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careers IN APPLIED MATHEMATICS …alternatives to academia for STEM majors Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics 2 CAREERS in Mathematics SIAM Applied mathematics is mathematics for which I happen to know an application. This, I think, includes almost everything in mathematics. — Henry O. Pollack [Austrian-American mathematician, well known for his contributions to information theory] Mathematics and computational science are utilized • Government labs, research offices and agencies in almost every discipline of science, engineering, • Federally funded contractors industry, and technology. • Engineering research organizations New application areas are constantly being discovered and • Computer information and software firms established techniques are being applied in new ways and • Energy systems firms in emerging fields. Consequently, a wide variety of career • Electronics and computer manufacturers opportunities are open to people with mathematical talent and training. • Consulting firms • Aerospace and transportation equipment manufacturers Mathematical careers outside of academia rarely carry a simple title of “mathematician.” The very idea of a career in • Financial service and investment management firms mathematics has evolved and diversified and is often coupled • Transportation service providers with a specialty or area of research interest. Mathematics • Communications services providers plays a major role in the bottom line of industrial • Chemical or pharmaceutical manufacturers organizations, and helps companies perform better in today’s data-driven marketplace. • Medical device companies In this guide, you will find answers to questions about careers • Producers of petroleum and petroleum products in applied mathematics and computational science and • Academic institutions and research institutes profiles of professionals working in a variety of environments • Consumer products companies for which a strong background in mathematics is necessary for success. For a full list of organization types with examples, please visit the link below: Where can I work? www.siam.org/careers/thinking/organizations.php Many different types of organizations hire mathematicians and computational scientists. You can easily search the websites of organizations and corporations that interest you to learn more about their location(s), mission statement and objectives, history, What kinds of problems and job requirements. Experience gained through internships and work-study opportunities can help you determine your personal preferences regarding a workplace, such as non-profit or for-profit, might I work on? large or small, working independently or on a team, and how much While they may differ widely by discipline and job title, one thing customer contact you prefer to have. remains constant among careers in mathematics—problem solving. Some potential problems that someone with mathematical training Here are some examples of organizations, corporations, and research might encounter are briefly discussed below. It may be useful to institutions that hire mathematicians and computational scientists: note which of them you find most intriguing, and why. • How can an airline use smarter scheduling to reduce costs of aircraft parking and engine maintenance? • How can one design a detailed plan for a clinical trial? Building such a plan requires advanced statistical skills and sophisticated knowledge of the design of experiments. • Is ethanol a viable solution for the world’s dependence on fossil fuels? Can biofuel production be optimized to combat negative implications on the world’s economy and environment? • How can automotive systems become more efficient and reduce emissions as mandated by U.S. public policy? • How do we use major advances in computing power to incorporate knowledge about interactions between the oceans, the atmosphere and living ecosystems into models used to predict long-term change? SIAM CAREERS in Mathematics 3 • How can automotive and aircraft companies What’s out there test performance, safety, and ergonomics, while at for someone with the same time lowering the cost of construction my talents, interests, and testing prototypes? • A pharmaceutical and background? company wants to search a very large database of proteins to find one that is similar in shape or activity Growing fields to consider to one they have discovered. What’s the most efficient way to Systems Biology do so? A career in this field might include the application of a wide • How might disease spread in populated areas in the event of range of mathematical and computational methods. For example, a bioterrorism incident, and how would it be contained? mapping and understanding the human genome relies on the use • How do you design a robotic hand to grip a coin and drop it in of sophisticated mathematical and computational tools. Newer and a slot? better tools make research quicker and cheaper, resulting in the • How can you mathematically model the spread of a forest fire creation of new career opportunities in technology, medicine, and depending on weather, ground cover and type of trees? drug development and design. • How can you allocate an investment among various financial Data Mining and Data Privacy instruments to meet a risk/reward trade-off? Data mining allows the discovery of patterns and previously • Can mathematical models be coupled with efficient unknown information in large data sets. Emerging career computational implementations to obtain practical, low-cost opportunities can be found in applications of data mining in simulations to guide computer chip design and manufacture? fields such as security, forensics, e-commerce, bioinformatics and • Since a chemical company cannot test potential new products genomics, astrophysics, medicine, and chemical and electrical by releasing them into the atmosphere, it must develop models engineering. of atmospheric chemistry that simulate the complex chemical reactions in the atmosphere. Can computational simulations Materials Science show sufficient detail to capture the effects of the chemicals, Materials science is the study of the properties, processing, and but still be fast enough to permit studies of many different production of a broad range of existing and new materials, chemicals? including metallic alloys, composites, liquid crystals, biological • How can genome sequencing analysis help in making clinical materials, and thin films. The rational design and analysis of decisions based on a personalized medicine approach? materials depends on mathematical models and computational tools. Career opportunities abound in science, manufacturing, • Recommendation algorithms provide users of e-commerce and materials design for applications in fields such as aerospace, systems with unique ratings and recommendations of items and engineering, electronics, biology, and nanotechnology. products based on their past purchases, behavior and interests. How can mathematics improve rating prediction performance Computer Animation and Digital Imaging and help enhance the consumer experience? The Fields Institute in Toronto describes computer animation as “an eclectic science that uniquely combines mathematics, computer Part of the preparation for your future is obtaining a solid science, fine art, classical animation, physics, biomechanics, and foundation in mathematical and computational knowledge—tools anatomy, to name but a few fields. Algorithms for computer like differential equations, probability, combinatorics, applied animation rely heavily on techniques from scientific computation, algebra, and matrices, as well as the art of abstraction and statistics, signal processing, linear algebra, control theory, and advanced computing and programming skills. Preparation for a computational geometry.” With a diverse and exciting set of career in applied mathematics and computational science also applications to such areas as medical diagnostics, entertainment involves being able to apply these skills to real-life problems, and (film, television, and video games), and fine arts (dancing, achieving practical results. Mathematical and computational skills sculpture, painting), there are many avenues and career are a huge career asset that can set you apart and open doors. opportunities to explore. Finance and Economics Financial mathematics is the development of quantitative techniques and computational models used in the financial industry. Banks, insurance companies, investment and securities firms, energy companies and utilities, multinationals, corporations, government regulatory institutions, and other industries have come to rely on applied mathematics and computational science. Sophisticated math models and the computational methods and skills needed to implement them are used to support investment decisions, to develop and price new securities, to manage risk, and for portfolio selection, management, and optimization. 4 CAREERS in Mathematics SIAM Ecology/Epidemiology/Environment Explore internships, summer jobs, and work-study Professionals in these fields might look at populations and their What better way to determine the range of opportunities and interactions and model them as systems of differential equations explore possible areas of interest than to actually be in the that can be used to model diseases in human populations (i.e. the workplace? Internships and work-study opportunities are a great spread of infection under various immunization protocols). Other way to start on your career
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