Where Are They Now: Alums Rebecca Kurtz-Garcia and Jacob Garcia

The purpose of our Where Are They Now series is twofold. We love to share Alumni success stories to inspire current and future Ball State students and to highlight opportunities provided by our department. Thank you for helping tell the Ball State story of how we fly!

Please introduce yourself—I’d love to know when you attended Ball State, your area(s) of study, and any other tidbits that help us get to know you.

Hello! We are Rebecca Kurtz-Garcia and Jacob Garcia, proud alumni of Ball State University, where we both studied from 2016 to 2018. Rebecca earned her M.S. in Statistics under the supervision of Rebecca Pierce, and Jacob earned his M.S. in Mathematics under the supervision of Hanspeter Fischer. After graduating, we both continued our studies at University of California, Riverside. Rebecca completed her Ph.D. in Applied Statistics under the supervision of James Flegal, studying robust estimation methods, and Jacob earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics under the supervision of Matthew Durham, studying Geometric Group Theory. Outside of academics, Jacob enjoys chess, juggling, and puzzles. Rebecca enjoys sewing, hiking, and reading. We have a dog named Darwin, who loves snuggles. When we were at BSU, one of our favorite things to do was go to the Barking Cow for ice cream and hang out with our fellow classmates.

Tell us about your current job. We’d love to hear about the day-to-day work and your broader projects.

Today, we both work as faculty at Smith College. Jacob works in the Mathematical Sciences Department, he teaches a broad set of classes ranging from Precalculus to Point Set Topology and lots of things in between. This semester, he is teaching Calculus 1 and Multivariable Calculus.

Rebecca has a joint appointment in the Mathematical Sciences Department and the Statistical & Data Sciences Program. She most commonly gets to teach introductory statistics, probability, and mathematical statistics. This current semester, she is also teaching time series analysis.

Day-to-day work is what you might expect: lesson plans, teaching classes, and grading assignments. Broader projects we get to do include running our annual Putnam Problem Solving workshops, organizing the annual Women in Mathematics in New England conference, helping with our local Datafest, and attending seminar events both at Smith and at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. We also still get to do some research, and love introducing students to higher-level mathematics and statistics.

Will you describe your career path. Did you land your current job immediately after graduation or find your way there circuitously?

We both may be a little boring in this regard: bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees are all in statistics for Rebecca, and are all in mathematics for Jacob. We met during our bachelor’s, got engaged during our master’s, and married during our doctoral degree.

We did all our degrees after another (together at the same institutions) with no gaps. After our doctorate degrees, we started immediately as faculty at Smith College. New faculty orientation was on the same day as Rebecca’s dissertation defense! Although this looks like a “direct path” on paper, neither of us would personally describe it that way. There were many times we each considered other options, which introduced a source of indirectness and ambiguity. For example, Jacob was thinking about becoming a high school teacher, and Rebecca was unsure about which graduate program was right for her when they first entered their programs at BSU. However, during our time at BSU, we both realized that our favorite topics were the most advanced subjects we were taking! We are each very grateful for our time at BSU, as it gave us both a pivotal opportunity for discernment on a career path to our current trajectory.

So although things looked direct, we’ve always tried to keep an open mind throughout our studies and life decisions – and we still do!

How have you grown and learned in each of your successive jobs that led to your current position?

After we earned our doctorates, someone asked if there were any steps that were particularly important in getting to where we are now, and Rebecca responded, “Everything was important.” We both still agree wholeheartedly with that. We each learned and grew so much with every opportunity. We still keep lessons in mind from the very first statistics and mathematics classes we ever took, as well as from courses and job positions in areas we ultimately did not pursue as a career.

The advice we give our students is that there are two reasons to accept a position: money and experience. Both will always matter, but as you get older, the balance between what you might need to prioritize usually shifts. Try to prioritize experience as much as you can, for as long as you can.

What is the most fulfilling part of your current job?

PEOPLE. PEOPLE. PEOPLE. We really landed at a wonderful place to work. Smith is a historically women’s college, and it has been such a joy to help the next generation of women mathematicians and statisticians grow and learn. Office hours are often buzzing; there’s a wonderful sense of community here that thrives in our mathematics lounge. We have amazing students, inspiring colleagues, and supportive administrators.

We also work together in the same department – the dream! 😉

What are the most valuable skills you learned as a Ball State student in the College of Sciences and Humanities? How have they helped you post-graduation?

Reflecting back on our time at Ball State, the biggest skill we probably developed during the program was how to effectively work on long-term projects that span months or years. Before attending Ball State, all of the work we had completed was standard undergraduate assignments: homework sets that would be turned in once a week, with the occasional paper or project that might last a few weeks or a month at most. Working on a Master’s Thesis, we both learned a lot about how to manage our time for a project that lasted the entire academic year. Things like setting weekly goals, finding ways to keep accountable, and organizing my progress regularly are all things we first developed at Ball State. We both used these skills throughout our Ph.D.s while working on my dissertation, and continue to use them now to stay organized on our current research projects.

Is there a particular class, professor, or professional opportunity that had a particularly significant impact on you?

JACOB: So many come to mind, but I will try to limit myself to just a few! First, Rich Stankewitz was both a wonderful professor and mentor while I was at Ball State. His course in real analysis was particularly helpful: I learned so much about writing mathematical proofs from this course. In the first draft of my dissertation, my adviser wrote that “the quality of the writing is very good,” and I attribute a lot of this praise to Dr. Stankewitz’s class. I also spent a lot of time trading math riddles with Dr. Stankewitz and talking about just how cool math is! To Dr. Stankewitz: Your classes and support have made a big impact on both my perspective and enjoyment of math. Thank you so much!

Second, my experience as an instructor for Quantitative Reasoning was very influential towards finding my own voice as a math teacher! I learned a lot of very practical skills about course management and lesson planning, but more importantly, the classroom feedback I received from other teachers changed my perspective about teaching math, and there are methods that I view as core to my pedagogy that I first developed teaching this class.

Last, but certainly not least, would be the impact of my thesis advisor, Dr. Hanspeter Fischer. In addition to helping me develop the skills I mentioned above while working on the thesis, Dr. Fischer also helped me publish my first academic paper, guided me through the process of attending my first academic conference, and was both generous with his time and very patient. I often reflect on his Point Set Topology course as the moment I truly felt like I could thrive as a mathematician. Thank you again for all you’ve done for me.

REBECCA: I really appreciate all my professors and the classes I took. I kept all my notes, and I’ve gone back to look up at least one thing from every class. However, if I could highlight just one person, it would be Dr. Pierce. She was my thesis advisor and mentor. She was encouraging, supportive, and I always wanted to impress her because of how much she inspired me! I definitely wouldn’t be where I am without her. She taught me about professionalism, how to work on research projects, and what being a mentor means.

What advice do you have for current or future students in your major or who might hope to follow your career path?

As you start thinking about your careers, you should aim to meet as many people as you possibly can. You never know who you are going to meet, when you will see them again, or what connections you will make that you can draw on later! Mathematics and statistics are both collaborative fields, and the more social you are, the better!

In regard to BSU, it is a unique program where you truly get out what you put in – the professors want students to succeed, whatever that means for you! Be selfish with your time there and vocal about your goals. Ask for advice, but own your choices. It’s also great to have goals, but try not to become so narrowly focused that you miss other opportunities that might be an even better fit.

Thank you for your time and impact! Chirp, Chirp!