A Memorable PiEinstein Day!

On Tuesday, March 14, 2023, Einstein marked its fifth celebration of Pi Day and Albert Einstein’s birthday with PiEinstein Day. Development and alumni relations teamed with human resources, the graduate programs in biomedical sciences, student affairs, and student life to provide a variety of fun activities, many of which offered the chance to win free College of Medicine swag or other prizes.

Pi recitation champion Mary Lou DeJesus (center) flanked by runners up (from left) Dr. Srinivas Aluri and Aaron Singer. Watch Mary Lou recite pi to the 900th digit after the decimal point! And then start practicing for next year!

To begin, thanks to human resources, members of the Einstein community descended on our Einstein Café to partake the free slices of pie, with a choice of apple, blueberry, or cherry. More than 600 slices were consumed in all! Those in attendance also enjoyed some relaxing coloring pages, with images of Uncle Albert provided by our creative services team and crayons from development, and following clues to the campus scavenger hunt, leading them to five hiding spots of a five-inch Uncle Albert figure. And four brave individuals signed up to compete in our fifth pi recitation contest.

Amazing Recitation

This year proved to be the most impressive yet. Following welcoming remarks from Yvonne Ramirez, vice president of human resources, and Dean Gordon Tomaselli, medical student Christine Yoon started things off, attempting to reprise her performance from last year.

She was followed by Mary Lou De Jesus, a study coordinator in family and social medicine, who proceeded to—borrowing from “Hamilton” —blow us all away, reciting pi to the 900th digit after the decimal point! You read that correctly. Mary Lou went loooong, not stopping until 900 digits later. Adding to the feat was the need for her to start over after one of the judges thought she had missed a digit.

The Pies Have It: Six pies were entered in the augural PiEinstein Day Bake-Off, offering a flavorful beginning to a new tradition each March 14 — InsPIring Recitation: Mary Lou won a pi pie plate for her winning recitation. She is pictured here with Dr. Victoria Freedman and Dean Gordon F. Tomaselli.

“In high school, I had gotten to 1, 286, including the ‘3’ and I tried to relearn as much as I could,” she explained. Lucky for the judges, she didn’t have more prep time; they had only printed pi to the 1,000th digit after the decimal.

Credit also goes to the two competitors who followed Mary Lou. Knowing they wouldn’t match or surpass her, they still stepped up to the mic and gave it their best. First Aaron Singer, a lab tech in Dr. Nick Baker’s lab, recited to the 275th decimal and then Dr. Srinivas Aluri, an associate in Dr. Amit Verma’s laboratory, beat his 2019 champion-worthy recitation of 125 by an addition 139 digits. Both of those totals surpassed the 224 recited by last year’s champion, medical student Albert Wang.

Delectable Pies

New this year was the Pie Bake-Off, in which six bakers served up taste bud-tantalizing entries for a panel of five judges to taste and evaluate. Samantha Viera, administrative assistant in creative services, walked away with the first-place Pi Plate for her boston cream pie. As she held up her prize, Sam said, “I’m thrilled. It was such fun to take part in this event.”

Winning baker Samantha Viera shows off her new Pi pie plate. With her (from left) are judges Dr. Mimoza Meholli, Dr. Allison Ludwig, Dr. Victoria Freedman, and Gordon Earle

Close behind in second and third were Sayak Ghosh, a medical student entering his third year, and Todd Richmann, a Ph.D. student in his first year, for their maple bourbon pecan pie and lemon meringue pie, respectively. Each got extra props for working in a decorative image of π on the surface of their pie crusts.

Sayak said, “I enjoy baking and every Thanksgiving it’s expected that I’ll prepare a pie.”

Todd echoed the sentiment. “It’s my favorite holiday and making the pies is my favorite part.” He typically makes at least three pies each year.

Education deans Allison Ludwig, M.D., Mimoza Meholli, M.D., Victoria Freedman, Ph.D., were joined by Anne Bresnick, associate dean postdoctoral affairs, and Gordon Earle, associate dean for communications and public affairs to serve as the bake-off judges. They rated pies on appearance, texture, taste, overall impression pie made, and creativity. Other bakers included Joanna Luo (blueberry pie; biochemistry) and Anne Maguire (apple pie; neuroscience), and Karen Gardner (blueberry-lemon-lavender pie; communications and public affairs).

Following the judging, those in attendance descended upon the pie table to enjoy a taste of the delicious entries as well.

Supporting Einstein Students and Programs

Closing out the day’s celebration was our annual Einstein Giving Day, a fundraising component of PiEinstein Day that allows alumni and other friends of Einstein to help support students and programs at the College of Medicine. Donors could elect to support an annual scholarship fund, student hardship fund, medical education & innovation fund, diversity, equity, and inclusion fund, and/or graduate student fund. Two trustees put forth a challenge, offering an additional $5,000 for every 50 donations, plus an additional $25,000 if the total number of donations reached 314.

“This year’s goal was a true challenge – to receive more than double the number of gifts we received for Giving Day last year. By the end of March 14, we had reached 278 donations, 36 shy of the 314 needed to open the last $25,000,” noted Arianne Andrusco, director of annual and special giving. “Our trustee challengers were so impressed with the success of the effort that they extended the match period till the end of Monday, March 20. I’m delighted to share that we received our 314th gift by the afternoon, which unlocked the full challenge match. In total, Einstein Giving Day raised more than $127,000 in gifts and challenge funds, which will benefit every area of our campus.”

In all ways, 2023 was a most memorable PiEinstein Day at Einstein! See you next year!

“In case you want to be amazed once more, here’s Mary Lou reciting pi to the 900th digit past the decimal point!

Posted on: Tuesday, March 28, 2023

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