Sulani Thakshila Kottal Baddhe Vidhanalage, a Ph.D candidate in Cryptology track in the Department of Mathematical Sciences, participated in the Park City Mathematics Institute’s (PCMI) three-week residential summer session from July 17 - August 6, 2022 in Park City, Utah.  She learned about this Graduate Summer School program opportunity from the Director of Graduate Programs, Dr. Hongwei Long.   Dr. Shi Bai, one of two co-chairs for her dissertation committee, recommended Sulani for the Graduate Summer School program.  After a competitive selection process, she was admitted to this Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) and traveled to Utah in the summer to join the 2022 Graduate Summer School at PCMI. 

The Gradate Summer School at PCMI consists of a series of several interwoven minicourses on different aspects of the main research theme for the 2022 summer Graduate School Session which was “Number Theory Informed by Computation.”  Sulani met and studied with leaders in the field, and interacted with them and others in small groups of participants to work on accessible and open-ended problems.      

During her time at the PCMI Summer Session School, Sulani met other participants from around the world with a wide variety of research interests and backgrounds. She states, “This has been one of the best experiences I have ever had in my early research career in the journey of Applied Mathematics.”  She also states, “This was an outstanding opportunity for me to learn new material and to explore more deeply, topics related to my research in Lattice-Based Cryptography.”  She also experienced some of the country’s most beautiful nature and landscapes when visiting the national parks and hiking in the mountains on weekends.  Congratulations, Sulani!