The U-M STEM Research Career Award supports highly qualified sophomores and juniors who plan to pursue a PhD or MD/PhD and research career in a STEM field. This opportunity is open to students from all nationalities and backgrounds, making it a great opportunity for international students unable to apply for national scholarships due to US citizenship or permanent residency requirements. The 2023 recipient is Dhruv Kulshreshtha! Dhruv is from Bangalore, India and is majoring in both Mathematics and Economics.
As a part of the Mathematics REU, he worked on a projected titled “The Logic of Cardinality Comparison without the Axiom of Choice” under Professor Matthew Harrison-Trainor and went on to present his work at the Joint Mathematics Meetings at Boston, the Undergraduate Mathematics Symposium at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Michigan Logic Seminar.
Dhruv is a member of the Undergraduate Student Advisory Committee, which works to provide a voice to math undergraduates on issues related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and the overall department culture. He also teaches undergraduate, high school, and middle school students various mathematics topics.
He decided to apply for STEM RCA because he believed the award would help him apply to graduate programs in mathematics and act as a means to allow him to continue working in the areas of mathematics he is interested in. When asked about the application process, he noted, “The nomination and application process for the award had many steps, each of which taught me something important. My main takeaway from this essay was how to best present my mathematical work to the experts on the scholarship committee by effectively filtering out some of the technical aspects of our work while also maintaining its fundamental essence. Writing this essay, getting it reviewed by my mentors, and talking to people about this application process also further solidified my plans of pursuing a career in mathematics.”
