{"id":124830,"date":"2020-08-11T09:56:01","date_gmt":"2020-08-11T19:56:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=124830"},"modified":"2020-08-11T09:56:16","modified_gmt":"2020-08-11T19:56:16","slug":"yong-multiplies-math-successes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/08\/11\/yong-multiplies-math-successes\/","title":{"rendered":"First Native Hawaiian to earn applied math <abbr title=\"Doctor of Philosophy\">PhD<\/abbr> multiplies successes"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><div class=\"responsive-video-wrap-post\"><figure class=\"wp-block-embed wp-block-embed-youtube is-type-video is-provider-youtube epyt-figure\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\"><iframe  id=\"_ytid_44472\"  width=\"676\" height=\"676\"  data-origwidth=\"676\" data-origheight=\"676\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-Jo-pKUZ_Fk?enablejsapi=1&origin=https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu&rel=0&autoplay=0&cc_load_policy=0&cc_lang_pref=&iv_load_policy=1&loop=0&fs=1&playsinline=0&autohide=2&theme=dark&color=red&controls=1&disablekb=0&\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__  no-lazyload\" title=\"First Native Hawaiian to earn applied math PhD multiplies successes\"  allow=\"fullscreen; accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen data-no-lazy=\"1\" data-skipgform_ajax_framebjll=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><\/figure><\/div>\n<p>Math never tasted so good. In winter 2020, <a href=\"https:\/\/westoahu.hawaii.edu\/\">University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>&#8211;West <span aria-label=\"Oahu\">O&#699;ahu<\/span><\/a> students learned the Pythagorean theorem using multicolored Starburst candy squares to visually represent a&#178; &#43; b&#178; &#61; c&#178; and got a sweet reward for their efforts.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s one of the myriad of ways in which Associate Professor <strong>Kamuela Yong<\/strong> makes math relevant.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Math is all around us,&rdquo; Yong said. &ldquo;Applied math really helps to explain how things work everyday&#8212;everything from business decisions to even architect decisions.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_118514\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-118514\" style=\"width: 214px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/system-bor-teaching-yong-214x300.jpg\" alt=\"Kamuela Yong\" width=\"214\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-118514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/system-bor-teaching-yong-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/system-bor-teaching-yong-93x130.jpg 93w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/system-bor-teaching-yong.jpg 250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-118514\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kamuela Yong<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Yong has earned a number of distinctions since he joined the university in 2015, including being named a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/05\/18\/bor-excellence-in-teaching-2020\/\">2020 Board of Regents\u2019 Medal for Excellence in Teaching<\/a> recipient. This, after achieving international recognition in 2012, as the <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/stem-and-culture-chronicle\/in-over-your-head-b9c37f8b7543\">first Native Hawaiian to earn a <abbr title=\"Doctor of Philosophy\">PhD<\/abbr> in applied mathematics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He said math can help Hawaiians sustain themselves through food and agriculture. &ldquo;Things that we do culturally, you can do math models towards what happens in the <span aria-label=\"loi\">lo&#699;i<\/span>, and you can do things towards harvesting of fish.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Math can even help to explain a pandemic. After COVID-19 hit, Yong presented the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=nyfhWvLlREo&#038;feature=youtu.be\">mathematics of a pandemic<\/a> to the campus online, explaining everything from how to calculate infection rates to how to calculate effective vaccination rates. By that time, he had already created more than 200 online math videos representing more than 48 hours of instructional content.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.uhfoundation.org\/give\/giving-opportunity\/covid-19\">Support the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Student Relief fund and COVID-19 research<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>The next generation<\/h2>\n<p>Yong has inspired students such as <strong>Victoria Penalver<\/strong>, now an applied mathematics major. Penalver said, &ldquo;[Math is] not just some big abstract waste of time, but it\u2019s actually able to show us and explain to us some of the things that we see happening in real time and even to predict things that could happen.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_124880\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-124880\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/west-oahu-yong-math-students-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"Christa Gogue and Justin Delos Reyes\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-124880\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/west-oahu-yong-math-students-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/west-oahu-yong-math-students-130x73.jpg 130w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/west-oahu-yong-math-students.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-124880\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christa Gogue and Justin Delos Reyes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Student <strong>Justin Delos Reyes<\/strong> said applied math helped with a winter break project involving a fishpond on <span aria-label=\"Kauai\">Kaua&#699;i<\/span>. Math helped him to calculate when a certain amount of tilapia would die out, when there would be high tides and the implications for the fishpond. &ldquo;It\u2019s pretty amazing to know that applied math does that,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Christa Gogue<\/strong>, who is from Guam, said Yong connected her with a Chamorro colleague to discuss what it means to be a Chamorro mathematician. &ldquo;Applied math has helped me to think more critically when approaching problems. It might not only be done in one way, but in several different ways,&rdquo; Gogue said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Success for me first of all is I want students to not be afraid of math,&rdquo; Yong said. Based on this formula, his thriving students are achieving exponential growth.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8212;By Kelli Trifonovitch<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kamuela Yong\u2019s students learn that math explains how things work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,12],"tags":[1411,1416,598,33,554,59,56],"class_list":["post-124830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","category-video","tag-covid-19","tag-covid-19-uh-helps","tag-faculty-recognition","tag-hawaiian","tag-mathematics","tag-uh-west-oahu","tag-video-2","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124830"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124916,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124830\/revisions\/124916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}