September Recap

Speaking at the GLSIAM 2025 Conference, September 27, 2025. Confidence = hand in pocket.

What a month it has been! I want to share what I’ve done and how I’ve survived it all. 

I hosted Dr. Vladimir Vladičić from the University of East Sarajevo with support from an International Mathematical Union grant. He is both a longtime friend and collaborator, and it was wonderful to have him in my department. This visit was especially meaningful because he was my very first international visitor at UTC, which made his presence even more significant. Today (09/30/2025) I’m seeing him off at the airport shuttle. It feels sad to say goodbye, but I’m also happy he will be reunited with his family.

Vladimir giving his department colloquium talk in his UTC T-shirt. I definitely need to get one of those T-shirts!

I applied for my second reappointment, and part of the process is having tenured professors visit my classes to evaluate my teaching. Dr. Roger Nichols and Dr. Lani Gao, whom I deeply admire and respect, visited my Introduction to Analysis II and Calculus I classes. I received the BEST feedback ever, which made me feel like: “HELL YES! Aren’t you doing a great job?” For the reappointment, I also had to prepare a dossier with everything from the past year carefully documented. It took a long time, but I’m happy with how it turned out. Now I’m waiting to hear from the Reappointment Committee Chair, the Department Head, and the Dean about the result of my application.

Another milestone: I applied for my first NSF project. I probably won’t get it, but I felt that I needed to apply in order to learn how the process works. Now that I know, the goal is to write and submit another one with full confidence. It was very stressful, but I’m happy I did it. 

I submitted abstracts for the upcoming JMM, the biggest math conference in the United States: one for a solo talk and another with my undergraduate student, Gracie.

I added another item to my résumé: I started supervising an Honors College student from the Finance Department, Bana Suleiman, who is majoring in finance. We are working to find a connection between finance and inverse problems, which will become her project. I like this idea because it is interdisciplinary, and it makes me think about things I had never considered before.

I went to Chicago with my PhD student, Gage, to attend the SIAM Great Lakes Meeting. We were both supported by NSF travel grants to cover our expenses, which was wonderful. I first learned about this conference from Shalmali, whom I admire deeply for the energy and hard work she brings to mathematical research. She is younger than me, yet I find myself learning so much from her. Kudos to my longtime friend Tom Cuchta for introducing us. It feels great to have such a supportive group around me as I continue learning how to navigate academia in the U.S.

With my PhD student Gage, who is nearly finished with his thesis on a quantum mechanical inverse problem.

For a long time, I’ve been thinking about documenting my travels, but I kept postponing it because of the time needed for editing. During my visit to Chicago, though, I suddenly found myself recording small clips and piecing them together in iMovie on my phone. Now I even have an unedited video uploaded on YouTube, haha.

Last but not least, I applied for a department budget committee grant to support my attendance at the AMS Sectional Meeting on October 18–19. Yesterday (09/29/2025) I received an email from the chair of the committee, Dr. Aniekan Ebiefung, whom I admire and also feel lucky to have as my next-door neighbor in the department, letting me know that I got it!

Very last but not least, I continued teaching eight classes per week, held regular Zoom meetings for three other ongoing projects, graded papers, and even had to recover my voice after losing it from all the talking and from drinking iced water (don’t tell my mom) as if I were American.

September was busy, messy, exciting and I’m curious to see what October has in store. Stay tuned!

October 2025, Chattanooga.