Jacquie Janibagian

Jacquie Janibagian and Curtis Smith met at Idaho State University on the first day of classes in the Fall semester at 8am. They had both registered for a math class, Calculus 121, because it was required for their fields of study: chemistry and engineering. Little did they know that their paths would not just cross in this one classroom (in what is now known as the Physical Science Complex) but would become shared, charting a course for a future far beyond the confines of their respective fields of study. They didn’t see the shared late-night study sessions in the Eli M. Oboler Library or learning about everything but derivatives and integrals that lay ahead. They were simply two ISU students, each with a bag of textbooks, unaware that the real equation they were going to solve was the one about their future life together, which turned out to be a problem far more complex and rewarding than any problem set they would ever get from Professor Williams. They still get a chuckle out of a specific question he asked one morning in class. What is the integral of 1/(cabin) dx?

Attending ISU and graduating with a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics degree has enabled them to have a happy family (known as “the Smithibagians”) and successful careers that have positively influenced the world. Jacquie left ISU with a degree in chemistry and supported a variety of technical activities for the Chemical Processing Plant at what is now known as the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). Curtis, now Professor Smith, supported nuclear engineering activities at INL for 33 years, ultimately as a division director, before moving to Boston to become a nuclear engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Oh, and the answer to Dr. Williams’ calculus problem: log cabin.