About

Hello! I’m Benjamin Clark, a mathematician and software engineer with a deep passion for solving complex problems at the intersection of theory and application

I am currently a Ph.D. candidate in Mathematics at Washington State University (WSU), where my research focuses on nonnegative matrix theory and polynomials of matrices. Before graduate school, I earned dual Bachelor of Science degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Washington Bothell.

My professional experience spans both industry and academia. Currently, I am a teaching assistant for WSU where I teach undergraduate math classes. I’ve also been working as an AI Data Analyst, tackling graduate-level mathematics problems and evaluating AI-generated solutions for accuracy and clarity. Before that, I spent over three years as a Site Reliability Engineer at Google, where I worked on the reliability and efficiency of large-scale distributed systems.

I truly enjoy leveraging my software development skills to explore and visualize mathematical concepts. My personal projects often involve building tools to investigate tough questions, like using Python and differential evolution to numerically solve for matrices on the boundary of the nonnegative inverse eigenvalue problem (NIEP).

Whether I’m optimizing Cuda kernels, presenting research at conferences, or teaching calculus, I am driven by a desire to understand and build complex systems.

This blog is a place for me to infrequently write about interesting math topics (and maybe other things) that I encounter, provide lecture notes, and serve as a digital CV for those that want that.