Georgia State Mathematician Completes Degree in One Year

ATLANTA - Ivanna Poliashenko (B.S. '26) remembers the exact night her plan came together.

She pulled up the mathematics degree requirements at Georgia State University and realized that her high school Advanced Placement scores already covered a sizable chunk of her core classes. By early morning, she plotted a path to finish a four-year math degree in 14 months.

"I got excited and spent half the night making a plan," Poliashenko said.

It involved testing out of several math prerequisites - without credit - so she could move straight into senior-level courses. Leslie Meadows, principal senior lecturer and undergraduate director in Georgia State's Department of Mathematics and Statistics, worked with Poliashenko to pitch the idea to department chair Alexandra Smirnova.

A week later, Meadows delivered the answer: Smirnova had agreed to let her try.

"I remember ending that meeting and thinking to myself, 'What if this actually works out?'" Poliashenko said.

It did, but not without strain.

A miscounted requirement left Poliashenko carrying eight classes instead of seven during the spring semester. On a typical day, Poliashenko would wake at 7:30 a.m., tutor at Georgia State's Panther STEM Tutoring Center from 9 to 10:30 a.m. and attend classes until 6:45 p.m. MARTA rides home were used for studying, and she often continued working until midnight.

"It was a painful but rewarding schedule," Poliashenko said. She added that the experience taught her lessons beyond mathematics - about research, teaching and "generally being a well-rounded person."

Although abstract algebra was not part of her program, Poliashenko said it's one of her favorite areas of math. Her preference for theoretical over applied mathematics, she said, dates to high school. Florian Enescu, a professor in the department, agreed to mentor her independently in the subject. They met for an hour each week over four to five months as she worked through material covered in two senior-level courses she had no room to take.

"I have been impressed with her mathematical maturity - the ease with which she understands concepts," Enescu said. "That skill usually shows up later in life, after prolonged exposure trains the brain to recognize patterns."

Poliashenko also spent the past year in the computational neuroscience lab of Yaroslav Molkov, an associate professor of mathematics and statistics, researching how spinal cord cells control muscle movement. By comparing the mathematical models of sodium channels involved in nerve firing, she analyzed what happens during depolarization block - a state in which an overstimulated neuron stops firing.

"What sets Ivanna apart from many undergraduate students is her aptitude for both applied and pure mathematics," Molkov said. "Students often specialize early in one direction, but she has shown a strong capability in both."

Throughout the year, Poliashenko worried that completing her degree so quickly might leave gaps in her education.

Receiving the department's V.V. Lavroff Calculus Award helped put that fear to rest. Poliashenko said the honor confirmed that her accelerated timeline had not come at the expense of a meaningful undergraduate education.

"The math department really helped guide me towards my wildest dreams," she said.

Poliashenko has already been accepted into a master's program in mathematics at the Georgia Institute of Technology and plans to pursue a doctorate afterward. She'll still be tutoring students at the STEM center, and she plans to relaunch a personal blog focused on math.

The MARTA rides that doubled as study sessions also point toward another long-term goal.

Poliashenko hopes to use her new statistics background to help make Atlanta's public transportation system more accessible.

"I really want to see Atlanta become more public transportation friendly," Poliashenko said.

Story by André Walker. Photo by Raven Schley.