Math prodigy, 14, poised to graduate from UCI next week, will seek doctorate next
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Tycho Elling just turned 14 but already has his sights set on earning a doctorate degree. He simply needs to get one ceremonial detail out of the way — graduating with UC Irvine’s class of 2025.
The teen math prodigy from San Juan Capistrano will walk in a June 14 commencement with hundreds of twentysomething undergraduates earning their bachelor’s degrees in engineering, computer and physical sciences.
He’s not looking forward to the pomp and circumstance, perhaps because he’s a little shy by nature but also because Tycho’s intellectual pursuits, as impressive as they are, are not born from a desire to win, achieve or accomplish something, but out of an irrepressible desire to learn.
That’s why the college grad, not content to rest on the laurels of his bachelor’s degree, is taking his talents to USC’s doctoral program in the fall. After that?
“I don’t know yet,” the teen said in an interview Monday. “Maybe I’ll look at [postdoctoral work]. I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”
In the crowd at next Saturday’s ceremony will be Tycho’s parents, Tim and Christina Elling — who earned their respective doctorates in applied computational mathematics and urban issues in education relatively late in life, in their 30s — and sisters Athena, 12, 10-year-old Zora and Nova, 4.
This isn’t the family’s first rodeo. The Orange County party of five attended similar ceremonies at Irvine Valley College in 2023, when a just-turned-12-year-old Tycho earned his associate’s degree as the campus’ youngest graduate to date.
That record was broken the following year when Athena, then 11, walked the stage. But she wouldn’t hold the title for long; Zora just graduated with her associate’s degree last month.
Mom Christina Elling explained the kids’ educational journey when Tycho was in kindergarten and having a tough time with the other kids. They enrolled him in the online charter school Connections Academy. There, he could work at his own pace (super fast) and roll through multiple grades in a single year.
By the time he was 9, he’d taken all the math classes the curriculum could offer and so enrolled in community college, maxing out there as well before transferring to UC Irvine. Now, his sisters are following in his footsteps; while Athena is more interested in acting, dance and social sciences, Zora is a math whiz, just like her brother.
In fact, Tycho’s seat at classes in UCI’s math department will hardly have had a chance to cool before his 10-year-old sibling takes her brother’s place, starting with a couple of summer classes ahead of full enrollment in the fall.
“I think of this kind of as the ‘Tycho effect,” Christina Elling said of her children’s post-secondary pursuits. “Because Tycho had done it we felt a little more comfortable with the idea of Zora going.”
Despite the constant comings and goings from college classes to acting gigs to Taekwondo, the Ellings are a tight-knit family.
Evenings or weekends might find them playing board games together, and they are currently turning Tycho and Zora’s bedrooms into an escape room. Athena and Zora are working their way through the Top 100 most frequently banned books, while the family often reads or watches movies together.
Tim and Christina Elling don’t demand excellence from their children but do hold an expectation that their kids explore their interests and, when they land on something, give it their all.
“I think there are sometimes differences in nature, but so much comes down to nurturing and your environment,” Tim Elling said. “Different opportunities and what chances you get — that’s what makes such a big difference.”
“It’s the part you can control,” Christina agreed. “You can’t control the nature, like if you have allergies…”
“Or if your brother boops your nose,” Zora interjected, casting a sideways glance at Tycho.
“...but you can control the effort you put in and what your attitude is.”
Maybe that’s why, despite a pretty big age gap, Tycho doesn’t feel much disparity between himself and his older UCI classmates. Whether working in classrooms, doing labs or participating on a research project, his primary focus is math.
Coming to campus mainly on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, the teen worked his way from the graduate-level Complex Analysis at 9 a.m., through Partial Differential Equations, Probability, Number Theory and Differential Geometry and ending some days with a Logic Seminar, from 4 to 6 p.m.
If anyone on campus found it odd learning alongside someone whose age would place him in eighth or ninth-grade, Tycho wouldn’t know.
“I just don’t notice, or I try not to notice,” he said.
UCI Associate Professor Asaf Ferber began teaching Tycho two years ago and is now working on a research project with him. Ferber recalled first meeting the teen during office hours and being struck by his unbridled enthusiasm for the subject matter.
“He came to my office, this little kid,” he recalled Tuesday. “I asked him ‘what type of math do you like’ — I didn’t know his background knowledge, so wanted to give him some books to read based on his natural attraction. And he looked at me with a naive face and a little smile and said, ‘I love everything.’
“Even though he’s moving to USC, he’s still part of my group,” the professor continued. “I’m sure he will be amazing wherever he goes and whatever he decides to do.”
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