Born in Manizales, Colombia, Carlos remembers learning to add and multiply with his mom and dad at six
years old. His mother would practice multiplication out loud with him while doing the laundry. His dad
would practice one-digit multiplication with him in a notebook.
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Carlos attended college at Universidad Nacional de Colombia in his hometown, intending to study
mathematics. At the time, he thought doing mathematics would mean being a high school teacher and
that math consisted only of algebra and calculus. He decided to study mathematics because he enjoyed
his high school geometry, trig, algebra, and calculus classes. He would understand the computations
quickly, finish homework in class, and leave nothing to take home.
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After completing college and a master's in applied math, he got accepted into the International Centre for
Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy for a year of graduate courses. This time was exceptional for
him. He had great mentors who taught him a lot of mathematics and showed a lot of empathy when he
was struggling with living in a foreign country. Also, he learned to do math with friends and share his
passion for math with others.
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Currently, he is finishing his PhD at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, UT. Salt Lake City is a
beautiful city with access to the great outdoors! He has engaged in many wonderful opportunities and
learnt a ton of math. His research focuses on dynamical systems and ergodic theory. He studies the
dynamics of geometric objects called translation surfaces and wants to understand the behavior of a
deformation of these objects called real Rel. Also, he is interested in systems with zero entropy and a
type of dynamical systems called interval exchange transformations.
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He believes that math should be accessible and must be taught with kindness. Teachers should be
supportive of their students and recognize that everyone has particular needs and that everyone can
learn math. These ideas motivated him to organize (with two of his undergraduate friends) ``Pares
Ordenados", a directed reading program for Hispanic students. This program focuses on students in
mathematical programs who attend schools without postgraduate programs. The idea is to pair each
mentee with a graduate student or postdoc mentor and let them collaborate for a semester. As of June
2024, there have been more than 30 mentees from different countries, including Colombia, Costa Rica,
Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. Mentors have diverse backgrounds and are working on their PhDs or
Postdocs in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Korea,
Mexico, USA, etc.

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“Hispanic Heritage Month is a celebration of the art, history, language, and values that represent us.
It is a time to get inspired and to keep everyone around involved as a community.”

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