ESP Biography



ALYSSA LYN FORTIER, Stanford graduate student fusing math and biology



Major: Biology

College/Employer: Stanford

Year of Graduation: G

Picture of Alyssa Lyn Fortier

Brief Biographical Sketch:

I graduated in 2018 from the University of Arizona with double majors in Mathematics and Molecular & Cellular Biology, with minors in Computer Science and Biochemistry! As president of my university's math club, I LOVED developing hands-on activities for my club members and for our outreach events, and I'm excited to share my passion for math with you! I'm now a first-year graduate student here at Stanford in Evolutionary Biology, where I am researching population genetics theory! Outside of grad school, I enjoy hanging out with cats, taking medium-length walks on the beach, going to Taco Bell, and binging Netflix!



Past Classes

  (Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

W7571: Math Games for when you're Bored in Class in Splash Fall 2019 (Nov. 16 - 17, 2019)
Do you ever get bored in class, meetings, or long car rides, and resort to playing games like tic-tac-toe or hangman? Then it's time to spice up your game repertoire with these fun and easy math games! In this class, you'll learn to play several simple games, challenge each other, and perhaps even work out the winning strategies!


M6753: Getting a Grasp on Graphs! in Splash Fall 2018 (Dec. 01 - 02, 2018)
And I'm not talking about the boring old coordinate plane - instead, let's explore the mathematical field of graph theory! Graph theory is used to describe pairwise relationships between objects, and it has applications in biology, computer science, social science, linguistics, and more! In this class, you'll learn about the historical foundations of graph theory as well as current applications, but most importantly, you'll get a feel for the intuition through hands-on activities and competitions!