A Bermudian mathematics student spoke about her academic experiences when she was featured in a documentary in the United States.

Ashlyn Lee, 22, appears in Journeys of Black Mathematicians: Forging Resilience, which aired in February this year.

She said that her exposure to other Black mathematicians, because of the documentary as well as a summer course with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, inspired her to aim for a PhD in mathematics.

Ms Lee added: “You don’t hear every day of a person in Bermuda wanting to do their PhD in maths, so I was so thankful that they saw all this potential in me regardless of where I was from.”

Ms Lee, a junior student at Howard University in Washington, said that the documentary looked at the community of aspiring Black mathematicians across historically Black colleges and universities.

She said that she spoke on her perspective as a Howard student from the lens of a Bermudian.

Ms Lee explained: “The major part I touched on was being a Bermudian and seeing how many Black mathematicians there are and how vast the field is.”

She added: “It was very encouraging to see how many Black females were in the field.

“They were actually encouraging me to look into going into a PhD programme and that I am actually capable of it.”

Journeys of Black Mathematicians has been screened ten times at various theatres since its release this year, with three additional screenings planned before the end of October, including the 27th United Nations Association Film Festival.

Ms Lee said she had been interested in mathematics since she was a child.

She explained that she did a lot of baking as a youngster, which exposed her to arithmetic and fractions at an early age.

Ms Lee added: “I always had to joke with my parents that they had to hide my maths homework from me so I could do my English homework.”

She said that her honours degree required her to complete a summer research project, which prompted her to apply to MIT’s Summer Geometry Initiative.

The programme was six weeks long and offered her payment as she learnt presentation skills and carried out research projects.

Ms Lee said that MIT, considered one of the best schools in the country, was one of the few universities that allowed international students on to its projects.

She admitted that trying to find research programmes that would accept her was “time-consuming and tedious, and at some points it was a little disheartening, every time you saw a topic that you wanted to do but then saw ‘US citizen’ ”.

Ms Lee added that being only one of 30 applicants to be accepted out of hundreds was “definitely a confidence boost”.

She said: “I’d always wanted to go to MIT when I was younger, and to see that, later on in life, I had this opportunity where MIT is paying me to work with them was monumental.

“It was definitely a blessing, and I think also showed me that I am on the right path for considering doing a PhD, for them to look at what I’ve done and say, ‘This is the person that we want to take on and continue to foster these skills’.”

Ms Lee will be starting her final year of university in autumn, where she will complete her thesis in a field of mathematics called combinatronics — the maths of counting and arranging.

She will also complete her teaching course in her final semester, after which she plans to return to Bermuda.