Sarah Gourlie

From Wethersfield, CT (suburb of Hartford)
Major: Math with minor in music

Sarah Gourlie combines her interests in both math and music as she works toward her career goal in acoustical engineering at American University. "I love both music and math and I wanted to find a way to enjoy both in my career," said Gourlie. As an acoustical engineer, Goulie would help theaters and conference centers to design sound systems and architectural structures to produce the desired acoustical landscape.

Gourlie brings her unique expertise to her position on the student advisory board for Math Horizons, a student-focused magazine published by the Mathematical Association of America. She is an officer of the Math/Stat club, plays the clarinet for the university orchestra, sings in the chorus and last year hosted her own weekly radio program on classical music. "I prefer the post-romantic period in classical music, especially Beethoven and Chopin." Like many successful students at AU, Gourlie plans to take advantage of research and internship opportunities as a means of approaching her dream job. During Summer 2004, she received a $3,000 departmental research award to study summation graphs of complex power series. In the future, she hopes to intern with an area architect. During fall 2004 she is spending a semester in Denmark. Read about her activities and experiences in her on-line journal.