Sonya Kovalevsky Day

About the Speakers

Speakers:

Dr. Jennifer McLoud grew up in the small town of Weleetka, Oklahoma (population around 1,000). While attending high school, she was an active member of the basketball team, cheerleading squad, FHA, and student council. As for academics, she took all the math/science classes that were offered which surprisingly didn't involve calculus or physics! After high school, she married her high-school sweetheart (Dr. Mann today at UT-Tyler) and attended a four-year university in Oklahoma majoring in mathematics and minoring in physics. During this time, she was involved in the McNair Scholars program (founded in honor of Ronald McNair, an astronaut that died in the Challenger explosion) which encourages minorities and first-generation college students to seek graduate degrees. As a side note, Dr. McLoud fell into each of these categories, she is of Cherokee descent and was the first person in her family to receive a bachelor's degree. With the encouragement from the McNair program and her family, she enrolled at the University of Arkansas to try for a master's degree in mathematics and before she knew it she had her Ph.D. in mathematics. She has been working at UT-Tyler since graduating in 2002. She has many interests these days. In relation to work, she is a co-sponsor of the math club at UT-Tyler and looks forward to driving a van full of women mathematics majors to Nebraska every year in February to attend a conference for women in mathematics. Outside of work, she enjoys cooking, playing various sports and exercising (racquetball, tennis, and jogging). and spending time with her husband and daughter, Nyx.

Dr. Ramona Ranalli was born in New Jersey but left there at the age of one.  After one year in Costa Rica she moved on to Ecuador where her parents were missionaries (her mother still lives there, along with her brother and cousin).  She spent 7 years in the coastal city of Guayaquil and 8 years in the capital city of Quito, where she finished high school.  Ramona received her bachelors degree at Houghton College with a major in mathematics and minors in Secondary Education, Physics, Spanish and Bible.  She then proceeded to earn her masters at Wake Forest University in North Carolina and her PhD at Virginia Tech (whose football games she closely follows), both in Mathematics.  She spent four and a half years working for the Department of Defense in Maryland (where she did some graduate work in Computer Science) before accepting a position at UT Tyler.  Once there, her daughter Risa was born - the first Texan in the family!

Organizers:

Dr. Fredericka Brown is originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana where she graduated from Scotlandville Magnet High School. She then continued on Xavier University of Louisiana to pursue a Bachelor's degree in Physics. After completing her Physics degree she relocated to lovely Las Vegas to pursue a Master and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and became the first African American to be awarded this degree at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Upon completing her PhD in Mechanical Engineering Fredericka accepted a faculty position in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at Tyler. She is currently a member of ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), NSBE (National Society of Black Engineers), BMES (Biomedical Engineering Society), and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated.

Dr. Rebecca Culshaw grew up in Central and Eastern Canada, and she attended both high school and university in the coastal city of Halifax, Nova Scotia. In high school, she became fascinated with chemistry and biology and fully intended to go to medical school so as to eventually be able to study infectious diseases. However, she was won over by calculus and decided to major in mathematics instead. She was persuaded to attend graduate school in applied math when she discovered that mathematics could be used to study diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis and even cancer. She enjoys being able to do mathematics as well as study science and work with doctors and biologists. Before coming to UT Tyler this year, she spent two years teaching at a mostly female college in Iowa. Aside from work, her interests include politics (as a spectator!), running, yoga, watching ice hockey, and playing with her two dogs, Kinsey and Angel.