Danielle D. Carr

2000

Born:: March 16, 1966

place:

B.S. Mathematics (1987) Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin; M.A. (Mathematics) Duke University (1990)

Duke University (1993)
thesis: Reaction-Hyperbolic Systems in One Space Dimension; advisor Michael Reed

 

Program Officer for Higher Education Andrew Mellon Foundation

URL
email: ddc@mellon.org

Danielle Carr was born in Washington, D.C. Her mother and father are both physicians and their occupations exposed her to the sciences while she was growing up. However, Dr. Carr attributes her decision to become a scientist to the influence of her grandfather, Dr. Herman Branson. He was a physicist and instilled in her an appreciation for the stars and constellations. In addition, Dr. Carr developed a true love for the sciences by visiting museums and exploring nature. By asking "How" and "Why" about her observations, she developed an interest in scientific investigations. After graduation from Oakcrest High School in 1983, Dr. Carr's initial decision was to become a physician.

Dr. Carr's undergraduate institution was Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin. At first, Dr. Carr was a chemistry major, but developed a more intense interest in mathematics and therefore switched her major to mathematics. During her senior year, Dr. Carr gave a talk to the senior math majors about the mathematical models used in epidemiology, the study of the spread of diseases. She earned a B.S. degree in Mathematics in 1987. Dr. Carr loved this area of research and decided to pursue a graduate degree in mathematics in order to learn the necessary skills to develop her own models. She was conferred a Master of Arts degree in 1990 and a Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Mathematics in 1992 at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. While in graduate school, she earned several professional honors, some of which include: the Duke Endowment Fellowship, the National Science Foundation Minority Fellowship, the National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. Later, as a professor, she was honored with the Clare Booth Luce Professorship.

While she was a graduate student at Duke, Dr. Carr's research was the development and mathematical analysis of a mathematical model used to describe the transport of proteins and fat cells (such as cholesterol) inside the axon of the nerve cell. After receiving her Ph.D., Dr. Carr spent two years as a visiting member and postdoctoral fellow at the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences in New York City. There, she switched research fields to computational fluid dynamics in order to investigate how fish swim.

Dr. Carr was an Assistant Professor at Bryn Mawr College from 1993 to 1998 where she taught mathematics and narrowed her research to the analysis of computational methods used to model objects immersed in a fluid. Bryn Mawr College is an all-women's institution that has a graduate program in mathematics. Dr. Carr actively steered students into the sciences, specifically mathematics. Dr. Carr has mentored a number of women in mathematics, who have gone on to pursue careers in business, law, advanced degree programs in graduate school, and medicine. She now works at the Andrew Mellon Foundation in New York.


1999

Major Scientific Interest:
The application of differential equations to develop and analyze mathematical models for two different areas of research. The first area is the transport of fat cells and proteins from the cell body inside the axon of the nerve cell. This area is called axonal transport. The second area is the computational modeling of objects moving in a fluid, such as fish moving in water. This area is called computational fluid dynamics.

Publications

Carr, Danielle D. Global existence of solutions to reaction-hyperbolic systems in one space dimension. SIAM J. Math. Anal. 26 (1995), no. 2, 399--414.

 

back to Black Women in the Mathematical Sciences

The website
MATHEMATICIANS OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA
are brought to you by

The Mathematics Department of
The State University of New York at Buffalo.

They are created and maintained by
Scott W. Williams
Professor of Mathematics

CONTACT Dr. Williams