Math whiz Clader to be valedictorian

Her parents said they knew she was intellectually gifted when she taught herself to read at age 3. Now Emily Clader, CC ’09, recently chosen as class valedictorian, is preparing to bring her luminosity in mathematics and music to Michigan.

“We knew she was in the running [for valedictorian], especially when Phi Beta Kappa [an academic society that inducts the top 2 percent of each graduating class in December, ten percent in May] happened. We just assumed there was a nerdier person out there,” Rachelle Meyer, CC ’09 and one of Clader’s closest friends, joked.

Geoffrey Scott, Clader’s boyfriend and a first-year graduate student at the University of Michigan said that he was surprised to hear she’d won because Clader had never mentioned aspirations for the award. “I don’t think I ever heard her say the word ‘valedictorian’ before she received the congratulatory e-mail,” Scott said. “She is very engaged in her academics, but not because she’s interested in winning awards. Rather, her success is a consequence of being fervently interested in the topics she studies,” he said.

Clader said she knew being chosen as valedictorian was a possibility, but that it hadn’t been in the forefront of her mind.

When she arrived at Columbia her freshman year, Clader said she didn’t consider herself to be an outstanding student on campus.

“‘Well, I was someone who stood out in high school, but everyone here is that way,’” she said she remembers thinking. But, she added, “Once you find your niche, you can find a way to stand out.”

She attributes her academic success—her Grade Point Average hovers somewhere around 4.1—to taking classes that she has been excited and invested in. “It makes those rigid study skills less of a burden,” she said.

Meyer and Ashleigh Aviles, CC ’09, Clader’s other close friend, have some ideas about how she thrived in college. “She’s never pulled an all-nighter. Nothing close to an all-nighter. If I start a paper two nights in advance, she’ll be like, ‘Why are you starting so late?’” Meyer said.

Clader, who majors in mathematics with a concentration in philosophy, said she chose to focus on those two subjects because “they’re similar in the sense that they’re both intellectual games we play. They’re fun, they’re stimulating, they’re ... to a large extent useless, but still fun to engage in with smart people.”

After she graduates from Columbia in May, Clader will pursue a Ph.D. in math from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Michigan, she said, is an excellent school to pursue the fields of math she is interested in—in particular topology and algebraic geometry. She said she also looks forward to living in the same town as Scott, who received his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth. “We’ve never been in the same place before,” she said.

Robert Lipshitz, adjunct assistant professor of mathematics and Clader’s adviser for her thesis on algebraic topology, wrote in an e-mail that he was excited to see her future in the field. “I and ... the other faculty who have taught her [Clader] are glad that she is continuing in mathematics: we look forward to the contributions she’ll make, and to working with her as a peer.”

Beyond her academic studies, Clader enjoys singing in the Bach Society. “A lot of things at Columbia are really high pressure and really competitive,” she said. “It [the Bach Society] is low pressure, but simultaneously a really talented and really fun group of people.”

Of the things she said she will miss most about Columbia, Clader’s friends topped the list. “I have a really small group of friends here and we’re really close. We’re like family,” she said.

She’ll also miss the academic experience. “I’ve had the opportunity to take some really random classes—learn things from people who are the best at teaching them,” she said. “Today [Tuesday], [jazz musician] Wynton Marsalis came to our Music Hum class. That’s an amazing thing about Columbia—that things like that just happen and you’re not expecting it.”

Clader also plays several musical instruments including the piano, flute, and clarinet. She has mentioned wanting to learn to play the violin over the summer. Clader’s parents, Susan and John Clader, said in a joint e-mail that when she moved away from her home in Cranford, N.J., what they missed most was “having all that wonderful music in our home.”

Aviles emphasized that Clader, despite her achievements, has always remained grounded. “She has never been condescending, or cocky, or anything you’d expect someone with such a high GPA to be.”

Meyer added, “She’s a really good friend.”