UIC Graduate Student Seminar
Friday November 16
3:00 pm
636 SEO
Speaker: Martin Tangora
Title: My career as a rocket scientist
Abstract: In 1959-64, as a grad student, I spent four summers
in the space industry. I was fortunate to get a position in a systems
engineering office,
rather than in a mathematics department; it meant a much wider
variety of tasks. What was most valuable to me, besides the
excellent pay, was to work with engineers; this gave me a perspective
on the uses of mathematics (and statistics, and mathematical physics)
that one doesn't get in academia, and a lot of anecdotes about the
engineering mentality that I am still using in my classes.
Apparently what made me most valuable to the company was my knowledge
of a variety of subjects, from statistics to naked-eye astronomy.
In my talk I will regale the audience with details, and try to
give some clues about what it might be like to work in industry.