Newspapers / North Carolina School of … / Oct. 1, 2015, edition 1 / Page 8
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8 October 2015 features the stentorian | ncssm Sampieri leads theater program continued from page 1 producer for the school’s theater season. He had been working as an English teacher but left to work as a full-time freelance artist. Sampieri was at first turned down, but reapplied and got the job when the position reopened six months later. He was approached on his first day by the Drama Board and asked if he would be attending the auditions for the upcoming show, Once Upon a Mattress, which were to be held the very next day. So he “rolled up [his] sleeves, jumped in, and the rest is history.” A few years later, in 2008, then-Chancellor Gerald Boarman wanted to found a theater program, including an academic curriculum in theater, and approached Sampieri to help make the program a reality. Sampieri joined the NCSSM faculty and felt as though he had “finally fulfilled a major goal of synthesizing two of [his] greatest loves, teaching and theater arts.” Sampieri says that the students have been the foremost factor in keeping him at NCSSM. “They are the reason I stay late into the night during tech week, and my motivation to get up and come back first thing the next morning. They are not just gifted and engaging, but kind and committed. They have always treated me and m'y family with care and respect. As I tell them before each show, I have the greatest job because I work with the some of the best people on the planet.” Almost as important as students, Sampieri also credits his colleagues, especially those in the fine arts. “They inspire me, support me, and challenge me to be better each year, each trimester, each day. And they’re a lot of fun to be around too.” No doubt about it, Sampieri believes that NCSSM is truly where he belongs. On the nature of luck, Sampieri says, “If you’re lucky, you’ll get to do something you love for the " rest of your life. But if you’re really, really lucky you’ll get to do it with people that you love. And there’s no shortage of them here at NCSSM.” It’s a good thing his students and colleagues are around, because Sampieri has no shortage of responsibilities. For the mainstage productions alone, he is ultimately responsible for everything from selecting shows, casting, designing, and directing, although he does of course rely on hard-working staff, faculty, and students. Auditorium manager and technical director Evan Rowe is particularly invested and works heavily alongside Sampieri to bring the mainstage productions to life. Sampieri would warn any casual viewer not to underestimate the work that goes into these productions: “Three shows in ten months, whether in school or out in the professional world, is a massive task. It’s a formidable challenge and a whirlwind schedule that most will never undertake. What you see on stage, even the things that appear very simple, require a great deal of time and collaborative effort to pull off.” Sampieri also teaches two core academic courses and one elective acting class. Science, Math, and Theater, offered in the first trimester, “looks at issues of scientific or mathematical complexity or controversy as depicted in stage art,” as he puts it. He loves everything about the class. “I get to teach some of my favorite plays and learn from some incredibly bright students as they engage in them. I typically learn new things about STEM and leave inspired by our students’ creativity, and deeply reflective nature.” Shakespeare in Performance is offered in the third trimester and focuses on “deconstructing the work as actors, directors, and designers and wrestling with how to make these texts accessible and meaningful for a contemporary audience.” Theater Performance Workshop, an elective class. trains students to explore acting techniques in various ways. It teaches different acting methods each trimester, including decision making, “unacting,” and risk taking, but overall seeks to enable students to engage audiences in complex and meaningful ways. Sampieri is always thrilled to watch his students grow, as all come in with varying levels of experience and progress “well beyond their initial range.” Sampieri has produced many shows in his tenure at NCSSM, and though he cannot pick a favorite, he acknowledges that Once Upon a Midnight Dreary, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and The Parent Project, the latter of which was produced last year, are “highlights.” So far this year, he has produced Almost, Maine, and will produce musieal The Drowsy Chaperone ’ in the second trimester, as well as a third produetion in the spring which is yet to be determined. Hedge fund founders join Forbes 400 list BY Amruth Sriperumbudur Staff Writer Success can be measured in many different ways, and not everyone agrees on what it means to be successful. For the Americans who think of a high net worth as success, making the Forbes 400 is a sure indicator of success. The price of entry for the Forbes 400 rank this year was set at $1.7 billion, causing 145 American billionaires to miss the list. At the top spot for the 22nd year in a row at $76 billion is the well-known philanthropist and founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates. Coming in 2nd for the 15th year in a row with a lofty $62 billion is the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet. Among the top, there are also tech giants like Oracle chairman Larry Ellison at $47.5 billion, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos at $47 billion, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at $40.3 billion. Other heavy hitters in the list include the Koch brothers each with a net worth of $41 billion, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at $38.6 billion, various members of the Walton family who own shares of Wal-Mart, Phil Knight of Nike at $24.4 billion, and various members of the Mars family who own shares of the candy giant Mars. America’s 400 richest have various sources of income ranging from pharmaceuticals, oil, convenience stores, candy, technology, real estate, and many more. Two newcomers to the list, John Overdeck and David Siegel, made their multi-billion dollar fortunes off of the hedge fund they created. John Overdeck is the two time winner of the Fields TWO SIGMA photo courtesy of Boston University The logo of Two Sigma investments, a hedge fund whose creators, John Overdeck and David Siegel, recently snagged spots on the Forbes 400 list. models and the power of computing. Two Sigma’s computers extract information about markets, adapt to the ever changing market environments, and make their own decisions based on the data - Sigel’s artificial intelligence expertise coming in play. Researchers usually only tweak their motlels to increase or decrease the amount of risk the computers take when investing. Two Sigma’s respectable Medal, what some consider to be the Nobel Prize of mathematics, and also the winner of the silver medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Poland at the young age of 16. Many math geniuses are content with writing papers and theorizing solutions to big problems, but Overdeck, with the help of Siegel, used his math genius to co-found one of the fastest growing hedge- funds, Two Sigma Investments. Overdeck, a Stanford alum, possesses the mathematical genius and the management background, while Siegel, a MIT alum, has the computer science and artificial intelligence expertise. Managing $29 billion in assets with 75,000 CPUs each with 750 terabytes of memory going throu^ more than 19,000,000 gigabytes of data at a rate of 1014 calculations per second. Two Sigma Investments is not your average hedge fund. This novel company uses meticulously crafted math equations run by computers to find seemingly random patterns in markets and invest money profitably. To maintain its edge,^ Two Sigma hand picks ■ its employees from International Math Olympiad Winners, and competes with Silicon Valley firms for top notch students graduating in the computer science, mathematics, and engineering programs of elite colleges like MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Caltech. The first sigma in the company’s name Two Sigma comes from the term sigma used to denote the ratio of an investment’s volatility to its excess return, the return above benchmark. This ratio is vital to calculating how much capital an optimal portfolio should distribute to a given investment. The other sigma in the name comes from the mathematical term sigma meaning sum. Within the company. Overdeck is in charge of building the mathematical models of markets while Siegel presides over the engineering and technology infrastructure that is used to make predictions using the models. Each one of Two Sigma’s researchers is expected to thoroughly test various market models and come up with two to three new models each year and present each model to Overdeek through a paper typically 10 pages long. The beauty of Two Sigma is that the hedge fund operates entirely on mathematical revenue is mirrored by its treatment of employees. 20-somethings have the opportunity to earn over half a million dollars a year straight out of college with various perks including flexible hours, access to company 3D printers, robots that you can challenge in various games like Dr. Mario, and much more. But under all of the aura surrounding Two Sigma, there is also a side of darkness. Despite the firm’s employee retention rate of 97%, when an employee leaves the company to try to make it on their own, lawsuits are instantly filed. Because employees have access to highly sensitive and successful mathematical models and data that have the potential to generate millions, a steely and sometimes ruthless lawsuit response from the company is used against former employees trying to start a competing fund The Stentorian The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics 1219 Broad Street, Durham, NC 27705 stentorianl23@gmail.com Editors-in-Chief: AJ Goren, Max Schlenker, Cheryl Wang News Editor: Joe Wiswell Features Editor: Chase Roycroft Opinion Editor: Brinda Sarathy Sports Editors: Jordan Greenert, Andy Hoang, Gabriella Williams Photography Editors: Sophia Chizhikova Advisor: John Kirk Staff Writers: Amruth Sriperumbudur, Margaux Winter, Claire Yin
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Student Newspaper
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Oct. 1, 2015, edition 1
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