“Mathematics has always been a space where I’ve felt valued, safe and comfortable,” said Michael Young. But he also remembers moments when people were surprised at or had low expectations for his performance.

That feeling of belonging, Young learned, is pivotal to not just being in a space but thriving in it — whether that space is math, another STEM field or a community in general. For Young, the feeling of knowing he belonged in mathematics first surfaced when he was a graduate student in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, though the feeling certainly didn’t come all at once.

Young first stepped foot on Carnegie Mellon’s campus the summer after his junior year of college, coming all the way from the University of Florida to attend CMU’s Summer Undergraduate Applied Mathematics Institute (SUAMI). It was here that he met fellow alumnus Aris Winger, now an assistant professor of mathematics at Georgia Gwinnett College.

A Ph.D. student at the time, Winger, who was also introduced to CMU through the SUAMI program, had later shown Young around after he had been accepted as an incoming master’s student. Wanting a peek outside of academics, Young was curious what his life would be like culturally and socially if he uprooted himself to move to Pittsburgh.

After official department recruitment activities ended for the day, Winger would take Young around the city, introducing him to different neighborhoods and people and what his life would look like here.

Mostly Young wanted to know that he’d be supported both personally and academically at CMU and Winger showed him how that was possible.

Choosing to come to CMU wasn’t the only big decision Young had to make. As he neared the end of his undergraduate career, he initially only applied to master’s programs. “It was really me stalling to get a job,” he said. But then he received an unexcepted phone call from Mathematical Sciences Professor Bill Hrusa. 

Pushing Forward Equity

Much of what Young got from CMU, he’s tried to return to others, on both an individual and a larger level.

When Young joined the faculty at Iowa State University in 2014, he did his part to pay forward the encouragement and support to push students further than they dreamed possible. Following in Hrusa’s footsteps, Young would call accepted students and speak to them personally. He also made sure current graduate students knew their worth.

But thinking back to his own experience, Young believes the foundation for getting students, and in particular students of color, to this point has to start much earlier.

“When I tell people I’m a mathematician, they almost always say ‘I hate math,’ or ‘I was never good at math.’ My philosophy is that people don’t actually hate math — they hate their math experiences.”

These reactions, he says, are tied to inequities — to people not being able to bring their identities inside the classroom.

“When I ask people, who ruined math for you, they always have a name.”
Helping students overcome these barriers is not just a passion but a mission for Young.

In 2014, he teamed back up with Mackey on a large, multi-institution grant at CMU. Through the grant, Young worked with Pittsburgh Public Schools to help educators understand how race, culture and identity enter a classroom and how to acknowledge and mitigate the inequity that can arise in that environment. The experience set Young on a new path of addressing race and inequity in educational spaces.

“I define equity and inclusion as building an environment so that people can be themselves and be successful at the same time,” he said.

For Young that has meant creating spaces where young people of color can feel comfortable with their identity and presence in math and other STEM fields. A large part of that is making sure that students are not just seen and heard but are supported holistically in their pursuits.

To that end, Young founded the national networking organization the Center for Minorities in the Mathematical Sciences and co-founded the Mathematics Enrichment through Diversity and Learning (MEDAL) organization with Winger. MEDAL provides diversity training and professional development to teachers and faculty as well as tutoring and mentoring services through the United Negro College Fund’s STEM Scholar Program and through CMU’s Tartan Scholars Program.

He also began returning to CMU as an instructor for SUAMI and the university’s Summer Academy for Math and Sciences to nurture underrepresented high school and undergraduate students’ interest in STEM.

And in 2019 the governor of Iowa appointed Young to serve on her administration’s STEM Council. Through the council, he recommended how to incorporate diversity and equity across the state’s educational system and workforce.