies when studying data science?
A: Communication and collaboration. You have to be able to work with other people, and with that, you have to be able to listen to other people and come to some sort of conclusion, whether that be the opinion of each person involved in the story or some kind of compromise. A lot of thought goes into data science, which makes it an excellent field, but you have to be able to come to some sort of resolution; that’s the goal. So you have to be able to collaborate and to collaborate well, you have to be able to communicate
Q: Do you have any advice for people interested in pursuing data science?
A: Do well in math, statistics, and computer science, but don’t just bucket yourself to those fields. There’s a reason why you take GE (General Education) courses. Some might be less time-consuming than others, but take those classes rather than set face value. Even if you know you can get an easy A in those courses, think about how this could apply to your field. How could you become a subject matter expert in this area and use it in data science? Anytime you bring quantitative skills to a field that doesn’t typically have them, it provides you with a niche. Many people study data science, statistics, and computer science, so you will separate yourself by learning about a particular field.
Interview With Professor Albert Siryaporn
​Interview conducted by Samaira Pandey
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Q1: Can you introduce yourself?
“ I'm Albert Siryaporn and I'm an associate professor at UCI’s physics astronomy department. My work is on biological physics where we study the physics that gives rise to life.”
Q2: What sparked your interest in your specific side of physics?
“ You know, I've always had an interest in biology. And I think the way that biologists understand biology was not intuitive to me and the way physics was studied was intuitive to me . And so, it was that I wanted to study physics using the tools of biologists. I felt that I better understood concepts in physics using the systems of biology.”
Q3: In your opinion, what is one of the most influential works of science ?
“ When I think about the work that really started my interest in biology I think about work done with bacteriophage, these are viruses that infect bacteria, and there were a lot of interesting questions that came out of trying to understand how this happens. It has to do a lot with counting, statistics and things that we see in system mechanics. It was the first time where you could see biology obeying the laws of physics. So I think it was the correlation of physics and biology which inspired me to continue in my field.”
Q3: What does it take to be a Physicist?
“ More than anything else I believe that it is someone's curiosity, it all starts from there, the ability to question and think outside of the box is essential to being a scientist and specifically being a physicist. The ability to change perspective and explore all sides of a concept is something that is essential to the foundation of physics”
The Gold Touch: Interview with Dr. Luis Jauregui
​Interview conducted by Vivian Lu
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Q: Could you provide some information on your degree?
A: “Oh sure, Luis Jauregui. I’m a doctor in physics and especially condensed matter physics. Originally, I’m from Peru, which is where I got my Bachelor’s. I went to Purdue University for my PhD, which is where I studied nanoscience. I did my post-doctoral–the continuation after a PhD–at Harvard. Now, at UCI, I create new materials in my lab.”
Q: How long have you been working as a professor at UCI?
A: “Five years since I started doing research and teaching, and developing new classes and tools.”
Q: As a professor, what’s your schedule like every day as a professor?
A: “It depends on when I’m teaching classes, and on what time the classes start. Sometimes I teach at 8 AM, so I have to be up for that. But usually, I try to be in the office around 8:30 to 9 AM, and then around 5 or 6 PM that’s when I pick up my kids. I try to be in the lab as well, since I’m an experimentalist, so I run labs with my students and do experiments in the lab. I try to be with them, and offer guidance.”
Q: Is there a favorite class you like to teach at UCI?
A: “My favorite one is advanced labs, since that’s the one where my students develop new experiments. I’m trying to develop even more experiments for my advanced labs, since as an experimental physicist I really love to do things by myself and by my own hands. I like to build stuff, and that class allows students to build things since it’s a creative class, where they have a goal for the experiment but it’s more open-ended on making the experiment work. There are a lot of electronics involved, a lot of 3D printing stuff, but in my opinion you learn more about physics by doing it. But, in the classroom, I’ve also been trying to develop new ways, like showing videos and showing current research to show students why what they’re learning is useful.”
Q: What is your current research like?
A: “So, I work on quantum materials. These are very thin materials. I’m working specifically with electrons, these are fundamental particles, and how they behave in these materials. In a given material, like for example gold, electrons can be passing by in gold and sometimes can crash with a crystal, but that’s kind of how we know how metals work. But, I’m interested more about how electrons start to talk to each other, how they interfere, how they form groups of electrons. Because then they can form new particles, and form new states of matter. And usually, this happens when materials are very thin or very small–I’m talking about one atom thin. That’s when electrons start to behave weirdly, and usually it happens at low temperatures.”
Q: What’s something interesting about your lab?
A: “We have a freezer that goes down to 8 millikelvin–0.08K–very close to absolute zero.”
Q: As a physicist, are there any crazy goals you’ve wanted to achieve?
A: “I just like to have fun with materials, and my goal is to understand better. I just want to know about electrons, because that’s how we can get superconductivity, and how can I work with given materials. We can even try to make trivial materials into gold!”
Q: What advice would you give to a high school student interested in higher-level physics?
A: “I love physics, which makes me understand how things work. Also, once you understand some parts, you wonder if we can change or modify them, can we create tools and devices. There are a lot of intersections with condensed matter physics, with physics, chemistry, and engineering, so it gives you a lot of areas to expand. Even if you want to go into industry, you can go into physics. Or if you want to go into teaching, you can go into physics. If you want to work in a national lab, condensed matter physics can still help you. So, you should consider studying physics if you're just curious and want to discover new things.”
