Professor by day, risk assessor on the side: MC’s Dr. Jesse Smith ’08 puts his coding skills to work at ORNL
March 26, 2024
It’s difficult to imagine a time in Dr. Jesse Smith ’08’s life when mathematics was problematic.
Today, Smith’s life is consumed by his work with and continued quest for knowledge about math. As an assistant professor of mathematics at Maryville College, he’s a cherished faculty member among students who seek both his counsel and expertise. He’s the faculty advisor for the MC 3D Printing Club, a novel concept at the time of its introduction in 2019. And every Tuesday during the academic year and throughout the summer, he puts his considerable skills to work at the world-renowned U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he’s part of a team that’s putting together a comprehensive database that plays a critical role in the computation of environmental risk from exposure to chemicals and radionuclides.
But there was a time, he said, when the field flummoxed him.
“Way back in elementary school, long division was really hard for me to figure out,” he said. “I could not understand it, couldn’t understand the process, but then finally with the help of a teaching assistant, it clicked for me. I remember thinking, ‘This is beautiful! You can divide any two numbers and get the answer. There’s a pattern, and it makes perfect sense.
“From that point on, it was pretty straightforward to me. Even when I was an undergraduate taking Abstract Algebra under (Professor Emeritus) Dr. John Nichols, I found that with enough effort and time, I could work through the challenging concepts. Now it’s one of my favorite things. In fact, if I had to write my own version of that song ‘My Favorite Things,’ long division and polynomial division would be in the song.”
A firm liberal arts foundation
He found his other love, computer science, when he got to Maryville College. Before then, computers were exotic machines that connected him to the internet; the course requirement of Intro to Computer Science for all Mathematics majors, however, led him to Dr. Barbara Johnson, assistant professor of computer science, and a new field of study.
“I took it my freshman year, and I absolutely loved it,” he said. “It was hard, like long division, but I adored it. It was part of the idea that Maryville College promotes, where you explore everything to discover the unexpected. I got to build that wide foundation, and the liberal arts served that well. If computer science wasn’t a part of my major, then I wouldn’t have discovered it.”
The experience also helped him understand why the liberal arts approach was so applicable not just in the classroom, but in the world for which it prepares students. By pushing, and in some cases requiring, them to get outside of their comfort zones, the College helps open the door to previously unconsidered paths of knowledge and interest.
“If you don’t try different things like that, you don’t know what you might enjoy or what you might be good at,” he said. “I was pointing out to (MC President Dr. Bryan) Coker the other day, that life’s problems don’t come in buckets, either. When you have a real-life problem, it doesn’t just live inside of algebra or calculus or even math, and you have to have other skills to solve it: reading skills, critical thinking skills, communication skills.”
The core composition courses in the MC Curriculum, for example, weren’t his favorites as an undergraduate, but they “impacted everything I’ve done since,” he said, not just in teaching him how to better effectively write and communicate, but to speak publicly and argue his positions with authority and eloquence. The assistance of faculty members like Assistant Professor of English Scott Steele helped him work through a fear of public speaking; basic ethics courses helped refine his understanding of morality as it applies to both the laboratory and the acceptance of diverse cultures and beliefs. And Dr. Jennifer Bruce, former associate professor of mathematics, and Dr. Jeff Bay, the current chair of the Division of Mathematics and Computer Science, were instrumental in helping him develop his own Senior Study, which was a fundamental part of his undergraduate experience.
The road to ORNL
Those faculty members modeled for him the sort of MC professor he wanted to be, and in addition to those who helped shape his journey, he can rattle off the names of students who sought the same guidance from him. There’s Nico Valez ’18, an abstract math standout whose interest in magic squares — a square array of numbers so that each vertical, horizontal and diagonal row add up to the same value — pushed Smith to expand his own knowledge on the subject and led to a Senior Study publication in the Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal. And then there’s Luke Koch ’20, now a cybersecurity graduate student at the Bredesen Center (the University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute).
And there are all of the members of the MC 3D Printing Club, which grew out of his interest in 3D printing roughly five or six years ago, he said, and led to the development of a shared maker space in the Sutton Science Center, where club members program the printers and create various objects of interest, including those sold during MC’s annual Homecoming events as a club fundraiser. Now, he added, he hopes his new role at ORNL will establish stronger connections between the facility and MC.
“I wanted to get more involved in coding,” he said. “I focused on abstract math in graduate school, and I came back to teach abstract math, but I’ve always wanted to do some programming, and there was this coding itch I wanted to scratch. I looked at a few different options, and I knew Maryville College had experienced good success in sending students to intern with the risk assessment team, so I asked them whether there would be any room for an old-timer.”
The risk assessment team of which he’s a part, he said, is examining the risks that various toxins in soil and water pose to individuals, either those living on potentially contaminated land or workers charged with cleaning up spills and other environmental disasters.
“We look at the contaminants based on what researchers find and how much they find to see if we can figure out what the likelihood of an individual getting cancer might be, and we do that in reverse, too: If we know the minimal risk of a space, we can then back-solve to the contaminants to find out how much is a safe level to have, and that can help set remediation goals,” he said. “We’re essentially taking mathematical models given to us, and connecting to the database we have for risk assessors. It’s a database of the many chemicals and related information, and we pull from it to do the calculations that risk assessors need.
“I started out creating a small calculator for the first program, but I hardcoded it in HTML. My mentors advised me that it should be more dynamic and connect to our database for information. So I learned to do it with PHP and Javascript — and that connects back to my education here at Maryville College, and how we encourage functional and flexible learning.
“I was just working on a current solution to a need, but it became a really cool and seemingly very effective learning platform for the team’s new intern,” he added.
While that particular intern, he added, is from California, he’s begun casting a net for MC alumni in graduate school and Ph.D. programs to collaborate with his team. The quality of a Maryville College education — as he’s living proof — sets students up for success in the STEM fields, and the applications he’s received to date have served to remind him of the far-reaching impact throughout the sciences that MC has had over the years.
“One of the things we’ve talked about in the Division of Mathematics and Computer Science is that there’s a belief that a small liberal arts college isn’t the best place to go to if you want to succeed in the STEM fields, and that’s absolutely false,” he said. “We definitely provide an appropriate platform for those students, especially if they want that small community environment and a smaller class size with greater individual support. This is an amazing place for those things.
“You don’t have to go to a large science school to succeed in STEM. Maryville College is a great place for anybody wanting to succeed in STEM, because we’re good at it, and we produce great STEM alums.”
