Outstanding Students win Somerville Math Fund Scholarships

By Erica Dakin Voolich

The Somerville Mathematics Fund is pleased to announce the winners of their renewable mathematics scholarships for 2024.  The Math Fund was founded to celebrate and encourage math achievement and these students deserve to be celebrated for their work in math and science while in high school. Thanks to the generosity of many individuals and a few organizations, this year we were able to award a record 13 scholarships, totaling $78,000 over four years.

We definitely want to celebrate our scholarship winners for their achievements while meeting the challenges of going to high school. CONGRATULATIONS.  Here is the link to the awards ceremony, the Somerville Math Fund is the first charity to present at about 4 minutes.  https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox?projector=1  

The winners are attending a variety of schools next fall.  Julian Barnaby will attend NYU, Liam Beretsky-Jewell, and Serena Hunter Black will attend U Mass Amherst; Kai Deshima and Mashruf Mahin, Harvard U; Elle Gys, Northeastern U; Aneurin Hullah, McGill U; Gerran Hullah, Rochester Institute of Technology; Alice Hunter, a gap year; Bhavroop Kaur, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; Rafael Ronen, U Mass Lowell; Kaylie Wen, U Southern California; and Serena Wong, Boston U.

In Front: Mashruf Mahin, Elle Gys, Serena Hunter Black, Kaylie Wen, Alice Hunter,  Bhavroop Kaur,  Serena Wong,  Erica Voolich Somerville Math Fund.  In Back:  Liam Beretsky-Jewell, Julian Barnaby,  Aneurin Hullah, Gerran Hullah, Kai Deshima, Rafael Ronen.

A bit of explanation about the scholarship names.  Some scholarships are supported by many donations, some large, some small — but together there is $6000 for each student.  For those students who participated in Scrapheap Showdown this year, we had some of our sponsors who each sponsored one year of a scholarship.  We have some named annual scholarships, two memorial scholarships are for founders of the Somerville Math Fund.  Two of our named scholarships are given by one of our first scholarship winners back in 2001 in the name of his favorite famous mathematician.  One is given in memory of a mother who distinguished herself in WW2 as a nurse and whose grandmother saved for her children’s education.

Their annual scholarships of $1500 are renewable for up to a total of four years as long as they maintain a B average and take mathematics or courses which use mathematics.  

The five memorial scholarships this year are for  Dr. Alice T  Schafer, Lt. Catherine M. Landers, S. Ramanujan, and Michael Voolich.  

One of the scholarships was given in the memory of an outstanding woman mathematician, Dr. Alice T Schafer. Serena Hunter Black was awarded the Alice T. Schafer Memorial Scholarship. 

Serena wrote of the her curiosity and problem solving skills she developed in math and physics classes gave her insights to move from using “common sense” to insights and comprehension.  She spent time in  a local biomedical research lab and saw how the how conditions were an important part of factors and variables that were present in scientific experimentation.

Dr. Schafer (1915 - 2009) was orphaned as an infant and raised by two aunts.  When she went to college at the University of Richmond of Virginia, women students weren’t allowed in the library and she was discouraged from majoring in mathematics.  She won prizes, earned a PhD, taught at colleges (including Wellesley) and among the things she is known for is helping start the Association for Women in Mathematics (1971).  

Less known about Dr. Schafer was her role helping to start the Somerville Mathematics Fund in 2000 -- attending all of the planning meetings and contributing to their work as long as she was able.  She is remembered for her passion and work to insure mathematical opportunities for women.

Since Dr. Schafer was committed to the education and supporting women in mathematics, Serena’a major Biomedical Engineering at U Mass Amherst is a wonderful way to honor Dr. Alice Schafer's memory of encouraging women in the math and sciences. 

The Lt. Catherine M. Landers Memorial Scholarship was awarded to Bhavroop Kaur.  

Bhavroop talks of her math helping her to develop critical thinking skills she used not only in her classes but on the Somerville High School robotics team

When Lt. Landers (1920 - 2012) wanted to go to nursing school (graduating in 1942), her grandmother opened a cedar chest were she had been saving one dollar bills one at a time to help pay for her granddaughter’s education.  Lt Landers won a Bronze Star for her service during WW2, where she ran a field hospital outside Paris; she was about to be shipped to the far East when WW2 ended and so she boarded a transport ship for the USA instead.   Jay Landers and Jasper Lawson donated a scholarship in her memory, honoring her commitment to education.  Bhavroop’s interest in studying Robotics Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute is a wonderful way to honor Lt. Landers' commitment to education.

Our two scholarships in the memory of S. Ramanujan, are a gift from the Jha Family and were awarded to Kaylie Wen who is planning on attending U Southern California and Alice Hunter is planning on taking a gap year before college.  

Both Alice and Kaylie were members of the Math Club.

Alice participated for two years in the architecture mentorship program at the Boston Architectural College and had an internship in the Tufts office of Campus planning. She is interested in focusing on sustainability and accessibility in the engineering aspects of architecture.

Kaylie had two internship experiences at McLean Hospital  and Northeastern University where she developed an appreciation  how neuroscience can connect real life experiences  to help with cognitions and mental well-being.  She sees math as a way to analyze and interpret data to  make informed decisions.   Kaylie is interested in studying neuroscience.

Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887 - 1920) was a mostly self-taught brilliant Indian mathematician who sadly died young.  He discovered his love of mathematics while in high school when he found a book that listed 4000 mathematical theorems without information on they were discovered or developed. So he continued his math work, often on a slate, only recording his concluding theorem on paper when finished, without the details of how he came to the conclusion.  With his humble beginnings and no formal mathematical training, the story of his life and how he finally connected with the well-known mathematicians of his day is detailed the book and movie, The Man Who Knew Infinity. That book inspired the Jha family who gave these scholarships in his honor. Ramanujan’s notebooks and papers have included both previously discovered and new mathematical theorems many in number theory.  These notebooks have continued to provide mathematicians with material to study and try to figure out how Ramanujan discovered these theorems and to see if they were provable.  S. Ramanujan was self taught before he finally connected with the mathematicians in England and worked at the University of Cambridge with the leading mathematicians of  the day.  

The sponsor of this scholarship was inspired by S. Ramanujan as a high school student more than twenty-five years ago. Alice’s applying math to making architecture sustainable and accessible, and Kaylie’s applying math to understanding neuroscience is a way to honor S. Ramanujan’s memory. 

The Michael Voolich Memorial Scholarship was awarded to Elle Gys who is interested in majoring in Mechanical Engineering a Northeastern U.

Michael Voolich (1943 - 2019) was a person who was interested in how everything worked, if Renaissance man was a job offering, Michael would have applied. He learned by asking questions and then he loved telling everyone what he had learned and how seemingly disparate things were related.  He had a career than included teaching many different subjects in local schools, none of which was math but included things as diverse as industrial arts and American History. But, he married a math teacher.  So, when the Somerville Math Fund was being discussed and organized in his living room, of course he joined the founding board.  

He liked to do things for people and of course for the math fund.  His telephone calls and trips to Table Talk Pie Company each year for city-wide Pi Night celebration were a highlight each year. He especially loved helping find things for others to donate for the Scrapheap Showdown each year and his marvelous multiple clamps will still be a necessary part of future Scrapheap challenges to come.  

Michael loved to be able to give and help others in the local community along with his extended family here and abroad. This scholarship was funded by the people who donated in his memory to the Somerville Math Fund.  

Elle was a member of the Math Club, took AP classes along with taking Architecture and Engineering classes where she designed and built projects that used hands-on 3D modeling that mirrored what mechanical engineers did in the real world. 

As a former winning Industrial Arts Teacher, now called Career and Technical Education (CTE), Micheal would have loved knowing that Elle Gys, his scholarship winner, won a prize on the State level in Drafting.

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For years, we have held a high school engineering challenge in October that is both a hands-on problem solving event for the participants but also a fundraiser for scholarships.  https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2024/10/scrapheap-showdown-catch-my-drift.html  

The Scrapheap Showdown last October had four gold sponsors who each sponsored one year of a Somerville Math Fund Scholarship.  The other three years of these scholarships were made possible by many generous donors contributing to the Somerville Math Fund.  

Four of the donors who each paid for one year of four different student scholarship were East Somerville Community Bank, Jasper Lawson PhD & Associates, Julie Schneider, and Tufts U.  The Somerville Math Fund Scholarship, generously sponsored by four sponsors of Scrapheap Showdown were awarded to Julian Barnaby, Kai Deshima, Rafael Ronen, and Serena Wong.

For a number of years, East Cambridge Savings Bank  has sponsored events for the Somerville Math Fund.  This year they are sponsoring the first year of a scholarship awarded to Julian Barnaby who is planning on majoring in Mathematics at NYU.  Julian  was involved in the Calculus Project, the Math Club, was a Teaching Intern in an AP Statistics class and used a dual enrolled in the art of problem solving.  Julian is interested in how math can applied to what seems like unrelated challenges such as traffic.

For a number of years the Jasper Lawson PhD Associates have been a generous sponsor of events for the Somerville Math Fund.  This year they are sponsoring the first year of  a scholarship awarded to Rafael Ronen.

Growing up, Rafael loved to build things.  He was on the Robotics team, won a State award for Architectural Drafting along with winning Scrapheap Showdown.  For years he has enjoyed building and creating and found that the Somerville High School’s CTE program furthered his CAD, design knowledge and improved his prototyping skills and will serve him well in his major in Mechanical Engineering at U Mass Lowell.

For a number of years Julie Schneider has sponsored the first year of a scholarship. This year it was awarded to Serena Wong.

Serena was involved with the Math Club and Robotics Team. She worked as a Fablab Assistant, and on the Sound Crew for Somerville H S events.  She loves the creative problem solving and analysis involved both in computer science and also in the technical design of theater productions. Serena plans on majoring in Data Science at Boston U.

For a number of years Tufts University has sponsored the first year of a scholarship.  This year it was awarded to Kai Deshima.

While in high school, Kai developed an interest in politics leading up to the 2020 US Presidential Election and how it was different from the Japanese Parliamentary system.  Kai  is interested in using mathematical analysis to examine such questions as voter turn out. He spent a summer using English and Japanese resources at Harvard U and Doshisha U in Kyoto,  to research and write a 5000 word independent research paper.  He would like to study Political Science using a mathematical approach  to understand how to help under represented groups in elections.  Kai is planning on attending Harvard U.

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The Somerville Mathematics Fund receives donations from many people — many small, medium and larger donations that together make a difference.  If you sent $5, $50, $500 or $5000, for example, you contributed to fund even more scholarships to be awarded.  When we have a total of $6,000 donated, we can give another scholarship.  And last in our list, but definitely not least in any way, are four more scholarships that were made up of gifts many donors.  If you donated, thank you.  Pat yourself on the back.

From the generosity of many comes each of these four whole scholarships which were awarded to Liam Beretsky-Jewell, Aneurin Hullah,  Gerran Hullah, and Mashruf Mahin.

A Somerville Mathematics Fund Scholarship was awarded to Liam Beretsky-Jewell who is planning on majoring in Civil Engineering at U Mass Amherst.

Liam was in the Math club, and participated in Scrapheap Showdown.  He studied and film-documented the willful neglect on the past, present and future of the abandoned Fernald Development Center. He attended the meetings, and did outreach studies on the redesign of the MBTA Bus network. He is interested in how math can model in the real world and design things.  He talked about how the infrastructure allows society to function.  He is interested in public transportation systems and how to make them reliable, useful and efficient. He sees Civil Engineering as his way to help fight for infrastructure and policy tailored to the needs and enjoyment of people and the environment. 

A Somerville Mathematics Fund Scholarship was awarded to Aneurin Hullah  who is planning on majoring in Computer Engineering at McGill University.  

Aneurin was on the Robotics Team and liked mentoring middle schoolers in the FIRST LEGO League.  This was in addition to attaining Eagle Scout and taking Multivariable Calculus at the Harvard Extension.  He loves logic critical thinking used in problem solving, and he loves applying calculus  to real world problems like robotics, electronics and physics.  

A Somerville Mathematics Fund Scholarship was awarded to Gerran Hullah who is planning on majoring in Mechanical Engineering at  Rochester Institute of Technology.

Gerran was on the Robotics Team and helped introduce middle schoolers to robotics.  In addition he rode in the Pan-Mass Challenge.  He sees engineering as giving him a new perspective on how things are made and as a way to contribute to the world   He sees math as critical to the engineer for complex tasks.

A Somerville Mathematics Fund Scholarship was awarded to  Mashruf Mahin who is planning on majoring in Mechanical Engineering at Harvard U.

Mashruf became interested in how things were made first with the Bayblade toy and then running spikes as a member of the track team.  In his CTE classes, he developed technical skills in design, precision and modeling. He hopes to use physics and calculus to advance carbon fiber plating and air-zoom-units to emphasize sustainability and efficiency in creating an enduring environment saving in the elite footwear of the future.

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To watch the awards night at Somerville High School this year, go to  https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox?projector=1

To watch each of these students get their awards, go to about 4 minutes.

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The Somerville Mathematics Fund was chartered in 2000 to celebrate and encourage achievement in mathematics in the city of Somerville, Massachusetts. It May 2011, it was recognized as the outstanding Dollars for Scholars Chapter in New England.  Since its founding in 2000, it has awarded $787,000 in four-year mathematics scholarships to one hundred fifty-six outstanding Somerville students.  

If you would like to make a contribution, you can do so on PayPal, mail a check to 244 Summer St Somerville MA 02143, or go to www.somervillemathematicsfund.org.   Also, this post is part of our blog.  Feel free to check out other articles on the blog to see what we've done over the year.

The link to this post is https://somervillemathematics.blogspot.com/2025/06/outstanding-students-win-somerville.html