Written by Andrew Alonzo | aalonzo@claremont-courier.com
In late October, Zoe Batterman, a 21-year-old mathematics major at Pomona College, received an email that she had to read several times to fully process. It was good news, really good news.
The email informed Batterman that she is one of only two students nationwide to receive the 2024 Alice T. Schaeffer Award for Excellence in Mathematics by an undergraduate woman from the Association for Women in Mathematics.
The news came as a surprise to Batterman given that she is a student at a small liberal arts college in Claremont facing much larger Ivy League schools. Because Pomona College graduate Elena Kim won the award in 2021, it was difficult for her to imagine that the committee would honor another Pomona student just two years later.
An awards ceremony for the Schiffer Prize laureates, which also included Purdue’s Meenakshi McNamara, will be held in San Francisco on January 3 at the 2024 Joint Mathematics Meeting, where each winner will receive $1,000 and a certificate. Runner-up, Matty Gee of Brown University, will receive $250.
Anyone can nominate students for the award. Candidates are evaluated based on their performance in advanced mathematics courses, their own work, and other programs. Batterman was recommended by two of her professors at Pomona College, Conrad Aguilar and Edray Goins, as well as Stephen J. Miller at Williams College.
“Zoe is an amazing mathematician,” Aguilar, an assistant professor of mathematics and statistics at Pomona University, wrote in an email. “The research we produced together was at graduate level and above and answered a question I had had for some time. Not only did it raise the level of my research, but it also elevated my courses by helping me better explain important topics in my courses through the various discussions we had about my courses on Years passed.
“Zoe is ambitious but curious,” Goins wrote in an email. “Working with Zoe has pushed me to step up my own game and think deeply about my research questions.” Goins added that he treated Batman “the same way I treated graduate students” at Purdue.
Zoe Batterman, 21, a student at Pomona College, was recently awarded the 2024 Alice T. Schaeffer Award for Excellence in Mathematics by a Collegiate Woman from the Association for Women in Mathematics. Courier photo/Andrew Alonzo
In an article published by Pomona College, Goins described Bateman as a “powerful mathematician.” Batterman said such kind words from her mentor were just as rewarding — if not more so — than the Schiffer Award itself. “It is wonderful to be recognized in the mathematics community, thanks to the Alice T. Schaeffer Award,” she said. “But someone I worked with, saw and grew up with…when he saw that he said, ‘Wow!’ I had more of a gut reaction.”
Batman’s work over the past few years has been in very technical fields. She explored C* algebras (“Banach algebras with convolution that satisfy adjoint properties,” according to Wikipedia.) with Aguilar—who was his first research student at Pomona and not a senior thesis student—during the spring semester of her sophomore year. During Pomona’s research into the mathematics experiment with Joynes the following summer, she and others explored the relationships between monodromic groups, Dessin d’enfants, and Belyi functions. I also worked with Miller at Williams College during the summer of 2023 researching random matrix models of the new curvilinear form. to-mission.
The Pomona College article stated that her work with Miller “resulted in four preprints (preliminary versions of scientific papers) with two more in preparation.”
When asked if the research could be translated into real-world applications, Batterman said yes and no.
“Will this research help people? No,” she said. “The work itself, perhaps, will have applications for computer science in the distant future. And that’s what’s happening with mathematics, as it’s being adopted into these different fields.”
In the spring, Batterman received a Barry Goldwater Fellowship for showing promise as a research leader, and an honorable mention for Outstanding Poster in the 2023 American Mathematical Society’s Mathematics Festival in the summer, as well as Outstanding Poster in the Society’s Southern California-Nevada Section Competition. .
Born in 2002 and raised in New Orleans, Batterman had no interest in mathematics. In fact, she was often lost in fantasy novels or artistic creation.
“I used to daydream a lot,” she said.
At Benjamin Franklin High School, math was not her top priority despite taking AP Calculus.
“I actually didn’t want to pursue math” after high school, she said.
After graduating in 2020, Bateman declared two majors at Pomona College, physics and philosophy. She explored both during her virtual freshman year during the coronavirus crisis, but interests drew her elsewhere.
“If I have to go somewhere where there’s a time thing, it’s very stressful, so I’d rather do my own thing,” she said. “I was really drawn to the freedom of mathematics.”
I switched to mathematics in 2021.
“When you are able to think about ideas and translate freely between different things and see something in a new light, at least for me, it felt very fulfilling and I really liked it,” she said.
With the holidays approaching and spring graduation in a few months, Batterman has one main goal on her mind: spending as much quality time as possible with friends. She has already applied for graduate studies and scholarships and is waiting to hear back, and hopes to continue studying mathematics in graduate school.
We are delighted to announce that Pomona College’s mathematics department has once again been recognized for its excellence, as one of its very own experts has received a prestigious national award. This recognition reaffirms Pomona College’s dedication to fostering top-tier scholars and researchers in the field of mathematics. The recipient’s expertise and contributions to the field have undoubtedly made a significant impact, and we are proud to see their hard work and dedication acknowledged at a national level.