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Course: BSc Mathematical Sciences 

Supervisor: Dr David O’Sullivan and Dr Pádraig MacCarron. 

Name of Research Project/Activity: Comparison of Mythologies from Mathematical and Statistical Perspectives. 

Q) Can you tell me a bit about yourself, and why you decided to study Mathematical Sciences ��ɫ��Ƶ? 

My name is Cillian, and I just completed my first year of Mathematical Sciences ��ɫ��Ƶ. I grew up in Limerick and for secondary school I attended Ardscoil Ris. I became interested in Maths in 6^th year at school, thinking about it as an option for university primarily due to excellent teachers who were very supportive. Up to that point my interests were in literature and history. I have always had a fascination with mythology since I was very young, particularly Greek and Irish mythology. When I looked into the kind of research being undertaken ��ɫ��Ƶ, I saw that researchers in the maths and stats department were doing interdisciplinary research in a variety of fields including mythology. I didn’t think that maths could be applied in such a way and I therefore I made my decision to study maths ��ɫ��Ƶ. 

Q) What motivated you to apply for the Summer Bursary Programme? 

I knew from researching for the CAO that mathematicians and statisticians ��ɫ��Ƶ were doing very interesting research, but I had very little idea what doing research in maths and stats was like. I thought that there was no way to find out other than through first-hand experience, so I applied to the Summer Bursary Programme. 

Q) What are you doing as part of your research here ��ɫ��Ƶ? 

My project involves studying the social networks of different mythologies from around the world. A social network describes the relationships between individuals, so if two people interact then they are connected in the network. In this case of this project, we are studying the relationships of the characters that appear in mythologies. The aim of the project is to see how similar the mythologies of different cultures are. Some of the mythologies that I am studying include Norse, Greek, Filipino and Māori. Since the project involves working on large amounts of text, we are also using statistical techniques and machine learning to extract useful data from the text. 

Q) What skills have you developed over the summer? 

Over the summer I learned a lot of new skills in Python, a programming language that I did not have any experience in before. I’ve used Python to create the networks that I am analysing by parsing through text to identify the connections between characters. I also used Python for the painstaking task of data cleaning. One of the most interesting skills I developed this summer is how to use statistical models for classification (i.e. logistic regression) and how to test and train these models. 

Q) What has this experience taught you and what would you recommend it to others? 

This experience has taught me about the reality of research in Maths and stats. It’s not just writing out equations all day. Most of it involves writing code to clean data and perform analyses. Due to the nature of my project, I also have gained a better understanding of different mythologies which while not related to maths was something I find interesting. I feel very fortunate that I was able to do research in an area that I am passionate about. 

I would strongly recommend doing the summer research bursary to anyone that is interested and passionate about their studies or anyone who is considering a career in research, there is really no substitute for first-hand experience when it comes to research. 

Q) What are your future career plans, would you consider a career in research? 

After this summer I am strongly considering a career in maths and stats research. I think that research would allow me to work in interdisciplinary fields on interesting problems. Also I enjoy the kind of abstract problem solving that research requires you to do. 

Follow this link to find out more about the BSc in Mathematical Sciences.