Here is the short version: I, with the help of the very talented David Cowardin, a videographer from UMD, produced a documentary about Joe Gallian and his legendary REU on a budget of $0. Here is the link to the documentary

I have been wanting to write this story for a while now. It all started in 2017 at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta, Georgia. I met Joe Gallian in passing at the confrence and was totally starstrucked! I had been literally eating up his Contemporary Abstract Algebra book for months now. With encouragement from my friends, I approached him, told him how much I had enjoyed his book and was planning on going into Algebra because of it. He was extremely down to earth and had the most magical, most mesmerizing laugh I have ever heard! I then invited him to my poster presentation. He said "I don't go to the poster session anymore, but send me an email reminder tomorrow morning." And o f course I didn't becuase I thought he was too important, his time too precious, to be wasting time watching a nobody present his research. But he showed up regardless!!!!! and not only that, he waited for about 20 minutes for me to come back from a break!!! I was STUNNED. After showing him my poster, we chatted and I told him I didn't have good Ph.D. prospects. He suggested I apply for Master's programs and said "I'm not telling you to apply for UMD, but look into it." I applied, got in, ended up going there. This is where the story of the documentray begins.

I had been entertaining the idea for a few weeks in my head but was not sure if it was worth the effort. I was working on my Master's thesis, already involved in university politics and was pretty much living in my office. But sure enough, I couldn't contain myself. During one of our department putlocks, I approached then department head Dr. Bruce Peckham and said "I have a crazy idea but I'm not sure I wanna run it by you." He said "Good, I like crazy ideas, what's up?" I explained that I wanted to make a documentary about Joe and his life but didn't have any more details than that. If I were to come up with a plan, would the department sponsor it? I should add that I was aware of departments financial situation because I attended biweekly departmental meetings. Also, show me a math department that has money to spare, you know what I'm saying? Despite all of that, Bruce did NOT reject my idea. He said "write a proposal, start it and I'll see what I can do, no promises though." That was the match that started a fire in my belly to pursue the project. As someone who has held, and continues to hold, leadership positions in different capacities, I learned an extremely valuable lesson that day: don't reject ideas, no matter how impractical they may sound, right away. Give the person with the idea an opportunity. I never told Bruce but the project begun solely because of his simple words of encouragement and positive attitude towards my "crazy idea". So thank you!

I spent two weeks writing a proposal for the documentary. What was the main idea, what kind of shots I wanted, a tentative time line etc. Knowing full well that it all depended on finding funding, the right people with the camera skills and most importantly, I had to convince Joe, that this wasn't the craziest of crazy ideas! I've always joked that "convincing Joe was the hardest part of the production!" But there is a certain truth to that. As the president of MAA, Joe had already produced a documentray called "hard problems" and it had cost him half a million dollars total to do so. So of course he was reluctant. But I persisted. As much as I disliked arguing with him, I had to persist. The truth of the matter is I had NO IDEA about the details. I had the story worked out, I had the connection but camera work? Have you met me? But I got lucky. I circulated the proposal and a guy named Chris Julin recommended that I talk to David Cowardin. I should also add that Chris was very welcoming and encouraging. David had been recently hired by UMD as a videographer. He was a true god send! I can not stress this enough but without him, his experties and his generosity, the documentray would have never been made at the level of production it was made. He agreed to make the documentary basically volunteering his time. And so in the summer of 2018 we shoot the first scenes of Joe welcoming his REU students.

To say that David was patient with me is an understatement. I learned so much from him in terms of basics of camera work, how to bring ideas to life, the importance of visual story telling but most importantly, patience. He is a true team player and a true artist of his craft. Over the years, I have met or worked with very few people like him. We shot REU meetings, field trips and interviews etc. He even travelled to Baltimore to film us at JMM and the REU dinner. And more importantly, we had fun. Well, dealing with me isn't always fun, trust me when I say that because I live with me..... The documentary was premiered at JMM in Denver in January of 2020 with an attendance of roughly 200 people. Was it hard to do? Yes. Would I do it again? Only if I was working with David! The documentary is called "There will be an answer: a UMD documentary" . It focuses on Joe's most recognizable legacy: leading the longest running REU in the nation. It is an utter shame that NSF has stopped funding his REU, more on that later. It is focused on the general audience, explaining what math research is, how it is done and hopefully breaks some of the streotypes about mathematicians. As a community, we don't do a great job promoting our own work. Of course this was not my sole purpose when we started but this documentary, better than any other math documentary or movie, breaks the stereotypical image of a mathematician. Which is why I have my students watch it for extra credit! (and not because I want more youtube views....) But there is SO MUCH more to Joe than his REU. One day when I have time, and probably a lot less hair, I will write about how much he impacted my life. A blog post doesn't do the justice but thank you to everyone who made the documentray possible, ESPECIALLY David for his infinite patience and insane work ethic and my good friend Joe for allowing me to play a small part in documenting his well established legacy.