About
I am a 2023 Schmidt Science Fellow. I am visiting the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute (SLMath, formerly MSRI) as a postdoctoral fellow for the Fall 2023 program on Algorithms, Fairness, and Equity.
I completed my PhD at the Center for Applied Mathematics at Cornell University, where I was fortunate to work with Samitha Samaranayake. My other committee members were David Shmoys, Bobby Kleinberg, and Pamela Harris.
In Spring 2023, I visited the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM) as a participant for the program Discrete Optimization: Mathematics, Algorithms, and Computation. In Summer 2022, I was a Teaching Assistant for Summer@ICERM 2022: Computational Combinatorics, an REU program hosted by the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM). In Summer 2021, I was a Teaching Assistant for MSRI-UP 2021: Parking Functions: Choose your own adventure, an REU program hosted by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI), and especially designed for students from groups underrepresented in mathematics. In Fall 2020, I "visited" the UCLA Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) as a participant for the program Mathematical Challenges and Opportunities for Autonomous Vehicles, which took place online due to the pandemic. In Summer 2020, I was a Research Science Intern at Amazon, where I worked on a machine assignment problem for order fullfilment. In Summer 2017, I was Bosch Energy Research Network Intern, where I worked on traffic microsimulation.
I received a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and a Minor in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in May 2017. While at Illinois, I was advised by Dan Work (now at Vanderbilt University). My research included traffic esimation in safety-critical environments as well as applied machine-learning for freight-rail systems.
I was born and raised in Guayaquil, Ecuador. In high school, I had the opportunity to complete the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, which motivated me to pursue a career in STEM. I was able to complete my undergraduate education in the United States through a generous scholarship awarded by the Government of Ecuador.
I find the following axioms, which I discovered here, to be inspiring and empowering:
- Axiom 1. Mathematical talent is distributed equally among different groups, irrespective of geographic, demographic, and economic boundaries.
- Axiom 2. Everyone can have joyful, meaningful, and empowering mathematical experiences.
- Axiom 3. Mathematics is a powerful, malleable tool that can be shaped and used differently by various communities to serve their needs.
- Axiom 4. Every student deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
About My Last Name
In formal settings (e.g., legal documents, publications), it is Martínez Mori; two words separated by a space, not a hyphen. In informal settings, it is just Martínez. See this Wikipedia article on naming customs of Hispanic America.