PhD grad uses applied mathematics for impactful research
Samantha Brozak presents her research at Joint Annual Meeting of the Korean Society for Mathematical Biology and the Society for Mathematical Biology at Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea in summer 2024. Photo courtesy Samantha Brozak
Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of profiles of notable spring 2025 graduates.
When Samantha Brozak started her undergraduate journey at Arizona State University, she wasn’t planning on eventually getting a PhD.
She started out majoring in computer science but after only three months, she changed her major to mathematics. Her "plan A" was to become a math teacher.
After earning her bachelor’s degree in mathematics and her certificate in secondary education, she felt lucky to teach math at a junior high school in Gilbert. And although she found teaching to be fulfilling and fun, she missed doing mathematics research.
That inspired her to apply to graduate school.
Now, five years later, she is graduating with a PhD in applied mathematics and being honored with the Graduate Student Research Award from the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences in recognition of her outstanding and creative research achievements.
She has also earned the Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Award twice, was honored with the Harry Swift Scholarship and Carrie Falbe Fellowship, and was crowned Miss Cambodia Arizona in 2023.
Brozak has led and worked in multiple research teams resulting in four first-author publications and five co-authored publications in subject flagship journals, including SIAM Journal of Applied Mathematics, Journal of Mathematical Biology, Science of the Total Environment and Infectious Disease Modelling. Her work has been cited over 120 times.
Her research includes developing models for integrating wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 monitoring and forecasting with additional flexibility for including multiple variants and studying drivers of chaos in flour beetle experiments.
“Samantha is gifted in resolving new challenges associated with her research projects. These can be mathematical, biological and computational,” said Professor Yang Kuang, Brozak’s PhD advisor. “She is relentless in her pursuit of excellence and a dream team member of any collaborative research project.”
“The people I have worked with, particularly Dr. Kuang, have changed my life and made me the scientist that I am today. I’ve reflected on what I want out of my career and my life; the only thing I can confidently say is I want to continue doing impactful work, no matter the scale,” Brozak said.
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Samantha Brozak presents COVID-19 wastewater research at Arizona Women's Symposium in Mathamatics at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in 2022.
Photo by Rhonda Olson
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Graduate students and postdocs pose for a group photo after their research lightning talks at the 2024 Celebration of Women in Math Day hosted by ASU's School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences. Pictured (left to right) Samantha Brozak, Kasturi Barkataki, Hanh Vo, Jade Buzinski, Lily Gabric.
Photo by Rhonda Olson
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Graduate students letting off some steam during the first Dodgeball Tournament hosted by the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences student clubs in April 2023 at the Sun Devil Fitness Complex.
Photo courtesy Samantha Brozak
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Samantha Brozak celebrates after commencement with her fiancé, Demetrios Papakostas, who earned his PhD in statistics from the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences in 2023.
Photo by Rhonda Olson
After graduation, Brozak will join Sandia National Labs in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as a computer scientist.
Question: What is something you learned while at ASU that surprised you or changed your perspective?
Answer: Don’t reinvent the wheel and keep it simple! You’d be surprised what you can learn from the simplest possible model for something and then building upon it.
Q: What was your favorite School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences course to teach, and why?
A: I loved teaching the introductory statistics course STP 231. There are so many cool ways to teach statistical methods and different applications that can be tied in, and my students were the best.
Q: What was your favorite math graduate course that you took in SoMSS, and why?
A: I loved Dr. Rob McCulloch’s machine learning course. It was a practical, fresh take on machine learning and he let us try to predict the winner of the reality TV show "The Bachelor" for our final project.
Q: Which professor taught you the most important lesson while at ASU?
A: I took a woodworking class with Damon McIntyre last fall. His class taught me patience and how to roll with the punches when something doesn’t go quite right — or goes horribly wrong. It was challenging but also meditative, and I think it made me grow a lot as a person and as a mathematician. The type of math I do for work can feel abstract and hand-wavey and so having something tangible to hold and say “I made this” was so satisfying. Damon was an incredible teacher and I learned a lot from his way of seeing things.
Q: What do you like most about applied mathematics?
A: I love being able to work with data to gain insights into different biological systems, and I love the challenges that come with real-world data and applications.
Q: What is the best piece of advice you would give to those still in school?
A: You have so much time. You don’t need to know what you want to do right away, and you can change your mind and explore new paths too!
Q: What do you like to do in your spare time for fun?
A: I enjoy reading, watching dramas and trying new recipes.
Q: What are some of your favorite memories of your time in the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences?
A: Our first ever dodgeball tournament was incredible. Everyone got so into it — some even made t-shirts for their teams! It just felt like an awesome coming together of the community.
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