Alumni Spotlight: Sarah Blackwell

Sarah received her BA in mathematics from our department in 2016, and she is currently a doctoral student in mathematics at the University of Georgia.

Sarah's connection to SLU goes way back - her grandfather taught philosophy here, and when she was three years old she would go to work with him on campus. She specifically remembers being “creeped out” by the statues on campus near Xavier hall.

At SLU, Sarah was particularly interested in number theory. With Dr. Ben Hutz, she worked on a project entitled Good reduction of pre-periodic points, which investigated the dynamics of rational functions over number fields.

As a graduate student, Sarah has found a new love for topology and is considering studying topology for her doctoral work. When Sarah meets people and introduces herself as a mathematician, they often respond negatively. Some will admit they struggled with math themselves. Others say “oh, you must be a genius”, which Sarah says is also damaging because you don't have to be a genius to do mathematics.

One of Sarah's goals is to do mathematics outreach to try and change that negative reaction. She is interested in 3 mathematics education and plans to study secondary educational methodology as part of her graduate work. For current SLU students, Sarah suggests they get involved in the department, go to Math/CS club, sign up for the competition teams, and get to know the faculty.

She says that so many faculty at SLU were willing to drop everything and help her out. And if your goal is graduate school, she says, "take as many math classes as you can."

We wish Sarah all the best with her continued studies.