Kevin Osenburg

You could call Kevin Osenburg a mathematical late bloomer. “My interest in mathematics was sparked by a professor at Towson University,” says Osenburg. “He showed me how versatile math can be and what it would be like to be a professional mathematician.”

Osenburg, who is now completing his second degree in math at Towson University, believes virtually any problem has a math-based solution. He had an opportunity to test that theory at the UPS Information Systems in Timonium, Maryland. As an intern with the Systems’ Maryland Internet Group, Osenburg was tasked with creating programs and techniques to make the UPS website run faster and more efficiently. “We analyzed UPS server response times to optimize website performance,” he explains. Osenburg landed the job after connecting with a recruiter at a job fair on the Towson University campus.

“ The math faculty teach you how to do research, then they let you do it. ”

The 2016 recipient of Towson University’s Mildred T. Baker Scholarship and the Mary Scarborough Award for Excellence in Mathematics at TU, Osenburg has loved his Towson University experience, including an applied project for RTR Technologies, Inc., an Aberdeen, Maryland-based company that is a leader in data, logistical and workforce analysis. The firm tapped the talents of Towson University students to identify ways to predict the ideal number of checkpoints needed to process passengers from international flights. “We pulled our own data and created algorithms that predicted with 80 or 90 percent accuracy the optimal number of booths to open for processing,” describes Osenburg. “The math faculty teach you how to do research, then they let you do it.”

He is quick to point out, “Many of my friends attended larger schools with 70 to 80 people in their upper-level mathematics courses. There were five people in my upper-level math courses, which means a lot of one-on-one time with professors who knew me on a first-name basis.”