Math4Science

Engage • Inspire • Prepare

Artist with STEM Degree

Some people who study science, computer technology, engineering, or math in college and beyond use their degrees in the arts. Mathematician Helena Kauppila, a probability theorist, decided to make her work seem less mysterious and abstract to friends and family by combining it with paintings. Gradually, painting became more of a focus of her career. Complex systems, genetics, and other math and science inform her work, helping her “zoom out” from the personal process of painting or looking at a painting to the larger systems described by math and science.

Civil Engineer Richard Blanco writes poetry on slow days at his engineering jobs and designs bridges when he needs a break from writing poems. Chosen by President Barack Obama to read the poem “One Today” at his second inauguration, Blanco has made poetry the focus of his career in recent years.

Photographer David Goldes, trained as a molecular geneticist at Harvard, majored in biology and chemistry at the Buffalo campus of the State University of New York. He went on to photograph science-informed activity, from the behavior of magnetized pins to thousands of volts of electricity passing through a graphite circuit. Mechanical Engineer Julia Lintern improves cars and planes and teaches programming. She also designs puppets and clothing. Marek Bennett, a cartoonist, musician, and educator, studied mathematics and astronomy in college. Now he creates graphic novels and other cartoons, partly to teach his audiences about history, math, and science.

Wendy Klemperer uses her academic background in biology to inform her animal sculptures. By keeping in mind the anatomy she learned in school, she’s able to create still sculptures that capture animals in motion.