Senior student Nancy Heinschel loves mathematics. For her passion and talent, she has just been recognized nationally as the runner-up in the Alice T. Schafer Prize awarded by the National Association for Women in Mathematics. Heinschel was chosen as one of the nation's best collegiate math students due to her performance in mathematics courses and special programs related to her interest in random matrices, which are mathematical models used in physics to describe aspects of "quantum chaos." While at UC Davis, Heinschel has a 3.992 grade-point average and she has received 21 A+ grades in her courses, 12 of which were courses in math. "I have taught more than 600 mathematics majors in three countries during my tenure and Heinschel's skills are at the top of the scale," says Motohico Mulase, professor of math at UC Davis.