I grew up in Greenville, NY, a small town not very far from RPI. Although I attended a small public high school, I had several valuable experiences that helped shape my higher-educational plans. During my senior year of high school, I had the opportunity to attend college classes at RPI through a Johns Hopkins CTY scholarship. For the first time in my educational career, I felt challenged. It was this experience that influenced my decision to turn down full scholarships at other schools and instead attend RPI as an undergraduate the next year. I had no clear career goals in mind, but I had enjoyed my math classes in high school, so I chose to major in mathematics.

When I first arrived at RPI, I felt an overwhelming sense of belonging. The Rensselaer community challenged me to achieve my academic and personal potential. The classes I took pushed me to work harder than I ever had before, but the knowledge and experience I gained is beyond anything I had previously imagined. At RPI, I witnessed an academic community working to meet the demands of the most modern scientific world, and succeeding time and again at meeting those demands. Research was taking place in fields that I previously hadn't even known existed. I wanted to be a part of it.

When I received an invitation to apply to the Accelerated B.S./Ph.D. Program after my first year, it changed the idea of earning a PhD from a vague and distant possibility into a reality. I forced myself to focus my aspirations, and I realized that the Program was precisely the opportunity I needed. It gave me a plan of action — a course through which to achieve my educational goals. I began my research in Applied Mathematics during my second year at RPI. After my third year, I plan to have completed the requirements for a Bachelor's Degree in Applied Mathematics with minors in Economics and Philosophy. I will then begin work on my Ph.D., with the advantage of already having done two years of research.

I am currently working with Professor Joyce McLaughlin and Dr. Dan Renzi on a project dealing with shear stiffness imaging. I use the mathematics program MATLAB to simulate an experiment in which a slow-moving wave composed of two shear waves with slightly different frequencies passes through a two-dimensional area of body tissue with a stiff inclusion. Given the time at which the slow-moving wave arrives at each point in the area of tissue, I attempt to find the most accurate method of recovering the speed of the shear waves at each point. A higher shear wave speed than normal will indicate the presence of stiff material in the tissue, such as a cancerous tumor.

Ashley Thomas recently earned first place honors in the 2008 Undergraduate Research Forum & Awards. To learn more about her project and the award, visit: http://www.rpi.edu/research/magazine/spring08/urf-1.html