Isabelle Steinmann

"I was always interested in maths and science and knew I wanted to pursue a career in STEM. Eventually I realised that I enjoy learning maths most of all, so I decided to continue studying it.

"I completed my Masters degree under the supervision of Distinguished Professor Marston Conder. My thesis was titled Medial layer graphs of symmetric 4-polytopes and it involved aspects of graph theory, group theory, and discrete geometry.

"The classes are often quite small, so the lecturers and teaching assistants get to know and are very supportive of their students.

"I received a number of scholarships including the Margaret Morton Memorial Prize 2021 and Kalman Summer Scholarship 2021 but the University of Auckland Postgraduate Honours Scholarship was the most helpful for me. It covered my tuition and provided me with a stipend which allowed me to focus on studying.

"Mathematics is a subject which is quite unique; both in the sorts of questions it seeks to answer, and in the sorts of techniques it uses to address these questions. Studying it is not only interesting, but also helpful in developing a more analytic approach to all sorts of different problems."