The 2018 College of Science Julian A. McPhee Scholar and Valedictorian

Shunto Kobayashi

 The College of Science 2018 Julian A. McPhee Scholar and Valedictorian is Shunto Kobayashi who is graduating with a 3.99 GPA in Applied Mathematics.

Kobayashi’s interest is in finance and economics and he began his studies at Cal Poly Pomona in the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences. This experience gave him confidence in math and led him to the department of Mathematics and Statistics in the College of Science. He’ll graduate with a double major in Applied Mathematics & Statistics and Economics. One of the research projects he worked on was statistical analysis of Major League Baseball pitchers.

Though born in the U.S., Kobayashi grew up in Japan and also lived in Malaysia. His family moved to the U.S. permanently when he was a freshman in high school. This year he was part of a team that won an award for Best Visualization at the American Statistical Association (ASA) DataFest.

Kobayashi has been accepted at Caltech and will begin his Ph.D. program in Economics/Social Sciences in the fall.