About

I started this blog while an undergraduate at Case Western Reserve University. The combination of pandemic isolation and taking almost entirely math classes led me to seek out a creative outlet, which is why I started this blog. Today, I work in investment banking in Cleveland, Ohio.

I’ve started posting again to the site because I’d like to get back in the practice of doing small side projects and writing them up. I’ve left my old posts from undergrad as they were written; the writing isn’t always perfect, but I didn’t want to back and mess with them. They’re like a time capsule from those years, which I often miss.

In school, I studied Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, and Finance. My major was primarily concerned with mathematical modeling, especially in biological applications. I took most of the core systems biology courses while in school. About midway through, I realized I had no real idea what I wanted to do after undergrad. That led me to the business school, where I developed an interest in finance and picked up the minor. After two summers spent doing research on campus (more on that below), I interned with KeyBanc Capital Markets and ultimately took a full-time position there after graduating.

I enjoy my career and everything it’s afforded me, from the personal development to the professional network with some really wonderful people. It’s taught me a lot of the soft skills that math majors stereotypically don’t have, but more than that, I like to say it’s taught me competency. I suppose a psychologist might call it concientiousness. Being in the work environment, especially at an investment bank, has forced me to become much more organized and tenacious. In undergrad, I often agonized for a week or more about sending an email to someone I didn’t know well. That obviously doesn’t fly at the office. I’ve quickly grown as a professional and as a person in the time since graduating.

In college I used Linux on my personal computer. I built my first PC when I was 13, but forgot to budget for the cost of Windows, which led me to using Ubuntu for a few months. I still enjoy messing around with hardware and software today, though I’m now using a Mac at home - fewer things go wrong with it, and I don’t have the time to do the troubleshooting I used to do in college.

In 2019 and 2020, I conducted research in data science at the Solar Durability and Lifetime Extension Center, where I assisted in writing and packaging several R packages for the analysis of photovoltaic system long-term performance. In the process, I learned a lot about the R programming language and software packaging in general.

Later in undergrad, I did an REU with my advisor in the Math department. The research topic was the effect of asymmetric mitosis on population structures. I also took part in some reading groups with grad students studying mathematical biology, and assisted my advisor in one of his research projects on information transmission in biological systems. The math was very difficult and very interesting to me, though by the end of my schooling I came to recognize that biological applications weren’t totally for me. I was quickly becoming interested in financial mathematics, especially as I began to recognize some parallels between the two disciplines.

I’ve played the french horn for about 10 years, and I’ve been recently learning to play guitar. I’ll listen to nearly anything, but some of my favorite artists include Kendrick Lamar, Radiohead, Kanye, Vulfpeck, Kamasi Washington, and Thundercat.

If anything on this blog piques your interest, feel free to reach out via email: tylerburleyson23@gmail.com

This website is hosted by github pages from my github repo (link in the footer). You can find out more info about customizing your Jekyll theme, as well as basic Jekyll usage documentation at jekyllrb.com

You can find the source code for Jekyll at GitHub: jekyll / jekyll