Steph Assisi

Photo of S. Assisi
Current Workplace
Loughborough University
Current Role
PhD student
My Mathematics Success Story is...

I’ve always enjoyed mathematics from as early as I can remember and later became more focused on statistics after a short placement with Shell’s statistics team when I was in high school. There, I was taught by someone with an infectious enthusiasm for statistics that I quickly caught. I’m constantly impressed by statistics’ powerful ability to capture, quantify and visualise invisible phenomena, relations and thoughts when done correctly. As well as statistics, I’m interested in dynamical systems, especially chaotic systems, and differential geometry. I’ve also been inspired by Maryam Mirzakhani’s work, although shamefully I’m not smart enough to understand most of it! I’ve also become interested in philosophy while at university and naturally, due to my degree choice, this has included philosophy of science. In particular, I have read a lot of Marx. I aspire to become an academic specialising in statistics but I also hope to one day write a book arguing for a Marxist dialectical materialist approach to mathematics and natural science. I had a 12 month placement as an OR at HMRC so I’ve experienced an industry job before pursuing academia further. I really enjoyed my time there and it helped me to develop greatly. I think if I were to go into industry again I would choose the public sector over the private. Outside of mathematics, I’m a very keen runner and studying at Loughborough has given me a fantastic experience in athletics. Strangely, I’ve found myself to be more proud of my performances in athletics than I have of my achievements in mathematics so far but I think that’s fine! I would like my research in the future to lead me to contribute something meaningful to statistics, or philosophy of science, that I can be proud of.

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LGBT