Alumni

Math alumni have diverse career paths and many of them have had successful careers in academic, education, industry, finance. Below are brief biographical sketches for some of the Rutgers–Camden Department of Mathematics alumni. 

Mr. Joseph S. Lopez graduated from Rutgers–Camden in 1964, majoring in mathematics.  He became a first-level engineering manager at GE and then went to RCA to take a lead role on the engineering team that developed the AEGIS system.  His next stop was at Philco/Ford, where he managed and led a successful high-tech business development group. Landis and Gyr, a Swiss-owned company which later would merge with Siemens, tapped Joseph to run a subsidiary organization and advance the firm’s reputation for producing supervisory control systems for electric utilities.  He would become vice president of engineering and then president. In 1982, Lopez resigned from Landis and Gyr to launch his own firm, ILEX Systems Inc., which he sold to L-3 Communications in 1998 and continued to run as president of L-3—ILEX until May 2005.

Mr. Lopez met his wife, Loretta, at Rutgers–Camden in a geology class as undergraduate students – she studying psychology, he pursuing a degree in mathematics. That experience launched a lifelong journey that would lead to marriage, three children, six grandchildren, and a successful career in computer science and engineering.  He received his MBA from Temple University in 1974.

In 2007, the Lopezes established the Joseph and Loretta Lopez Endowed Professorship of Mathematics was established in memory of Leonard Bidwell, a beloved professor of mathematics under whom Joseph Lopez had studied. 

Dr. Stephen Alessandrini is a Principal Member of the Engineering Staff at Lockheed Martin in Moorestown, NJ. He has over 30 years experience as both an applied mathematician working in industry and as a faculty member at Rutgers–Camden. He obtained a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Rutgers–New Brunswick in 1991, an M.S. in applied mathematics from Rutgers–New Brunswick in 1987, and a B.A in applied mathematics and computer science with a minor in physics from Rutgers–Camden in 1985.

Dr. James Davis obtained his BA in Mathematics from Rutgers–Camden in 2010 and Ph.D. in Operations Research from Cornell University in 2015. He was an assistant professor of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign before joining Uber where he is currently Senior Data Scientist, taking a lead role in designing Uber’s pricing system.

Mr. Matt DeMarco grew up in Mullica Hill, NJ. He went to high school at Saint Augustine Preparatory School in south Jersey before coming to Rutgers for college in 2015. He started at Rutgers–Camden as a Chemistry major before switching to Math with a minor in Computer Science during the summer of my sophomore year. After graduating from Rutgers in May 2019,  he started graduate school at Drexel University for Electrical Engineering before leaving about halfway through to take a mathematics job with the Department of Defense. Mr. DeMarco enjoys exercising, playing tennis, and reading in his spare time.

Ms. Robin England graduated Rutgers–Camden in 2012 with a double major in Economics & Mathematics and completed her Masters in Mathematics in 2014.  She currently works in the Risk Management industry underwriting Life, Accident and Disability insurance for Cigna in Philadelphia. Robin also currently assists with the recruiting, training and mentoring efforts in her department. 

Dr. Sean McQuade completed a majority of his MS in mathematics degree at Rutgers–Camden then transferred to the Rutgers–Camden Computational and Integrative Biology (CCIB) Ph.D. program in September 2014. During his Ph.D., Sean collaborated with scientists at Sanofi to develop new Quantitative Systems Pharmacology simulators. As a Postdoc at Rutgers–Camden Sean contributed to the design of a pipeline for integrating data into QSP models at the Bill and Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute; this was applied to evaluate tuberculosis treatment. Later he participated in the CIRCLES consortium which conducted the largest mobile traffic control experiment at the time. Sean was a member of the leadership team that designed critical experimental and logistical parameters leading to a successful field test

Ms. Catherine Meehan came to Rutgers–Camden in 2009 and began studying mathematics with the intent of being a teacher. She graduated with an undergraduate degree in mathematics in 2012 and decided to pursue a graduate degree also in mathematics at Rutgers–Camden, which she completed in Dec of 2013. During grad school, she assisted Dr. Gabor Toth with his book Measures of Symmetry for Convex Sets and Stability by creating the images for the text and began teaching as an adjunct at Rutgers Camden. After graduate school, she taught high school mathematics at Leap Academy Charter School and Eastern Regional High School, but recently changed careers to underwriting at Cigna.

Mr. Nicholas Sanchirico completed his Rutgers–Camden undergraduate degree in pure math in 2011 and his master’s degree at Rutgers–Camden in 2013 with a focus on applied math. After graduating Mr. Sanchirico started working at Lockheed Martin as a modeling and simulation software engineer. For a little over 4 years he worked on various simulation components of the Aegis combat system. Mr. Sanchirico recently started as a software developer at Susquehanna International Group LLC working on tool deployment and framework improvements. Mr. Sanchirico has also been teaching various courses at RUC over the past few years in physics and scientific computing.

Mr. Max Steel received his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Rutgers in 1999 and began a career teaching high school math.  Upon moving to South Jersey in 2005, he started attending the Masters program in Pure Mathematics at Rutgers–Camden.  He completed his master’s degree in 2007, attending courses in the evenings while working full-time as a high school teacher.  He began to teach courses part-time as an adjunct at Rutgers–Camden, Burlington County College, and Gloucester County College in the evenings and summers while teaching high school.  In 2014, Mr. Steel decided he was ready for a new challenge and embarked on a career in the actuarial profession.  He is currently employed as an Actuarial Analyst for Independence Blue Cross in Philadelphia.