As a child, Anastasia Chavez's life aspirations centered around her love for sports, music, and writing. In fact, she envisioned being an Olympic softball player, concert clarinetist, journalist, and the first woman president. Needless to say, her life looks pretty different. She did attempt a collegiate softball career but instead found a future in mathematics. After obtaining her A.S. from the Santa Rosa Junior College, Chavez earned a B.S. in applied mathematics and M.A. in mathematics from San Francisco State University. She went on to complete her Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. Currently, Chavez is a President's postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Davis and recently was awarded an NSF Postdoctoral research fellowship at UC Davis. During her master's degree, Chavez and her amazing husband welcomed their two incredible children into their lives. She attributes her desire to become a research mathematician and advocate for minority students to her daughters, whom she feels are her greatest teachers.

Anastasia’s research interests are traditionally in algebraic and enumerative combinatorics. Specifically, she likes questions that invite matroid theory, polytopes, and curiosity into the mix. As she embarks on her postdoctoral training, she has begun looking at questions that include aspects of randomness, probability, and computing. Anastasia plans to develop a research program that hinges on exploring computing and optimization through a matroid theory lens.

“To me, the celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month is so important. It allows for the honoring and preservation of Hispanic culture and history, as well as advocating the continued awareness of beauty and strength through diversity.”

-Anastasia Chavez

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