Optics, mathematics, culture, and travel are all passions of mine. My name is Ivan Barrientos and I am an undergraduate majoring in both Optical Engineering and Applied Mathematics at the University of Arizona.In addition to my endeavor of studies, I enjoy running outdoors, playing tennis, visiting new countries, cooking a variety of foods, reading literature of sorts, and telling a fine joke. My story goes like this: I was born a 4th generation "mestizo" in Mexico City on a cool raining night March 7th, 1984. During my early years my father was starting his interpreting business, International Translation Services (ITS) when he decided that the family should move to Tucson, Arizona for promising reasons. I only lived in wondrous Mexico City for about five years until moving to Tucson. Here, I plunged into the American school system and eventually completed high school at Salpointe Catholic. During my time in high school I had the great opportunities of traveling around the world to countries in Western Europe and even to China and Australia. Traveling helped shape who I am and will be. Also, during high school I was clever enough to complete the three-semester calculus sequence/adventure with unfortunately little support from my high school but with a wealth of inspirational guidance from the University of Arizona. Recently, I was blessed with the generous opportunity of participating in the Rice University Summer In Statistics (RUSIS) program headed by Dr. Rojo. Thence, I have accepted this quality offer and am currently learning about stochastic and inference statistics in addition to learning S-plus and Mathematica. I plan on researching Body Mass Index (BMI) this summer with the program. Alas, there remains more treasures to be uncovered in the path of my life.