2025 Student Essay Contest: Grand Prize Winner

“Threads of Persistence: Weaving Life and Math Together”

by: Vivian Huilin Liu (James E. Taylor High School)

Interviewee: Betul Orcan-Ekmekci (Rice University)

As is the case with nature, mathematics also sets in patterns: some well-seen, others more obscure, buried, waiting to be discovered. Dr. Betul Orcan-Ekmekci perceives mathematics not as rules but as a way of imposing coherence on an uncaring universe. It is this discipline that became a tool for her to understand the world and herself. Her story—from being a girl in Turkey, solving jigsaw puzzles as a child, to becoming a professor at Rice University—speaks to the beauty of persistence and the power of identity within a field that, more often than not, feels especially unwelcoming to women.

Betul’s story starts in a small classroom in Turkey, where doing mathematics problems seemed like threading beads onto a string, with one piece clicking into place after another, forming something beautiful. “Math gave me confidence,” she said. “It was like finding secret pathways in a forest, paths only I could see.” Her aptitude saw her through the national exams, rigorous gateways to the top schools in Turkey. Many students dreaded them as barriers beyond which their dreams might not pass; for Betul, they were bridges leading to something better. She knew what she wanted: to teach, to share the joy of those hidden paths with others.

Her path took her to Boğaziçi University and then to the University of Texas at Austin for her Ph.D. The wider the horizon, the steeper the uphill climb gets, though. “In Turkey, I had always felt like I belonged in math,” she said. But when she walked into those graduate classrooms in Texas, Betul felt the quiet weight of being a grad student. She had great role models and she was thinking that being a mathematician meant working hard all the time. She was trying to mold herself to that image. “I thought the problem was me,” she admitted. “It wasn’t until I stopped trying to fit into that mold that I realized how strong being myself was.”

This was a period of introspection wherein Betul faced her toughest challenge: In the third year of graduate school, she came to know that her husband, Adem, and she were expecting their first child. “I was nervous,” she said. “How could I be a mother with a Ph.D.?” The equations she loved were simple, it seemed, compared to the question she now faced. But her mentor, the legendary mathematician Dr. Luis Caffarelli, reassured her: “You don’t have to choose between being a mother and a mathematician.” Those words were her lifeline on sleepless nights and days stretched long with research. “It was like walking across a narrow bridge,” she said. “I didn’t know if I’d make it to the other side, but I kept going.”

Motherhood changed everything. “When you’re caring for a newborn, the world narrows to the essentials,” she said. “There’s no room for pretense. It taught me to focus, to prioritize, and to see the beauty in small victories.” Balancing the demands of academia and parenting often felt like navigating a storm, but Betul found support in unexpected places. Organizations like the Association for Women in Mathematics became an oasis. “At AWM conferences, I found women who understood,” she said. “We talked about mathematics, but also about diapers and sleepless nights and about the question of whether we were doing everything right. It made me feel less alone.”

Her work at the time echoed the complication of her life. She focused on partial differential equations, the mathematical motors that describe how heat diffuses, hurricanes form, and wildfires propagate. “Nature speaks with equations,” Betul said. “The world may seem chaotic, but underneath, there’s order.” Her doctoral work involved modeling wildfire interfaces in random environments, capturing the unpredictable yet structured nature of these phenomena. “It was humbling,” she said. “The equations reminded me that even in chaos, there is beauty.”

But Betul’s work is about more than equations—it’s about people. As a professor at Rice University, she makes a place at the table for every student, particularly women and underrepresented minorities. “Math has traditionally been a gatekeeper,” she said. “My goal is to turn it into a bridge.” She tells her students to revel in their identity and to treat the very thing that makes them different as a strength rather than a burden. “Don’t compare yourself to others,” she tells them. “Your path is your own, and it’s just as valid as anyone else’s.”

Her commitment to inclusion extends beyond her classroom. Betul mentors young mathematicians and collaborates across disciplines, using her expertise in PDEs to improve MRI technology and understand fluid dynamics. “Math connects everything,” she said. “It’s the thread that ties together different fields, different people, and different ideas.”

On the other hand, Betul views the application of mathematics as endless. “The patterns we observe—from nature, human behaviors, or even art—are all connected,” she said. “Math gives us bridges to find those connections, to bridge the gaps, and to solve problems not yet even imagined.”

When asked what excites her most about the future, she smiled. “It’s the unknown. Math teaches us that every problem has a solution—even when we can’t see it yet. It’s that reminder to keep looking, to ask questions, knowing an answer is out there somewhere.”

The story of Betul is a strong reminder that identity and diversity are not barriers to success but form the bedrock on which it stands. In reaching motherhood through self-doubt to academic triumphs, she was molded into a mathematician who, instead of just looking at numbers, looks to the people behind them. She taught us that math is like life—it’s about bringing order to messiness, building bridges across where there are none, and finding beauty in the patterns that connect us all.

“Math isn’t just about solving equations,” she said. “It’s about finding your place in the world—and helping others find theirs.”