UH Hilo and HawCC alumnus Basanta Pahari returns to Hilo to teach math at his alma mater
Now with a doctoral degree in mathematics, Basanta Pahari is welcomed back to Hilo to teach in the community that helped shape his career in math and STEM research.
Basanta Raj Pahari’s life story began in the city of Pokhara, Nepal, where he spent his first 19 years. “The time I spent in Pokhara was the most beautiful time of my life,” he says.
But when it came time to pursue degrees in higher education, he found his way to Hilo, starting at Hawaiʻi Community College. After two years at HawCC, with an associate of arts degree and a plan to go into information technology, in 2013 Pahari then made the decision to transfer to the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, where his path was shifted and he graduated with honors and a bachelor of arts in mathematics in 2015. He then went to the U.S. continent to continue his education.
And now he has come full circle. With master’s and doctoral degrees in mathematics and a keen desire to teach, he has returned to HawCC, this time as a teacher.
The pathway: Hawaiʻi Community College to UH Hilo and beyond
Pahari says it was thanks to mentors like UH Hilo instructors of mathematics Erica Bernstein and Zorana Lazarevic that he was encouraged to pursue a math degree. With mentors, says Pahari, “it’s easier to find the right path for yourself.”
Throughout his time at HawCC and UH Hilo, Pahari was able to fund his education with a long list of scholarships, including a HawCC Administrative Achievement Scholarship, UH Hilo Dean’s Scholarship and International Student Scholarship, several privately funded scholarships, and a Japanese Chamber of Commerce & Industry Scholarship. “I believe it shows that there are scholarship opportunities for everyone in the UH system, and I want to advise our students at either HCC or UH Hilo to look for all possible opportunities,” he says.
As he secured scholarship support, Pahari was tenacious in his pursuit of a bachelor’s degree. The UH Hilo Dean’s Scholarship meant he had to take 26 credits in his first semester at the university, a task that may have been impossible for anyone else. But Pahari managed it with “challenge” courses, where he could skip lectures and instead earn credit by simply taking and passing a course’s final exam.
He pushed on and after graduating from UH Hilo with his bachelor’s in math, he earned his master of science in applied mathematics in 2018 and his doctor of philosophy in mathematics in 2020, both from the University of Houston. He did his postdoctoral research at Florida State University.
Forging ahead with post doc work and his career, he conducted research at Florida State University and Florida A&M University on grants funded by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and Department of Defense, wrote a book chapter, and did a variety of work from developing a retinal image feature detection method for classifying diabetic retinopathy to computing viscoelasticity of elastomers.
Full circle back to Hilo: “The community is really nice”
Pahari earned his laurels during his time on the mainland, but ultimately chose to return to Hilo where he is now teaching math at Hawaiʻi Community College. His return to Hilo was inspired by the sense of community he felt during his undergraduate years. “The community is really nice,” he says.
One example Pahari gives of the caring nature of the people on Hawaiʻi Island goes back to when he first arrived from Nepal and started taking courses at HawCC in 2011.
During those first two years as a student, Pahari didn’t have a car and so relied on hitchhiking to travel from where he lived in Kalapana to Pāhoa. He was amazed that no matter how early in the morning it was, someone always stopped to give him a ride.
Now, when Pahari drives along those same roads and sees a hitchhiker, he always makes sure to stop, noting that he is “trying to pay it back and return the favor.”
Teaching
Pahari absolutely loves teaching. All the way through his undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral studies, he was actively teaching.
As an undergraduate student, Pahari was a tutor for the Math Boot Camp run by HawCC to help recently admitted students improve their math placements before entering their first semester of school. “I enjoyed seeing students improve their math scores, which allowed them to skip pre-college level courses,” he says. “I know many students benefited from that program.” He now helps run a weekly math support group at HawCC to help students succeed in their math classes.
As an undergraduate at UH Hilo, Pahari worked as a math tutor at UH Hilo’s Kilohana Academic Student Success Center. He also worked for Disability Services at both HawCC and UH Hilo, helping to provide academic accommodations for students with disabilities.
Moving forward into graduate school, he continued this teaching trend.
“I taught at the University of Houston as a graduate research assistant for five years,” he says, which rolled into working as a postdoctoral research scholar in mechanical engineering at Florida State University and Florida A&M University.
Now starting his tenure at Hawaiʻi Community College, this semester he’s teaching several math courses including introduction to math reasoning, survey of mathematics, introduction to college algebra, and statistics.
“I returned back to Hawaiʻi after nine years of living on the mainland and am happy to teach at Hawaiʻi Community College,” he says. “Returning as faculty, I received a warm welcome from everyone, many of whom knew me from my time as a student at the college. It has been a great experience.”
Research
Along with pursuing his degrees and developing his teaching career, Pahari has also conducted research in several areas including signal processing, image analysis, materials science, fractional order mechanics, multifractal analysis, mechanical engineering, and quantum computing.
“This shows that a math degree is broadly applicable to any field,” he says.
Along with published papers and co-authoring a book chapter, “Quantitative Methods in Ocular Fundus Imaging: Analysis of Retinal Microvasculature” in Landscapes of Time-Frequency Analysis (2020), Pahari has also given several conference presentations on topics covering smart materials and adaptive structures at conferences hosted by the Society of Optics and Photonics in Long Beach, California, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in Austin, Texas.
“Most of my research, work, and travel was funded by my PhD and postdoc advisors’ grants from the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research,” says Pahari. “I plan to apply for research and teaching grants in the future.”
Pahari’s current research focuses on modeling aerodynamic flows in high-speed aerospace vehicles, constructing electromagnetic models using information theory, and studying heat transfer in complex fractal materials.
“I also like quantum computing and am currently mentoring a high school student in quantum computing who presented her work at the National Magnetic Lab in Tallahassee, Florida, in May 2024,” says Pahari.
“Excellent educational foundations”
Pahari gives a great deal of credit to the UH system for helping him recognize and develop the math skills he’s used throughout his notable career.
“I want to emphasize that both HCC and UH Hilo are great schools, and I didn’t struggle when I enrolled in the PhD program directly after graduating,” he says. “UH Hilo and HCC both provide excellent educational foundations that are useful whether you plan to work or continue your educational journey by pursuing a higher degree.”
Story by Sophia Kim-O’sullivan, who is earning her master of science in library science and information from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.