This is the "Life" part of my interview with Dr. Wanda Strychalski, an applied math professor at Case Western Reserve University specializing in computational cell biology and simulating partial differential equations. Dr. Strychalski encountered programming early in her high school career. Going into college she was concerned with having clear career path where she could support herself, and she focused on programming and computer science. As she progressed she found herself enjoying mathematics more and the non-simulation side of programming less. She made the jump to applied math focusing on PDE modeling. She decided to pursue a PhD, but was not sure if she would finish. She found a good culture at UNC Chapel Hill and pushed through the program finding a good niche in computational biology. Eventually she went out to California ( UC Davis) for a post-doc before landing a job as a professor at CWRU.

Dr. Strychalski's perspective of trying things out, seeing how they go, and not being overly anxious going into new situations was enjoyable and refreshing. Enjoy the interview!