Season 1 |
Episode 5: Building Bridges in Mathematics
[00:00:00] RORI: You're listening to Science Wise, the podcast designed to inspire people embarking on a career in science through conversations that will feel like talking with your wisest auntie.
[00:00:10] EMILIA: Who just so happens to be a badass scientist. I'm Emilia.
[00:00:14] RORI: And I'm Rori. We're two scientists on a mission to make the world of science more welcoming and to amplify the contributions of women.
[00:00:21] EMILIA: Ivelisse Rubio, a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, working in the area of finite fields. She received her PhD in Applied Math from Cornell University. And after graduation, she started her faculty position at University of Puerto Rico, Umacao. At Umacao, she co founded and co organized the Summer Institute in Mathematics for Undergraduates, also known as SIMU, which provided mathematical research opportunities for undergraduate students, including myself.
Thanks to Dr. Rubio, there is now a more diverse and vibrant mathematical community. In 2006, CIMU received the award for programs that make a difference from the American Mathematical Society. In 2006, Dr. Rubio also received the Presidential Award from SAGNAS. And in 2019, she was the recipient of the Dr. Eda Falkner Award for her commitment to mentoring and increasing diversity in the mathematical sciences. Today, I am so excited to reconnect and learn from Dr. Rubio, who had a huge impact on my own life.
I am so happy to see you again. For our listeners, I met Dr. Ivelisse Rubio when I was an undergraduate, and I have always seen you as this amazing woman with lots of experience. And now that I am older, I have so many questions for you about how you navigate academia. And I am delighted that you could join us today.
[00:01:55] IVELISSE: Thank you, Emilia. I'm so happy to be here. And I'm so I'm so happy to see you grown up.
[00:02:01] RORI: Yeah. Your protégé is doing so well. She is.
[00:02:04] IVELISSE: Hi, Rori.
[00:02:06] RORI: Hi, Iblis. It's wonderful to have you. Can you tell us where you grew up and like, what was your kidhood like?
[00:02:12] IVELISSE: Yeah, I grew up in Puerto Rico, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I grew up in a middle class home.
Very happy, happy family. We didn't travel a lot or I just play in the streets and and I went also attended public school all my life and and I just did many things with my
family.
[00:02:33] RORI: But you lived in the city and what were your parents doing for work? Your mom grew up on a farm, but clearly she wasn't on a farm anymore.
[00:02:40] IVELISSE: Yeah, my mother did university studies. She studied two years. That time that was enough to be a teacher. I'm the oldest one. When I was born, she stopped and she stayed at the house with me and taking care of everything in the house. My father was an accountant.
[00:02:56] RORI: So your father was an accountant, but I'm curious, when did you first get interested in math?
[00:03:00] IVELISSE: Ah, I always like to count things and like trying to find relations among things. And also, more than numbers, maybe it's the problem solving.
[00:03:11] RORI: It's interesting to connect math to problem solving because of course that's what it is, but I mean, at the moment I'm thinking about my little kids and, you know, they're not thinking about theorems or proofs or anything, but, but they are thinking about like, how can we make this work?
[00:03:25] EMILIA: So it sounds like math came easy to you, but I assume that at some point when you were in high school, you decided to go to university. And then could you tell us where you went for an undergraduate degree?
[00:03:37] IVELISSE: I applied to, to the University of Puerto Rico, the RA campus, which is in San Juan, also in the, in the main city.
But I was not sure what I wanted to study, and a friend of mine suggested that I should apply for math to do a bachelor's in math, but not because of the math. This was 1980. He told me that there in the math department, they were teaching computer science classes and that was the future. So I should study that.
And I entered math, taking courses in computer science. I did well on them, but I did not like them. I didn't like, I didn't like the feeling of something was wrong in this program. And I, I don't know what it is. It's something is happening inside the computer and I don't know what it is. My program was fine.
The logic was fine. So I didn't like that. But then in the math courses, I have control with what was going on. I can see the steps and I can justify everything. So I like the math course.
[00:04:37] RORI: You're not constrained by hardware when you're thinking in math here.
[00:04:42] IVELISSE: And I, and actually I didn't mind the hardware. I like to, uh, to arm and disarm things.
And actually I bought a computer and I like to install things and, but, but I, I, I did not enjoy computer science as much as I did enjoy math.
[00:04:57] EMILIA: I'm curious about your friends. Uh, that was a really wise statement. Computer science is the future. Uh, who was your friend?
[00:05:06] IVELISSE: Did I tell you this story and you're asking me this in purpose?
[00:05:10] EMILIA: No, no.
[00:05:13] IVELISSE: Because this, this friend was a boyfriend. One of these boyfriends that lasted maybe a month. But that was a good month because that set my path.
[00:05:25] RORI: Well, thank you to him.
[00:05:26] EMILIA: What was being a math slash computer science undergraduate at the time? We had a lot of fun.
[00:05:31] IVELISSE: I regret. I was also involved in politics, and I was, was concerned with many things that were happening, and I wanted to do something for the society, and I thought that, okay, I'm good in math, so maybe I should be a good math teacher.
But then I, I liked so much the university that I said, no, I want to be a teacher. a professor at the university. I want to stay here forever. And then I decided to do a master in Puerto Rico also. And that was the highest degree in math at that time in Puerto Rico, a master's degree.
[00:06:04] EMILIA: You had to leave the island to do a PhD.
[00:06:07] IVELISSE: Yes.
[00:06:08] EMILIA: How did you choose where to go to do a PhD?
[00:06:11] IVELISSE: It was a very difficult decision. It took me a few years to decide. I finished the master and I started teaching. So it was hard for my advisor of the master to convince me to continue to the PhD. For different reasons, first of all, I did not know English. I was studying English in all the school and at least I never learned.
And it was very hard for me to communicate. Second, I didn't want to leave the island. I was very close to my family and my friends. and I enjoy being an Islander. When I finished the Master, I was already married, and my ex husband convinced me that for all the things that I wanted to do, I needed to complete a PhD so I can propose things and people listen to me.
And I enjoy also doing research, and I chose to do it. Cornell because of different reasons. One of my friends was already there in the math department and I visited Cornell at some point during the summer and I love it. It was like, wow, this is like a university. I like Cornell because it was kind of isolated and I'm, I'm very easily distracted and Also, there was a very good group in symbolic computation at that time.
And that, that was something that was, uh, people in the island were interested in developing in Puerto Rico. Uh, so I got the fellowship from the university.
[00:07:40] EMILIA: So you selected a location that maybe at best it's like Puerto Rico in the summer.
[00:07:45] IVELISSE: Yes. Right.
[00:07:46] EMILIA: But not in the winter.
[00:07:47] IVELISSE: Yes.
[00:07:48] EMILIA: And, uh, as you know, a PhD is not an insignificant amount of time.
So what was your experience as a PhD student at Cornell?
[00:07:58] IVELISSE: Well, it was very hard for me. My first semester was really hard. It was hard for me to communicate, so I take classes and I run and hide so I don't have to speak to anybody. And I love to speak. I love to, I love to talk. I was not used to the, Long homeworks because I was teaching and I never had to do all these long homeworks that we had to do and then the weather It was snowing and I remember driving from home It was like a one hour drive to school and I look to the right to the right and I look to the left And everything was not why it was great because there was so much And it was really cold and I put some music and then the music that I put was music from Puerto Rico and I started crying and I, so it was not, it was not easy, but I survived.
What kept me going was thinking that I had a big responsibility. I had a fellowship from the university from Puerto Rico. So I said I cannot fail. I need to keep going because I don't want to close the door to other Puerto Ricans. I was not just doing that for myself and my advisor wrote the letter for me and he also helped me to get another fellowship so I could not fail the other people.
[00:09:18] RORI: It must have been such a shock to go from like Puerto Rico and your master's program and your undergrad where you said that there were a ton of women actually, and I'm guessing almost everyone was Puerto Rican, and then you go to this PhD program in Cornell, you're the only woman, one of very few Puerto Ricans.
That must have been such a shock.
[00:09:39] IVELISSE: There were other women, but I don't think that there were other Hispanics in the math department. It was very different. We are noisy in Puerto Rico and, and we think that maybe other Hispanics are the same, but not, we are not the same. I learned a lot culturally, and also I never was conscious about, uh, minorities because we are not a minority in our island.
[00:10:02] EMILIA: Were there actually women in the faculty at that time or,
[00:10:05] IVELISSE: yeah, there, there were a few I should mention that. I started in the math program, but then I switched to applied math after I passed my oral exams because I wanted to work on applications to coding theory.
[00:10:18] EMILIA: Was the applied math environment, like, different than the math one, or was it similar?
[00:10:23] IVELISSE: It was more friendly, the environment in the Center for Applied Math.
[00:10:27] EMILIA: So this is, I think, a nice segue because I was going to ask you about how was CIMU conceived?
[00:10:34] RORI: Well, first, can you say what CIMU is too? So CIMU is the Summer Institute in Mathematics for Undergraduates. So I wanted to know how CIMU was conceived and why you felt there was a need for CIMU.
[00:10:47] IVELISSE: CIMU was conceived in a bar having beers. So Herbert Medina was I was working in the first MTBI program at Cornell, Mathematics, so he was there during summer 1996, I think, and I was around that program a lot and met with the students and joined them in different activities, I did not work there. And then Herbert asked me, why don't we do something like this in Puerto Rico when you finish?
And you know, I answered, yeah, let's do that, that would be fun. Herbert kept working, talking to people. People that were, uh, work at the NSA, National Security Agency, and they happen to be interested in funding a program like that in, in Puerto Rico.
[00:11:32] EMILIA: So why did you think there was a need for CIMU?
[00:11:35] IVELISSE: We know that there is a underrepresentation of Hispanics in mathematics, especially in the higher degrees.
So, it was perfect to do a program like this in Puerto Rico, but then to bring students from the U. S., there was and there is still a need for this.
[00:11:53] EMILIA: I remember seeing the numbers that you showed us, uh, in CIMU. I couldn't believe that the numbers were so low. As an undergraduate, I always thought about math as something that was individual work, something that you do alone.
But, one thing that was interesting in CIMU was that students were working in groups, they had group projects. And so how, how did you and the other co organizers come up with the model for Simu?
[00:12:22] IVELISSE: The model was mostly created by Herber and I maybe pushed a little bit for having like strong research component, but having students working together, uh, it was very important to create the environment in the, in the program.
So they are divided into groups and we try to maintain a balance, a gender balance in all the program and also in the, in the two different groups. In the first two weeks, they are learning the topic that they are going to be doing research on. And it was amazing. The changes. So the students that had a strong background and students that did not have, at the end of those weeks, they were more or less all level and they were collaborating.
They were working really hard. And doing homework programs. Emilia, you know, you went through, you were working.
[00:13:14] EMILIA: It was hard. It was hard.
[00:13:15] IVELISSE: It was hard. It was hard. You were working all the time and it was group work. So some students help the others and at the end, they all contribute.
[00:13:25] EMILIA: Definitely. I definitely learned a lot in my group.
I'm going to give a shout out, if this makes it to the podcast, to David Uminski, who I learned a lot from him in my group. And also from my other group member, Aida, which I'm forgetting her last name.
[00:13:41] IVELISSE: The program finished five years, but then there was another program that we started later in MSRI at Berkeley, and we fixed the problems that we have.
That's why we stopped CIMU. It was too, too hard for Herbert to do all the program, all the administrative work. So we were. They voted to SMO the whole year and it was too much. The MSS IO program where there are five co-directors that rotate, so one is in charge every year. On addition we there is the administrative support MSRI, they run all the administrative part is much better.
[00:14:19] EMILIA: So it sounds like it was a lot of work for you and Herbert. But was it fun for you?
[00:14:24] IVELISSE: Simu was the best thing that I have done. Seeing all of you succeeding and seeing you now like grown ups and doing good things. What better thing can you have?
[00:14:36] EMILIA: Well, I'm very thankful that you did this, of course, because it really had a huge impact in my own life.
I'm really happy that I was a participant. And I really enjoyed being in CIMU. I, I mean, it really opened my eyes to opportunities to the PhD programs and so on. Thank you, Yvette, and thank you, Herbert. But, um, I think CIMU made a huge impact on a lot of students and obviously that was intentional because you knew that this was needed.
CIMU is very unique. Uh, it was very intense, lots of work, lots of research, lots of math. And so for me, that was really fun because I got to meet lots of people. We were together a lot of the time. And so sometimes, you know, that could cause a little bit of drama. And so I'm just really curious whether you were aware of that and if you sometimes, or maybe you even interacted with it sometimes, or maybe we were just really good at hiding it.
[00:15:34] IVELISSE: You were very good at hiding it. We only learn about things when someone complain or the students are very loyal to each other.
[00:15:45] RORI: Why did you stop running CIMU? You shifted to the program with Berkeley, but why did you stop running CIMU specifically?
[00:15:51] IVELISSE: It was hard, even though we enjoy it a lot and maybe Emilia, we also should mention that The students also had excursions and have parties and have other activities, no?
It's not only work, and they had a good time at the end. But it was very hard to organize everything. Herbert and I did mostly everything with an assistant. Every year we have an assistant. But then also Herbert was not from Puerto Rico. He was from California. So he moved from LA every year. Almost two months, because he get there before and leave later, because then we have to write reports and do many things, and it was too much.
We felt that we needed a break.
[00:16:39] RORI: Yeah, these programs are a ton of work. It makes sense that especially with going back and forth to California to Puerto Rico, we were looking at it and we saw that The award was for you in honor of what you did with CIMU, uh, got the American Mathematical Society's award for programs that make a difference.
[00:16:56] IVELISSE: No, no, but for me and for Herbert.
[00:16:58] RORI: For you and for Herbert.
[00:16:59] IVELISSE: It was to the program, really, to the program.
[00:17:02] RORI: And when you stopped doing CIMU and retired from MSRI, did it leave you more time for other parts of your job as faculty?
[00:17:10] IVELISSE: Actually, yeah, when I finished CIMU, at the beginning, I said, I don't, I have no idea what to do now because that was my life, no?
All year round.
[00:17:21] RORI: You didn't have time for your, for, to do your own research though.
[00:17:25] IVELISSE: Exactly. But again, I have been very lucky. At that time also, another professor, now professor in Río Piedras, He was finishing his PhD in computer science. Carlos Corrada visited me and he said, you know, for my thesis research, I'm studying this component of turbo codes, which I know nothing about.
And he said, well, maybe we can study this to construct interleavers. So we started. Started working on that and actually it was a lot of fun because it was a very good collaboration. He was an engineer so he had all the part of the application and I had the math part and we published a few papers. Then I collaborated with other people and that happened right when Simu was finishing.
[00:18:15] RORI: I think it is very cool to hear that you went from being really focused on this undergrad program and then went and did some super creative collaborative research. I think often We get told a narrative where, you know, if you start focusing on something that isn't research, you can like, you can never go back, but you really show that that's not true, that you can do all of these things in the moments of your life when they make sense to do them.
[00:18:37] IVELISSE: Yes. And it's kind of funny because when I was going to start seeing, well, some people in the campus that I was in. And I said, you know, you're doing things in the wrong way, in the opposite direction. You usually do research first, establish yourself as a researcher, and then do this type of program. And I said, well, but the timing is now.
They ask us to do this program and offer us. Even though everything was kind of accidental, I made the right choices in the right moment.
[00:19:08] RORI: There's an interview of you in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, and it's titled, I Am Not Your Typical Role Model, Do Not Follow My Steps, which reminds me of my mother being like, Rori, don't follow my steps.
Do as I say not as I do. So tell us, why would you not want somebody to follow your steps?
[00:19:27] IVELISSE: Definitely, Rori, because things work out because many, many variables were in my favor, but I don't think that that's always the case. Sometimes you need to focus. When I was talking about the PhD, when I was doing my thesis, I was doing a lot of things also.
I was very conscious that I needed to I could not do what I did for my bachelor's that I got involved in many things that I needed to focus. And I did that when I was taking classes. But then in research for your thesis, you don't have deadlines, or at least strong deadlines. Then I start traveling to Puerto Rico.
I start focusing in different things. And at some point, Monsweetler told me, you know, you better focus or you will never finish. That was another. hard moment for me. And he was right. And that day I decided, okay, I'm going to stop everything. I'm going to take this. And I even set times that I need to do. I need to work so many hours per day, like eight, at least eight hours per day.
And I will do this. And if I don't, I'm not done by this day, then I will quit.
[00:20:39] RORI: So you had to be really structured and strict with yourself, it sounds like, to finish your PhD. And I mean, I think it's interesting because this is a case where somebody gave you advice and you're like, Oh, it was really important advice.
You really needed to change your approach to your PhD in order to finish. How do you know? When someone else looks at what you're doing and gives you their opinion, what you should change, how do you know when to take their advice and when they're not seeing the whole picture and like actually you don't need to take their advice?
[00:21:09] IVELISSE: I don't know. In the case that I just mentioned with Moss, He was right. I tried to be critic with myself. I consider many things, and sometimes I go with my, my heart, and, and that's what I want to do, and that's what I feel, but that's why I said that it doesn't work like that for everybody.
[00:21:29] EMILIA: Why do you think it's important to develop a culture of mathematics and mathematical thinking in our communities?
[00:21:37] IVELISSE: Mathematics is everywhere, and it's, it's not, and you said, You said that you mentioned something very important, mathematical thinking. So it's not even like, like doing math, like abstract algebra or things, it's just thinking logically, properly. And it's, and math is behind that. And studying math gives you that structure, helps you to make connections, so helps you in your every life, everyday living.
And when you listen to some arguments that you said that doesn't make any sense. And then some people say, Oh, you're mathematicians, you have your own way of thinking. No, it's not. It's that there are things that logically don't make
sense.
[00:22:20] EMILIA: I'm going to ask you something about the mathematical community and its culture.
How has it evolved since you were a graduate student? Or have you seen a change? Has the change been in a Positive direction in your opinion.
[00:22:33] IVELISSE: So I think that yes, there have been progress. People are talking about issues. There are things that we have to deal with. More people are concerned about diversity before we didn't talk about them.
[00:22:46] EMILIA: You know, as part of CIMU, students get to go to SACNAS and then the AMS. Is it what's the AMS meeting?
[00:22:52] IVELISSE: The joint math meeting, the joint math
meeting, yes.
[00:22:54] EMILIA: Going to SACNAS was like, wow, there's all these, you know, it's a bunch of undergrads from like indigenous communities or like, you know, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, African Americans.
There's like a lot of people of color at SACNAS. There's so many, you're like, wow, there's so many people doing science or math in the community. And then I have this other memory of going to the joint math meetings. And I was felt it was sort of like the opposite. It was like, Oh, everybody did not look like us.
But it was nice to be in a little group because we all knew each other, like the 24 students. But then I was always I used to think like, what are these people thinking about us? Did you ever get any comments? Because it was very, it was like it was a white background. And then there was this little color.
[00:23:42] IVELISSE: I think that in general, people respected what we were doing, and people were very happy that we were doing that. And actually, some of our students won. So I think that most of the people were happy that we were doing that. There was at least one occasion. The work was so good that they doubted that the students did the work.
I don't know if it was because they were undergraduates or because they were students. Minority students, sometimes I have the feeling that some students are underrated and it had happened at least to some students of mine in Puerto Rican students that I, that I work with that go to a program. And then come back and they said, Oh, no, they have a lot of fun.
They work a lot. They, they really had a good time. They learn a lot, but more than one student have to meet. I wish that they were giving us a more challenging project. And at some point I said that, was there another minority in the program? And the students said, yes. And you were put together to work together?
Yes. And your project was the same? Yes. And that student that told me that was our best student. in Rio Piedras in the computer science department, but she was also, she was very good in math. So, and she wanted to go to the same program the next year and said, if you want to go there and if you want me to write a letter, you have to promise me that you're going to tell them from the beginning that you want to have a challenging project.
I think that still some people question why we are there is because we are giving him a an opportunity because we we are a minority or because we actually deserve it people understand that something that we are given. But we deserve to be there. And well, what happened is that then sometimes then we have to work harder than other people.
[00:25:41] RORI: I think about this, you know, incredible student who you're, you described working with, who was given an unchallenging project. And I'm really glad that she could come back to you. after the summer and tell you, you know, this is what happened. It was fine, but they didn't have the faith that she could do the kinds of math that she was able to.
And you were there to be like, okay, demand more. You deserve more.
[00:26:03] IVELISSE: And it happens with couples where a woman and a man are working in research. People assume that the brain thing is done by the male and the writing thing is done by the female.
[00:26:17] RORI: I will, I will switch to another lighter topic now for a minute.
I mean, you already made it clear how much you love Puerto Rico, how much you love being with your family, but what else brings you balance and joy?
[00:26:28] IVELISSE: I have many pets. I like to do things with my hands. I like to knead. I love to go to the beach and at that, I still do. I have a place where I go and actually work very well there.
I work very well.
[00:26:40] RORI: You work on the beach?
[00:26:41] IVELISSE: What I do is that I try to study hard and then I say okay I'm going for a walk and or I go and sit on the beach and then when I walk I keep thinking. I keep thinking so that's not kind of balanced no because I keep working.
[00:26:56] RORI: Well clearly your work brings you some joy too.
[00:26:59] IVELISSE: I like to plant.
[00:27:01] RORI: Well I love the image of you on the beach maybe with your dogs just enjoying some quiet and also thinking more math. Thank you so much, Ive. I feel like I've learned so much that I'm going to take on with me. So very grateful for your time and for sharing your insight.
[00:27:18] IVELISSE: This was a lot of fun. Thanks to both of you.
[00:27:21] EMILIA: Thank you for listening to this episode. If you like what you heard, share it with someone. You can also support this program by writing a kind review. This episode was produced and edited by Maribel Quesada Smith, Sound Engineering by Kegan Stromberg. Special thanks to Dr. Ivelisse Rubio.
The hosts of Science Wise are Rori Rohlfs and me, Emilia Huerta Sanchez.
[00:00:10] EMILIA: Who just so happens to be a badass scientist. I'm Emilia.
[00:00:14] RORI: And I'm Rori. We're two scientists on a mission to make the world of science more welcoming and to amplify the contributions of women.
[00:00:21] EMILIA: Ivelisse Rubio, a professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, working in the area of finite fields. She received her PhD in Applied Math from Cornell University. And after graduation, she started her faculty position at University of Puerto Rico, Umacao. At Umacao, she co founded and co organized the Summer Institute in Mathematics for Undergraduates, also known as SIMU, which provided mathematical research opportunities for undergraduate students, including myself.
Thanks to Dr. Rubio, there is now a more diverse and vibrant mathematical community. In 2006, CIMU received the award for programs that make a difference from the American Mathematical Society. In 2006, Dr. Rubio also received the Presidential Award from SAGNAS. And in 2019, she was the recipient of the Dr. Eda Falkner Award for her commitment to mentoring and increasing diversity in the mathematical sciences. Today, I am so excited to reconnect and learn from Dr. Rubio, who had a huge impact on my own life.
I am so happy to see you again. For our listeners, I met Dr. Ivelisse Rubio when I was an undergraduate, and I have always seen you as this amazing woman with lots of experience. And now that I am older, I have so many questions for you about how you navigate academia. And I am delighted that you could join us today.
[00:01:55] IVELISSE: Thank you, Emilia. I'm so happy to be here. And I'm so I'm so happy to see you grown up.
[00:02:01] RORI: Yeah. Your protégé is doing so well. She is.
[00:02:04] IVELISSE: Hi, Rori.
[00:02:06] RORI: Hi, Iblis. It's wonderful to have you. Can you tell us where you grew up and like, what was your kidhood like?
[00:02:12] IVELISSE: Yeah, I grew up in Puerto Rico, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. I grew up in a middle class home.
Very happy, happy family. We didn't travel a lot or I just play in the streets and and I went also attended public school all my life and and I just did many things with my
family.
[00:02:33] RORI: But you lived in the city and what were your parents doing for work? Your mom grew up on a farm, but clearly she wasn't on a farm anymore.
[00:02:40] IVELISSE: Yeah, my mother did university studies. She studied two years. That time that was enough to be a teacher. I'm the oldest one. When I was born, she stopped and she stayed at the house with me and taking care of everything in the house. My father was an accountant.
[00:02:56] RORI: So your father was an accountant, but I'm curious, when did you first get interested in math?
[00:03:00] IVELISSE: Ah, I always like to count things and like trying to find relations among things. And also, more than numbers, maybe it's the problem solving.
[00:03:11] RORI: It's interesting to connect math to problem solving because of course that's what it is, but I mean, at the moment I'm thinking about my little kids and, you know, they're not thinking about theorems or proofs or anything, but, but they are thinking about like, how can we make this work?
[00:03:25] EMILIA: So it sounds like math came easy to you, but I assume that at some point when you were in high school, you decided to go to university. And then could you tell us where you went for an undergraduate degree?
[00:03:37] IVELISSE: I applied to, to the University of Puerto Rico, the RA campus, which is in San Juan, also in the, in the main city.
But I was not sure what I wanted to study, and a friend of mine suggested that I should apply for math to do a bachelor's in math, but not because of the math. This was 1980. He told me that there in the math department, they were teaching computer science classes and that was the future. So I should study that.
And I entered math, taking courses in computer science. I did well on them, but I did not like them. I didn't like, I didn't like the feeling of something was wrong in this program. And I, I don't know what it is. It's something is happening inside the computer and I don't know what it is. My program was fine.
The logic was fine. So I didn't like that. But then in the math courses, I have control with what was going on. I can see the steps and I can justify everything. So I like the math course.
[00:04:37] RORI: You're not constrained by hardware when you're thinking in math here.
[00:04:42] IVELISSE: And I, and actually I didn't mind the hardware. I like to, uh, to arm and disarm things.
And actually I bought a computer and I like to install things and, but, but I, I, I did not enjoy computer science as much as I did enjoy math.
[00:04:57] EMILIA: I'm curious about your friends. Uh, that was a really wise statement. Computer science is the future. Uh, who was your friend?
[00:05:06] IVELISSE: Did I tell you this story and you're asking me this in purpose?
[00:05:10] EMILIA: No, no.
[00:05:13] IVELISSE: Because this, this friend was a boyfriend. One of these boyfriends that lasted maybe a month. But that was a good month because that set my path.
[00:05:25] RORI: Well, thank you to him.
[00:05:26] EMILIA: What was being a math slash computer science undergraduate at the time? We had a lot of fun.
[00:05:31] IVELISSE: I regret. I was also involved in politics, and I was, was concerned with many things that were happening, and I wanted to do something for the society, and I thought that, okay, I'm good in math, so maybe I should be a good math teacher.
But then I, I liked so much the university that I said, no, I want to be a teacher. a professor at the university. I want to stay here forever. And then I decided to do a master in Puerto Rico also. And that was the highest degree in math at that time in Puerto Rico, a master's degree.
[00:06:04] EMILIA: You had to leave the island to do a PhD.
[00:06:07] IVELISSE: Yes.
[00:06:08] EMILIA: How did you choose where to go to do a PhD?
[00:06:11] IVELISSE: It was a very difficult decision. It took me a few years to decide. I finished the master and I started teaching. So it was hard for my advisor of the master to convince me to continue to the PhD. For different reasons, first of all, I did not know English. I was studying English in all the school and at least I never learned.
And it was very hard for me to communicate. Second, I didn't want to leave the island. I was very close to my family and my friends. and I enjoy being an Islander. When I finished the Master, I was already married, and my ex husband convinced me that for all the things that I wanted to do, I needed to complete a PhD so I can propose things and people listen to me.
And I enjoy also doing research, and I chose to do it. Cornell because of different reasons. One of my friends was already there in the math department and I visited Cornell at some point during the summer and I love it. It was like, wow, this is like a university. I like Cornell because it was kind of isolated and I'm, I'm very easily distracted and Also, there was a very good group in symbolic computation at that time.
And that, that was something that was, uh, people in the island were interested in developing in Puerto Rico. Uh, so I got the fellowship from the university.
[00:07:40] EMILIA: So you selected a location that maybe at best it's like Puerto Rico in the summer.
[00:07:45] IVELISSE: Yes. Right.
[00:07:46] EMILIA: But not in the winter.
[00:07:47] IVELISSE: Yes.
[00:07:48] EMILIA: And, uh, as you know, a PhD is not an insignificant amount of time.
So what was your experience as a PhD student at Cornell?
[00:07:58] IVELISSE: Well, it was very hard for me. My first semester was really hard. It was hard for me to communicate, so I take classes and I run and hide so I don't have to speak to anybody. And I love to speak. I love to, I love to talk. I was not used to the, Long homeworks because I was teaching and I never had to do all these long homeworks that we had to do and then the weather It was snowing and I remember driving from home It was like a one hour drive to school and I look to the right to the right and I look to the left And everything was not why it was great because there was so much And it was really cold and I put some music and then the music that I put was music from Puerto Rico and I started crying and I, so it was not, it was not easy, but I survived.
What kept me going was thinking that I had a big responsibility. I had a fellowship from the university from Puerto Rico. So I said I cannot fail. I need to keep going because I don't want to close the door to other Puerto Ricans. I was not just doing that for myself and my advisor wrote the letter for me and he also helped me to get another fellowship so I could not fail the other people.
[00:09:18] RORI: It must have been such a shock to go from like Puerto Rico and your master's program and your undergrad where you said that there were a ton of women actually, and I'm guessing almost everyone was Puerto Rican, and then you go to this PhD program in Cornell, you're the only woman, one of very few Puerto Ricans.
That must have been such a shock.
[00:09:39] IVELISSE: There were other women, but I don't think that there were other Hispanics in the math department. It was very different. We are noisy in Puerto Rico and, and we think that maybe other Hispanics are the same, but not, we are not the same. I learned a lot culturally, and also I never was conscious about, uh, minorities because we are not a minority in our island.
[00:10:02] EMILIA: Were there actually women in the faculty at that time or,
[00:10:05] IVELISSE: yeah, there, there were a few I should mention that. I started in the math program, but then I switched to applied math after I passed my oral exams because I wanted to work on applications to coding theory.
[00:10:18] EMILIA: Was the applied math environment, like, different than the math one, or was it similar?
[00:10:23] IVELISSE: It was more friendly, the environment in the Center for Applied Math.
[00:10:27] EMILIA: So this is, I think, a nice segue because I was going to ask you about how was CIMU conceived?
[00:10:34] RORI: Well, first, can you say what CIMU is too? So CIMU is the Summer Institute in Mathematics for Undergraduates. So I wanted to know how CIMU was conceived and why you felt there was a need for CIMU.
[00:10:47] IVELISSE: CIMU was conceived in a bar having beers. So Herbert Medina was I was working in the first MTBI program at Cornell, Mathematics, so he was there during summer 1996, I think, and I was around that program a lot and met with the students and joined them in different activities, I did not work there. And then Herbert asked me, why don't we do something like this in Puerto Rico when you finish?
And you know, I answered, yeah, let's do that, that would be fun. Herbert kept working, talking to people. People that were, uh, work at the NSA, National Security Agency, and they happen to be interested in funding a program like that in, in Puerto Rico.
[00:11:32] EMILIA: So why did you think there was a need for CIMU?
[00:11:35] IVELISSE: We know that there is a underrepresentation of Hispanics in mathematics, especially in the higher degrees.
So, it was perfect to do a program like this in Puerto Rico, but then to bring students from the U. S., there was and there is still a need for this.
[00:11:53] EMILIA: I remember seeing the numbers that you showed us, uh, in CIMU. I couldn't believe that the numbers were so low. As an undergraduate, I always thought about math as something that was individual work, something that you do alone.
But, one thing that was interesting in CIMU was that students were working in groups, they had group projects. And so how, how did you and the other co organizers come up with the model for Simu?
[00:12:22] IVELISSE: The model was mostly created by Herber and I maybe pushed a little bit for having like strong research component, but having students working together, uh, it was very important to create the environment in the, in the program.
So they are divided into groups and we try to maintain a balance, a gender balance in all the program and also in the, in the two different groups. In the first two weeks, they are learning the topic that they are going to be doing research on. And it was amazing. The changes. So the students that had a strong background and students that did not have, at the end of those weeks, they were more or less all level and they were collaborating.
They were working really hard. And doing homework programs. Emilia, you know, you went through, you were working.
[00:13:14] EMILIA: It was hard. It was hard.
[00:13:15] IVELISSE: It was hard. It was hard. You were working all the time and it was group work. So some students help the others and at the end, they all contribute.
[00:13:25] EMILIA: Definitely. I definitely learned a lot in my group.
I'm going to give a shout out, if this makes it to the podcast, to David Uminski, who I learned a lot from him in my group. And also from my other group member, Aida, which I'm forgetting her last name.
[00:13:41] IVELISSE: The program finished five years, but then there was another program that we started later in MSRI at Berkeley, and we fixed the problems that we have.
That's why we stopped CIMU. It was too, too hard for Herbert to do all the program, all the administrative work. So we were. They voted to SMO the whole year and it was too much. The MSS IO program where there are five co-directors that rotate, so one is in charge every year. On addition we there is the administrative support MSRI, they run all the administrative part is much better.
[00:14:19] EMILIA: So it sounds like it was a lot of work for you and Herbert. But was it fun for you?
[00:14:24] IVELISSE: Simu was the best thing that I have done. Seeing all of you succeeding and seeing you now like grown ups and doing good things. What better thing can you have?
[00:14:36] EMILIA: Well, I'm very thankful that you did this, of course, because it really had a huge impact in my own life.
I'm really happy that I was a participant. And I really enjoyed being in CIMU. I, I mean, it really opened my eyes to opportunities to the PhD programs and so on. Thank you, Yvette, and thank you, Herbert. But, um, I think CIMU made a huge impact on a lot of students and obviously that was intentional because you knew that this was needed.
CIMU is very unique. Uh, it was very intense, lots of work, lots of research, lots of math. And so for me, that was really fun because I got to meet lots of people. We were together a lot of the time. And so sometimes, you know, that could cause a little bit of drama. And so I'm just really curious whether you were aware of that and if you sometimes, or maybe you even interacted with it sometimes, or maybe we were just really good at hiding it.
[00:15:34] IVELISSE: You were very good at hiding it. We only learn about things when someone complain or the students are very loyal to each other.
[00:15:45] RORI: Why did you stop running CIMU? You shifted to the program with Berkeley, but why did you stop running CIMU specifically?
[00:15:51] IVELISSE: It was hard, even though we enjoy it a lot and maybe Emilia, we also should mention that The students also had excursions and have parties and have other activities, no?
It's not only work, and they had a good time at the end. But it was very hard to organize everything. Herbert and I did mostly everything with an assistant. Every year we have an assistant. But then also Herbert was not from Puerto Rico. He was from California. So he moved from LA every year. Almost two months, because he get there before and leave later, because then we have to write reports and do many things, and it was too much.
We felt that we needed a break.
[00:16:39] RORI: Yeah, these programs are a ton of work. It makes sense that especially with going back and forth to California to Puerto Rico, we were looking at it and we saw that The award was for you in honor of what you did with CIMU, uh, got the American Mathematical Society's award for programs that make a difference.
[00:16:56] IVELISSE: No, no, but for me and for Herbert.
[00:16:58] RORI: For you and for Herbert.
[00:16:59] IVELISSE: It was to the program, really, to the program.
[00:17:02] RORI: And when you stopped doing CIMU and retired from MSRI, did it leave you more time for other parts of your job as faculty?
[00:17:10] IVELISSE: Actually, yeah, when I finished CIMU, at the beginning, I said, I don't, I have no idea what to do now because that was my life, no?
All year round.
[00:17:21] RORI: You didn't have time for your, for, to do your own research though.
[00:17:25] IVELISSE: Exactly. But again, I have been very lucky. At that time also, another professor, now professor in Río Piedras, He was finishing his PhD in computer science. Carlos Corrada visited me and he said, you know, for my thesis research, I'm studying this component of turbo codes, which I know nothing about.
And he said, well, maybe we can study this to construct interleavers. So we started. Started working on that and actually it was a lot of fun because it was a very good collaboration. He was an engineer so he had all the part of the application and I had the math part and we published a few papers. Then I collaborated with other people and that happened right when Simu was finishing.
[00:18:15] RORI: I think it is very cool to hear that you went from being really focused on this undergrad program and then went and did some super creative collaborative research. I think often We get told a narrative where, you know, if you start focusing on something that isn't research, you can like, you can never go back, but you really show that that's not true, that you can do all of these things in the moments of your life when they make sense to do them.
[00:18:37] IVELISSE: Yes. And it's kind of funny because when I was going to start seeing, well, some people in the campus that I was in. And I said, you know, you're doing things in the wrong way, in the opposite direction. You usually do research first, establish yourself as a researcher, and then do this type of program. And I said, well, but the timing is now.
They ask us to do this program and offer us. Even though everything was kind of accidental, I made the right choices in the right moment.
[00:19:08] RORI: There's an interview of you in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, and it's titled, I Am Not Your Typical Role Model, Do Not Follow My Steps, which reminds me of my mother being like, Rori, don't follow my steps.
Do as I say not as I do. So tell us, why would you not want somebody to follow your steps?
[00:19:27] IVELISSE: Definitely, Rori, because things work out because many, many variables were in my favor, but I don't think that that's always the case. Sometimes you need to focus. When I was talking about the PhD, when I was doing my thesis, I was doing a lot of things also.
I was very conscious that I needed to I could not do what I did for my bachelor's that I got involved in many things that I needed to focus. And I did that when I was taking classes. But then in research for your thesis, you don't have deadlines, or at least strong deadlines. Then I start traveling to Puerto Rico.
I start focusing in different things. And at some point, Monsweetler told me, you know, you better focus or you will never finish. That was another. hard moment for me. And he was right. And that day I decided, okay, I'm going to stop everything. I'm going to take this. And I even set times that I need to do. I need to work so many hours per day, like eight, at least eight hours per day.
And I will do this. And if I don't, I'm not done by this day, then I will quit.
[00:20:39] RORI: So you had to be really structured and strict with yourself, it sounds like, to finish your PhD. And I mean, I think it's interesting because this is a case where somebody gave you advice and you're like, Oh, it was really important advice.
You really needed to change your approach to your PhD in order to finish. How do you know? When someone else looks at what you're doing and gives you their opinion, what you should change, how do you know when to take their advice and when they're not seeing the whole picture and like actually you don't need to take their advice?
[00:21:09] IVELISSE: I don't know. In the case that I just mentioned with Moss, He was right. I tried to be critic with myself. I consider many things, and sometimes I go with my, my heart, and, and that's what I want to do, and that's what I feel, but that's why I said that it doesn't work like that for everybody.
[00:21:29] EMILIA: Why do you think it's important to develop a culture of mathematics and mathematical thinking in our communities?
[00:21:37] IVELISSE: Mathematics is everywhere, and it's, it's not, and you said, You said that you mentioned something very important, mathematical thinking. So it's not even like, like doing math, like abstract algebra or things, it's just thinking logically, properly. And it's, and math is behind that. And studying math gives you that structure, helps you to make connections, so helps you in your every life, everyday living.
And when you listen to some arguments that you said that doesn't make any sense. And then some people say, Oh, you're mathematicians, you have your own way of thinking. No, it's not. It's that there are things that logically don't make
sense.
[00:22:20] EMILIA: I'm going to ask you something about the mathematical community and its culture.
How has it evolved since you were a graduate student? Or have you seen a change? Has the change been in a Positive direction in your opinion.
[00:22:33] IVELISSE: So I think that yes, there have been progress. People are talking about issues. There are things that we have to deal with. More people are concerned about diversity before we didn't talk about them.
[00:22:46] EMILIA: You know, as part of CIMU, students get to go to SACNAS and then the AMS. Is it what's the AMS meeting?
[00:22:52] IVELISSE: The joint math meeting, the joint math
meeting, yes.
[00:22:54] EMILIA: Going to SACNAS was like, wow, there's all these, you know, it's a bunch of undergrads from like indigenous communities or like, you know, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, African Americans.
There's like a lot of people of color at SACNAS. There's so many, you're like, wow, there's so many people doing science or math in the community. And then I have this other memory of going to the joint math meetings. And I was felt it was sort of like the opposite. It was like, Oh, everybody did not look like us.
But it was nice to be in a little group because we all knew each other, like the 24 students. But then I was always I used to think like, what are these people thinking about us? Did you ever get any comments? Because it was very, it was like it was a white background. And then there was this little color.
[00:23:42] IVELISSE: I think that in general, people respected what we were doing, and people were very happy that we were doing that. And actually, some of our students won. So I think that most of the people were happy that we were doing that. There was at least one occasion. The work was so good that they doubted that the students did the work.
I don't know if it was because they were undergraduates or because they were students. Minority students, sometimes I have the feeling that some students are underrated and it had happened at least to some students of mine in Puerto Rican students that I, that I work with that go to a program. And then come back and they said, Oh, no, they have a lot of fun.
They work a lot. They, they really had a good time. They learn a lot, but more than one student have to meet. I wish that they were giving us a more challenging project. And at some point I said that, was there another minority in the program? And the students said, yes. And you were put together to work together?
Yes. And your project was the same? Yes. And that student that told me that was our best student. in Rio Piedras in the computer science department, but she was also, she was very good in math. So, and she wanted to go to the same program the next year and said, if you want to go there and if you want me to write a letter, you have to promise me that you're going to tell them from the beginning that you want to have a challenging project.
I think that still some people question why we are there is because we are giving him a an opportunity because we we are a minority or because we actually deserve it people understand that something that we are given. But we deserve to be there. And well, what happened is that then sometimes then we have to work harder than other people.
[00:25:41] RORI: I think about this, you know, incredible student who you're, you described working with, who was given an unchallenging project. And I'm really glad that she could come back to you. after the summer and tell you, you know, this is what happened. It was fine, but they didn't have the faith that she could do the kinds of math that she was able to.
And you were there to be like, okay, demand more. You deserve more.
[00:26:03] IVELISSE: And it happens with couples where a woman and a man are working in research. People assume that the brain thing is done by the male and the writing thing is done by the female.
[00:26:17] RORI: I will, I will switch to another lighter topic now for a minute.
I mean, you already made it clear how much you love Puerto Rico, how much you love being with your family, but what else brings you balance and joy?
[00:26:28] IVELISSE: I have many pets. I like to do things with my hands. I like to knead. I love to go to the beach and at that, I still do. I have a place where I go and actually work very well there.
I work very well.
[00:26:40] RORI: You work on the beach?
[00:26:41] IVELISSE: What I do is that I try to study hard and then I say okay I'm going for a walk and or I go and sit on the beach and then when I walk I keep thinking. I keep thinking so that's not kind of balanced no because I keep working.
[00:26:56] RORI: Well clearly your work brings you some joy too.
[00:26:59] IVELISSE: I like to plant.
[00:27:01] RORI: Well I love the image of you on the beach maybe with your dogs just enjoying some quiet and also thinking more math. Thank you so much, Ive. I feel like I've learned so much that I'm going to take on with me. So very grateful for your time and for sharing your insight.
[00:27:18] IVELISSE: This was a lot of fun. Thanks to both of you.
[00:27:21] EMILIA: Thank you for listening to this episode. If you like what you heard, share it with someone. You can also support this program by writing a kind review. This episode was produced and edited by Maribel Quesada Smith, Sound Engineering by Kegan Stromberg. Special thanks to Dr. Ivelisse Rubio.
The hosts of Science Wise are Rori Rohlfs and me, Emilia Huerta Sanchez.