When Natalya St. Clair ’06 reviews a math problem, she looks beyond the numbers and observes the artistic beauty found within each elaborate equation.
“When I took upper-level classes, I discovered that mathematics is a very creative process, and that appealed to me as an artist,” says St. Clair, who double-majored in studio art and mathematics at Scripps. “Mathematics is the study of patterns, and mathematicians tend to take creative measures to study patterns. Any artist will tell you that creating a strong art piece requires problem-solving.”
As the innovator of several avant-garde TED-Ed videos and illustrator of the book The Art of Mental Calculation, St. Clair acknowledges the complex intersection of mathematics and art. Now a graphic designer and math teacher, she challenges her colleagues and students to recognize the ways in which the fields effortlessly mingle.
“Since graduating from Scripps, I’ve come to appreciate interdisciplinary approaches to solving problems, which I’ve noticed is an approach that is becoming more valued,” says St. Clair, who was editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper The Voice her sophomore year. “We need a broad skill set in the real world, and I found a great deal of beauty when one field of study informs another.”
Though she grew up with a keen interest in art, St. Clair’s love for mathematics began at Scripps after she was introduced to Euler’s Formula, the concept of a Taylor Series, and modular arithmetic.
“I always knew I wanted to be an artist. I can remember telling my first-grade teacher I wanted to illustrate books,” St. Clair says. “At Scripps, I discovered how to solve mathematical problems with other talented young women inside and outside class, and that helped me grow.”
St. Clair particularly enjoyed her Core classes because they challenged her to examine theoretical concepts from multiple perspectives, and as a result, she began to notice how often art and math collided. Core honed her critical-thinking skills and pushed her to appreciate masterful pieces of art in unexpected ways, which led her to write her senior thesis on pattern formation in partial differential equations. Her senior thesis then inspired her to give a TED-Ed talk examining the connections between Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh’s most well-known post-impressionist painting Starry Night and concepts of turbulence and mathematics.
Studio art and mathematics may seem an unlikely pair of majors, yet St. Clair’s Scripps professors advised, “It does not matter what I do with my education, as long as I do what I love. I hope every young woman receives similar advice and mentorship when choosing a major.”
She embraced that advice and is now earning a master’s degree in technology, information, and education at Harvard. St. Clair is also a media fellow at Harvard’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, where she strives to make math more accessible to younger generations of students.