Mathematical Sciences Foundry

Monday February 13 at 4pm in Olin 201. Whitney Griggs, a Caltech MD-PhD candidate and Josephine de Karman Fellow, will discuss ways to apply the mathematical sciences in biomedical career paths, with a focus on computational and translational neuroscience. Using interactive case studies, he will discuss his own journey from learning mathematical reasoning at Whitman to applying these mathematical skills to the design of ultrasonic brain-computer interfaces. Whitney will highlight several key aspects of this project, including converting radiofrequency data into ultrasound images, implementing real-time neural decoders, and using Euclidean transformations to stabilize the neural decoder across multiple months.   BIO:   Whitney is currently a 6th year MD-PhD candidate in the UCLA-Caltech Medical Scientist Training Program. Since 2001, he has been interested in brain-computer interfaces, and, after 22 years of fortuitous events, he is now pursuing a PhD where he investigates way...

On Monday October 24th at 4pm in Olin 201 , Susan J. Forray, Senior Director of Pricing at Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation, will discuss actuarial career paths , examples of mathematical problems faced by actuaries, and connections between Whitman coursework and actuarial work. Susan will discuss mortgage insurance and how events in the news impact the cost (and price) of mortgage insurance every day. Lastly, Susan will cover ‘price-dependent’ risk and how actuaries address circular situations in which the cost of issuing an insurance policy depends, in part, on the price the insurer charges.   BIO: Susan is currently Senior Director of Pricing at Mortgage Guaranty Insurance Corporation. Since joining MGIC as its first actuary two years ago, Susan has been responsible for advancing MGIC’s pricing to reflect actuarial concepts and has doubled the size of MGIC’s pricing team by adding actuarial staff.  Previously, Susan was a Principal with Milliman, one of the world’s ...