Justin Wisby
I am a mathematician aiming to use my knowledge to help others.
I was born and raised in Michigan, but ended up moving down to Miami with my partner, in pursuit of higher education, in 2019. Since then, a pandemic happened and has locked me inside with my books. Now that the pandemic is easing, I am glad that I no longer have to progress with my studies alone.
I am a graduate student with the department of Mathematics and Statistics at Florida Int. Uni. My long term goal is mathematics research. I am proud of all the hard work that I have put into my studies and very excited about where my studies are leading me.
Outside of my traditional educational experiences, I have spent a lot of my professional and personal time working on computer science and digital fabrication which I honed during my years in Flint while studying Mathematics and Physics at University of Michigan Flint. My coding skills later got me noticed by Illustrative Mathematics, where I worked for nearly three years before I transitioned into graduate student life at FIU.
I am still an avid programmer and if you would like to view my github showcase site, that can be found at github.jwisby.com.
Current Goal
I am working towards my Ph.D in Mathematical Sciences at Florida International University.
In 2020, I was offered a position to study at FIU in their masters program and have since been moved up to the Ph.D program. Most of my courses have focused on analysis and computation, both fields that I hope to use later in life. So far I have been enjoying myself and hope to graduate in Spring of 2025.
Active Projects
Education
Research areas
Discrete Mathematics, Graph Theory, Combinatorics, Number Theory
Graduate Degree
Ph.D Thesis: Pending
Masters Thesis: "On the construction of Graph Operators"
GPA: 3.7
Undergraduate Degree, University of Michigan -- Flint
Bachelor's in Science in Mathematics with a minor in Physics, 2018
Math GPA: 3.45
Capstone Thesis: Drunk Cops and Drunk Robbers: A Markov Chain Analysis
Research
Papers
Walter Carballosa and Justin Wisby, Total k-domination in Cartesian product of complete graphs, Discrete Applied Mathematics, Volume 337, 2023, Pages 25-41, ISSN 0166-218X, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dam.2023.04.008.
Dr. Rajib Ganguly et. al. (Justin Wisby), Spewing Black Holes III: A Theoretical Structure, Meeting of Minds Journal, Volume 18, 2016.
Dr. Rajib Ganguly et. al. (Justin Wisby), Spewing Black Holes: Outflows from the Biggest Black Holes in the Universe, Meeting of Minds Journal, Volume 17, 2015.
Dr. Rajib Ganguly and Justin Wisby, Spewing Black Holes: Disentangling the Geometry of Outflows, Meeting of Minds Journal, Volume 17, 2015.
Presentations, since 2021.
Dangers of Research though k-domination of the Cartesian Product of Complete Graphs, Graduate Student Seminar, Florida International University, April 2023
(Poster) k-domination of the Cartesian Product of Complete Graphs, Scholarly Forum @ FIU, April 2023
k-domination of the Cartesian Product of Complete Graphs, Southeastern International Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory & Computing, March 2023
Application of Domination in Graph Theory, Graduate Student Seminar at Florida International University, November 2022
Total k-domination of the Cartesian Product of Complete Graphs, Joint Mathematics Meeting 2022, Online, April 2022
Closed Formulas for Total 2-domination of the Cartesian Product of Complete Graphs, Southeastern International Conference on Combinatorics, Graph Theory & Computing, March 2022
Computational Approach to Total Domination using Adjacency Matrices in MATLAB, AMS Sectional Meeting, Online, November 2021
Mentoring
REU Mentor 2021-2023
I was a research experience for undergrads mentor at FIU. Our program was sponsored by the NSF (21-23) and the NSA (22). In
Policy of Polities, an examination of civilization success, 2021, with Alejandro Aponte under Dr. Stephen Tennenbaum
Domination of Cartesian product of complete graphs, 2022, with Liam Busch, Grant Silewski and Han Yin under Dr. Walter Carballosa
Domination in Tensor Product of Bipartite Graphs, 2023, with Katherine Jordan and Jamal Wagnac
Bounds on Domination in Tensor Product of Path Graphs, 2023, with Kennedy S. Vallenilla and Manuel Lopez Del Castillo
DRP 2021-2023
I have been a DRP mentor at FIU for 3 semesters. We have read into the following topics in various projects:
Martin Gardner's texts
Numbers behind Numb3rs
AI development in Video Games
Group Projects
Undergraduate Topology using the Moore Method, University of Michigan - Flint, Winter 2016
Undergraduate Number Theory using the Moore Method, University of Michigan - Flint, Fall 2017
Service
Organizations
Students in Graduate Mathematics Association Founder (21-22) and President (22-23,23-24)
Students Union of Mathematics, University of Michigan Flint Student Organization, President (2017-2018)
Society of Physics Students, University of Michigan - Flint Chapter, Secretary (2016) and President (2016-2017)
Programs
Full Stack Developer and Founder of mathbutler.com
AMRPU@FIU REU 2023 - Technical Support, Mentor, Lecturer
AMRPU@FIU REU 2022 - Technical Support, Photographer, Programmer, General Mentor, Lecturer
Directed Reading Program Mentor (21-22, 22-23)
AMRPU@FIU REU 2021 - Emcee, Photographer, Programmer, General Mentor, Lecturer, Technical Support
Tutor (13 - )
Activities
Event Coordinator for the Subtropic Symposium for Upcoming Mathematicians
Math Field Day, Volunteer (2015-2018)
Open House Recruitment Efforts, Math and Physics (2015-2018)
Coding Experiences
Weakly ordered:
Python, Sagemath, Mathematica, MATLAB/Octave, TeX, Tikz/pgf, Linux(debian based), AHK, Git(hub) Markdown, R, C++, HTML/CSS/Javascript
Other Cool Skills
CAD (Autodesk),
Digital Fabrication (3D Printing, CNC, Laser),
Wood Working,
Chess Coach.
Employment
Graduate Assistant @ Florida International University (2020-Present)
I was offered funding as a masters student given my background in education and previous work as an instructor. Since then I have been a teaching assistant for entry level and upper level. I use my background in combinatorics and graph theory to help with the discrete courses.
Graph Theory
Calculus 2
Theory of Algorithms
Discrete Mathematics
Digital Assistant and Mathematical Programmer @ Florida International University (2020-Present)
Given my background with front end, I was supported by the faculty to take the role of digital TA for the department. My background allowed me to skip the training and get administrator status. Since then I was given the lead roll for all edits of the website. Over time, the department has given me more privileges and I am given the lead roll in site redesigns. I use my position to help increase accessibility and availability of department resources while we update our materials for new students.
Curriculum Developer @ Illustrative Mathematics (2019-2020)
From April 2018 to December 2020, I was brought on at Illustrative Mathematics for their High School Curriculum Development team. While I started in visual aid generation, I found myself helping out everywhere I could. I ended up finding myself picking up a role of a content reviewer as well as the sole corrections reviewer after our first release. When Illustrative Mathematics wrapped up their high school curriculum, they set their sights on Middle School and Elementary School, where I was brought over. This transition brought new challenges where I was able to produce the vast majority of the library of images and templates used in the curriculum.
My time at IM was a fantastic experience and I hope the best for the company and the family of all those that made IM so successful.
Visual Aid Developer @ Illustrative Mathematics (2018-2021)
Most of my time at Illustrative Mathematics, I was working on visual aid development. In my near three years with the company I made more than 10,000 visual aids for the curriculum. I also worked on the design and implementation of the visual aids to maximize their effectiveness.
We used TeX code, or more specifically Tikz and PGF, to make almost all of our images and even some of our illustrations. I made custom packages that would more effectively and efficiently generate visual aids with the flexibility to make curriculum wide changes with one edit. This code was hosted on our own site but we used GitHub to help distribute our repositories to help keep the rest of the team updated.
I made visual aids for all levels of primary education with image lead for the elementary projects.
Supplemental Instructor and Tutor @ University of Michigan Flint (2014-2018)
Starting after my first semester of my undergraduate education, I was a Supplemental Instructor and tutor for the University of Michigan - Flint. I was brought in as a SI for Physics but branched out to mathematics early on. I was a SI every semester until I graduated 4 years later, often helping in multiple classes a semester. Some of the courses I assisted are Calculus I, Business Calc, Calculus II, Calculus III, Physics with Calc I and II, Physics without Calc I and II.