Audrey Addison

After growing up with a passion for mathematics and the outdoors, Audrey enlisted in the Alaska Air National Guard in 2001.  Her first role was Command Post controller in the communications hub of the base where the most interesting part of her job included coordinating with the 11th Air Force Rescue Coordination Center when the assistance of the National Guard’s HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters, HC-130 Hercules, or pararescuemen were required for a given rescue mission.  Over the next 14 years, Audrey served in a variety of positions, including two years as a controller at the Rescue Coordination Center and then as a commissioned Intelligence Officer.  Her time in the Air Force taught her grit and resilience and served as a model for how people can dedicate their lives to help other people. Ultimately, however, Audrey decided to continue pursuing her other interest, mathematics.

She attended Utah State University from 2008 to 2014, receiving an MS and PhD in Mathematics with an emphasis on biology (modeling the multipartite symbiosis between two species of fungi and the mountain pine beetle.  It was here that she was selected as a Tillman Scholar.  Upon receiving her PhD, she worked to apply her mathematical knowledge to real-world problems, first in the geophysical realm with Chevron’s Energy Technology, then with Siemens as she worked to improve multi-physics simulation software, and most recently at Google Research where she works in the realm of Speech, searching for ways to use it to help improve people’s lives.