Math Artist: Tabitha Ramirez

“Since I enjoy all these things researching, teaching, and mentoring I know that being a math professor is right for me.”

Macaulay scholar and Ridgewood, Queens native Tabitha Ramirez ’24 (City College) recounts a series of experiences that have led her to consider math and teaching as a profession. “I believe that a professor should not only be a teacher and a lifelong learner, but also a good mentor for those who want to follow a similar career path.”

Tabitha has been sharing her passion for mathematics with other students, working as a precalculus and calculus tutor and Teaching Assistant at City College, her home campus. “I enjoyed tutoring students so much,” she says, “because it allowed me to support others and give them the guidance they need to succeed.

She also is working on a study of the efficiency of functions with Lehman College researchers Dr. Christina Sormani and Dr. Chenyun Lin. The project takes high-dimensional datasets, which can be very difficult to visualize, and reduces them so that they can be better understood and represented. “Tabitha is an inspiring student,” says Dr. Sormani.

About the project, Tabitha says: “it’s exciting to dive deep into the unknowns of a problem and play around with the details to arrive at a solution.”

Her lived identity as an aromantic asexual has inspired a project designed to support AUREA (Aromantic-spectrum Union for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy), a volunteer-based organization, to analyze data for their census of people within the community. “This work allows me to fuse my love of mathematics with my desire to help the community that has done so much for me,” she says.

Tabitha also makes time to express her creativity, crocheting astonishing little amigurumi figures, beanies for friends, and of course math art that expresses hyperbolic surfaces or other objects. It’s all related. “This semester I’m taking a class called dynamical systems and I enjoy it so much.” She was drawn to the beauty of the discipline and hopes to one day lead research in the field.

Whether in the lab, the classroom, or relaxing with soft, colorful yarns, Tabitha’s spirit of inquiry and curiosity will surely guide her to success!