“As a parent with a son of a similar age, Marco’s story and the family’s desire to create something enduring in his memory resonated with me deeply,” said Jitomirskaya. “I wanted to help build a strong program in his memory specifically for Berkeley undergraduates.”
Jitomirskaya was also galvanized by her time spent preparing undergraduates for the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, the most well-known and prestigious mathematics competition in North America. Last year, Jitomirskaya taught Math 191, UC Berkeley’s related workshop course, and UC Berkeley’s team won an honorable mention at the competition. Working with those students showed Jitomirskaya the incredible depth of raw mathematical talent at UC Berkeley, but she also recognized how difficult it can be for even exceptional students to find research opportunities.
The Marco Troper Summer Scholars Program tackles that problem directly. Still, Jitomirskaya was unsure how undergraduates would handle this new experiment.
“The results exceeded all expectations,” said Jitomirskaya, who praised the students’ impressive creativity and dedication. “This kind of hands-on research gives students their first real taste of what it means to be a working mathematician. I am deeply thankful to the Troper family for their vision and generosity that created an opportunity that simply wouldn’t have existed otherwise.”
To assist with assigning pairs, Jitomirskaya sent two warm-up problems for students to complete. Both involved self-similarity, a theme that permeated all four team projects. Students were asked to find and explain unexpected patterns to demonstrate their ability to conduct explorative thinking, approach unfamiliar patterns, and communicate mathematical observations.