���챬��

One of the first ���챬�� memories Kaylee Clarke ’26 has was arriving on campus for the first time with her parents and eating chocolate cake in Blanchard Hall.

“My dad and I were so hungry; we absolutely demolished it. It was so good, and I just thought, ‘If [my dad and I] are comfortable already, it’s probably going to be fun,’” she said.

Clarke developed an interest in computer science while helping her parents navigate online tasks. But her decision to pursue a double major in math was prompted by Professor Emeritus of Mathematics Margaret Robinson.

“I had to take some math classes for my major, and I fell in love with it,” she said. “Margaret Robinson brought a whimsy to math that I don’t think anyone [else] can. She made me feel like math doesn't have to be boring.”

Assistant Professor in Computer Science Alyx Burns was instrumental in helping Clarke overcome her fear of attending office hours.

“I was just not having a good time in data structures. I didn’t do that well on the first quiz. Professor Burns reached out to me personally and told me I could come to his office hours,” Clarke said.

“I was terrified. My first year I didn't go to them. I went, and he had a kind demeanor. Him personally reaching out to me showed me he cared and wanted everyone to do as well as they [could].”

Clarke credits the Posse program for bringing her to Mount Holyoke. She hadn’t heard of the College or the Seven Sisters before becoming a Posse Scholar and would not have considered New England schools if not for the program.

“I would say [that] Posse is the backbone of it all. The people I came with gave me [the] ability to not be afraid to give chances to new people and try new things,” she said.

One of the new things she tried was a snowball fight. She had never seen snow before coming to the College, and she called the experience “heartwarming.” Another new experience was joining the rugby team in her first year, where she met most of her friends.

In academics, Robinson urged Clarke to conduct research and wrote her a letter of recommendation for the SIAM-Simons Undergraduate Summer Research Program. Clarke describes the research internship as a “mini Mount Holyoke” and considers it one of her most formative experiences at the College.

During the internship, she and her peers worked for eight weeks under the guidance of Joshua Hiller from Adelphi University to design a model of guidelines the Argentinian government could use to persuade private farmers to sustain their forested land. In addition to its contribution to her Mount Holyoke experience, the internship also changed her future trajectory.

“I never thought about applying to a Ph.D. program. I was enrolled in an accounting master’s, but Dr. Hiller told me that I would become bored and would end up getting my Ph.D [anyway].”

Clarke followed his advice. Briana Chace ’17 and Caedyn Busche ’17 from the Jones Career Development Center (CDC) helped her with her Ph.D. applications.

She was accepted into two Ph.D. programs and thinks she might attend the University of Illinois Chicago because she wants to step out of her comfort zone again instead of going back home to Florida. She plans to study industrial engineering, which uses math and computer science to optimize systems.

“The professor [I will] be working under has a very Mount-Holyoke-esque feel: very woman-centric with lots of minorities, and she has cool projects that I’d be able to see on the streets of Chicago,” she said. “I’d love to work there and see what happens.”