Mathematics News Archive

John H. Conway spoke at ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ on Wednesday, April 17, 2013 at 12:15pm in Kiely Hall 270. He spoke about the calendar and explained howÌýhe is able to determine the day of the week of any date in history.ÌýThanks to all who joined us!

Masters student Jung Suk Do presented her research on the Combinatorics of Flower Arrangements at the annual Sigma Xi conference on Thursday, March 14, 2013—Pi day! Her research was done as part of a final project in Professor Hanusa’s Combinatorics class. Congratulations!

Dr. Arthur Benjamin is both a professor of mathematics and a magician, and he performed his “Mathemagics” show for the ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ community on Friday, March 1, 2013 in the LeFrak Concert Hall. This presentation was held as part of ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ’s 75th anniversary celebration and is sponsored by the Division of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. More information about Prof. Benjamin can be found at http://www.math.hmc.edu/~benjamin/mathemagics/Ìý

There will be “Hyperbolic Geometry and Teichmuller Theory” conference at Hunter College, CUNY on Sep. 14-15, 2012 which is supported by NSF. The Scientific committee consists of Ara Basmajian, Francis Bonahon and Associate Professor of Mathematics, Dragomir Saric. The aim of the conference is to assemble some of the leading experts to present the most recent developments in low dimensional geometry and topology. Hunter College is located on 68th street and Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, New York. The conference will be held in the historicÌý, located a few blocks from the college at 47-49 East 65th street. The conference url isÌý.

Assistant Professor Christopher Hanusa received the 2012 Award for Distinguished Teaching from the Metropolitan New York Section of the Mathematical Association of America.Ìý Congratulations Professor Hanusa!

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UmussaharÌýKhatri recently accepted a five year fellowship from the Math for America program. As a Math for America fellow, Ms. Kahtri will earn a masters degree in Mathematics Education through the current partner, City College, in her first year. For the next four years she will work at a NYC public school as a mathematics teacher, with continued professional support from Math for America.

Todd Gaugler has been selected to participate in the 2012 summer Research Experience for Undergraduates program at the University of Michigan. Todd will work with Dr. Robert Griess, studying finite groups and positive definite rational lattices.

On March 12, 2012, three young professionals participated in a town hall discussionÌýwith ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ students about “What can you do with a Math Major?”. The speakers were Tina Chang, who works as a statistician and statistical programmer for pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, Benjamin Baumer, who works as a statistician for the NY Mets, and Matthew Fried, who is putting together a hedge fund.

This event was organized as part of the Department’sÌýColloquiumÌýseries.

For the second year in a row, ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ was represented at the Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Competition. Ìý On April 21, 2012, ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ seniors Michael Chon and Amy Lee presented their work on “Solving Multivariate Functional Recurrences”, under the guidance of Assistant Professor of Mathematics Christopher Hanusa.

This trip was supported by ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ’sÌýUndergraduate Research and Mentoring EducationÌý(UR/ME) grant.

On March 22, 2012, three ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ undergraduates presented their research in the annual Sigma Xi poster session on campus. Seniors Michael Chon and Amy Lee presented their work onÌýSolving Multivariate Functional RecurrencesÌýand Junior Todd Gaugler presented his work onÌýApollonian CircleÌýPackings.Ìý Great work!

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For the second year in a row, six ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ undergraduates participated in theÌýÌýin February 2012, supervised by Assistant Professor of Mathematics Christopher Hanusa. ÌýThis an intense, four-day international mathematical competition in which teams of three students work together to analyze a real-world situation mathematically and write up their results.

The team of Aditya Kumarakrishnan, Arun Kumarakrishnan, and Jeremy Rauch developed tools for analyzing criminal networks while the team of Josephine Caporusso, Eugene Lebedev, and Kristina Troha investigated the optimal way to set up camps for white water rafting. Congratulations to all our student participants!

On Saturday, December 3, 2011, eight ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ undergraduates participated in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition, more than have participated in one sitting in twenty years!

The Putnam Competition is a very difficult six-hour examination with topics ranging throughout mathematics. Congratulations to all our student participants!

Associate Professor Dragomir Saric has received an NSF continuing grant for three years for his research in hyperbolic geometry and complex analysis.Ìý This grant also funds participation of graduate students and undergraduates.

This grant is in addition to his Simons Foundation Collaboration Grant for Mathematicians for collaboration, travel, and research.Ìý

ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ undergraduate Todd Gaugler presented “Applications of the L2Ìýtransform to Partial Differential Equations” at the 18th annualÌýHudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference, at Skidmore College. This talk was a summary of Todd’s research over the past year, showing new methods for solving certain PDE’s, using a variation of the Laplace transform.

This trip was supported by ºì¶¹ÊÓƵ’sÌýUndergraduate Research and Mentoring EducationÌý(UR/ME) grant.Ìý