CHAIRPERSON’S MESSAGE
It has been more than a year since the last
Newsletter. A few years back, we posted
the Newsletter in May. We have drifted that
direction again. The academic calendar
seems to keep us so busy during the winter months. This Newsletter will contain two full years
of information for student activities.
This past year, Don
Jurick passed away unexpectedly due to a heart
attack in October 2002. Don held a joint
appointment since 1994; he taught in the Department of Mathematics and he
served as the supervisor of MathSci Computer Learning
Environment. We remember Don in the
final section of this Newsletter.
A number of proposed initiatives are beginning to
develop. I can discuss two here, a new
program in financial mathematics and our efforts in Mathematics Education
initiatives; I hope we will have more in next year’s letter.
In March 2002, we were awarded a small grant from
the Council of Graduate Schools/Sloan Foundation (CGS/Sloan) to perform a
feasibility study with respect to a professional M.S. program in Financial
Mathematics. The Sloan Foundation
challenges academic units in the sciences to develop professional M.S. programs
to complement the MBA programs and the Management Science programs. We have been working with the Departments of
Economics & Finance, Computer Science, and Engineering Management &
Systems to develop a program in Financial Mathematics. Recently, we were awarded a second grant from
CGS/Sloan to implement this program. I
have posted an announcement and a proposed curriculum at http://academic.udayton.edu/PaulEloe/FINMTH.htm
for your perusal. I am happy to take any
input you might have. We need to seek
approval from the Ohio Board of Regents (OBOR); we are working with a calendar
to admit students to this program beginning August 2004.
We are actively developing the Mathematics Education
program for pre-service and in-service K-12 teachers. Becky Krakowski, with a Ph.D. in mathematics education from
We are in the construction stage of the renovated
We are in the process of planning the 4th
Schraut Memorial Lecture. This year we will organize a student
conference in conjunction with the 4th Schraut
Memorial Lecture. In addition, we will
host a dedication ceremony for the Schraut Memorial
Classroom. We have scheduled these
events for Saturday, November 1. You
will be informed as the plans develop.
Please contact me if you see anything misreported in
this newsletter. In an effort to use our
financial and material resources wisely, many of you receive the newsletter
electronically. Visit the web site, http://www.udayton.edu/~mathdept/,
(click on archives) to see the on-line version.
Thanks.
Paul
Eloe
THANKS!
Thank you for your generous support. In the past we have relied heavily on your
support so we can compete technologically.
Some of you have indicated that you are very interested to support
student activities. For example, ten
undergraduate students attended an Ohio Section MAA meeting in
Your
donations provide for prizes and refreshments as we initiate an annual event
that will get mathematics on the radar screen of first and second year
students. Finally, we intend to sponsor
a student conference in conjunction with the 4th Schraut
Memorial Lecture. Your generous support
will help sponsor the student conference.
Our records, in conjunction with those of the
University Advancement Office, indicate the following people have donated a
total of $7,925.00 to the Department of Mathematics during the year 2002:
Timothy
P. Bahmer (91) Mr.
& Mrs. George Morrison III (82)
Jonathan
E. Baniak (81) Mr.
& Mrs. Robert A. Niederhoff
Ronald
L. Beisel (63) Mr.
& Mrs. Edward Pekarek, Jr. (66)
Eugene
D. Bolzan (69) Jane
F. Pendergast (74)
Marcia
J. Boyle (74) Mr.
& Mrs. William J. Scharf (68)
Gregory
Campbell (70) Mr.
& Mrs. John J. Scheidt (66)
James
& Teresa Trimbach Dean (79) Mr. & Mrs.
Curtis Schultz (01)
David
(93) & Cheryl (92) Prenger Edelmann Mr. & Mrs. Richard G. Segers (50)
Paul
& Laura Schneider (84) Eloe Mr.
& Mrs. Randall J. Smith (77)
Susan
Miller Enyart (81) Robert
W. Springer (77)
Mr.
& Mrs. Michael J. Hartke (66) Kevin A. Thomas
(76)
Mr.
& Mrs. William J. Huster (78) Christopher A.
Wagner (71)
Mr.
& Mrs. Alexander I. Koler (64) Mr. & Mrs.
David R. McCubbin (70)
The
above total includes employee matching gifts from the following corporations
and foundations:
Cinergy Foundation Hewitt
Associates Principal
Financial Group Fnd.
Convergys Corp. IBM
Foundation The P & G Fund
Eli Lilly & Company LLC
Nielson Media Research Towers Perrin
Co.
THE KENNETH C. SCHRAUT MEMORIAL LECTURESHIP FUND
Thank you also for your generous support of the
Kenneth C. Schraut Memorial Lectureship Fund. This past fall, Paul Campbell (67) (see below) delivered the 3rd Kenneth C. Schraut
Memorial Lecture. The
Memorial Lecture has evolved into an annual event. Every second year, we will associate the
lecture with the Biennial Alumni Seminar. In alternate years, we intend to associate the
Lecture with a student conference. We
are currently in the planning stages for
Philip
& Kathy Kolesar-Aftoora (69) Paul J. Campbell
(67)
Richard
L (71) & Leslie Kirchmer Iannarino Mr. & Mrs. William J. Scharf (68)
Ronald
& Pamela Steinkirchner (76) C. Eugene Steuerle (68)
Daniel
T. Voss (79)
The
above total includes matching gifts from the following corporations and
foundations:
Lockheed
Martin Corporation
We also thank Mr. & Mrs. William J. Scharf (68) for a special donation to the Stander
Symposium. This donation complemented a
donation, reported in last year’s Newsletter, by the faculty members in the
Department of Mathematics in memory of Brother Joe to recognize excellence in
undergraduate research at the Stander Symposium.
A DAY OF MATHEMATICS CELEBRATION
On November 2, 2002, the Department of Mathematics
hosted the 20th Biennial Alumni Seminar. The day consisted of three functions, Conversations
Among Women in Mathematics (morning), the Biennial
Alumni Seminar (early afternoon), and the 3rd Kenneth C. Schraut Memorial Lecture (late afternoon). We have begun to make special efforts to
include more students in these activities.
In the past, the Alumni Seminar focused on the UD undergraduate
mathematics majors. This year we
included undergraduate students from several regional colleges and universities
as well as graduate students and high school students. The following alumni
participated in all or part of the day’s activities.
|
Marjorie
August (91) Kristin
Blenk Duncan (99) Thomas
Britt (85) Robert
Buck (69) Paul
Campbell (67) Scott
Ciolek (98) Teri
Trimbach Dean (79) Cheryl
Prenger Edelmann (92) Tom
Filloon (83) Tom
Gantner (62) |
Greg
Goodhart (85) Marla
Prenger Gross (90) Peter
Hovey (75) Julie
McCarthy (95) Scott
Mitter (01) Erich
Morman (96) Harry
Mushenheim (55) Ed
Mykytka (76) Mary
Kaczynski Ollier (87) Susan
Pratt (02) |
Youssef Raffoul
(87) Nancy
Roderer (68) Paula
Saintignon (82) Dan
Schauer (95) Betty
Schneider (65) Gerry
Shaughnessy (63) Fr.
Charles Stander (73) Ralph
Steinlage (62) Julie Suwalski
(92) Kathleen
Taylor (65) |
Conversations Among Women in Mathematics:
Conversations among Women in Mathematics was held during the morning
on Saturday, November 2, 2002. Wiebke Diestelkamp
and Aparna Higgins organized the event
with the help of a generous grant from The Women’s Center Programming Fund at
UD.
The program was a rousing success, fulfilling goals
of bringing together women in different stages of their mathematical careers,
promoting interaction between these women on both mathematical and
gender-related issues, and providing examples of UD alumnae who are in
positions of leadership in their professions.
The program took the form of a panel discussion on women in mathematics,
followed by a luncheon.
Forty people participated in Conversations among
Women in Mathematics. There were 13
alumnae (three of whom are also current mathematics faculty, and one is a high
school teacher), seven women faculty from the Department of Mathematics, nine
women high school students, four high school mathematics teachers, 11
undergraduate UD students (9 of them women), three women graduate students, and
a couple of male alumni and faculty. We
are grateful to the Mathematical Association of America, the Association for
Women in Mathematics and the American Statistical Association for providing us
with free or inexpensive information on careers and professions that use the
mathematical sciences. We included these
(along with information from various UD offices) in the registration packets
for the participants.
The panelists were Marla
Gross (’90), Senior Statistician, P &
G, Cincinnati, Nancy Roderer
(’68), Associate Professor in the Division of Health Sciences Informatics and
Interim Dean of University Libraries, Johns Hopkins University, Julie Suwalski
(’92), Mathematics Teacher, Northmont High School,
Clayton and Kathleen Taylor (’65), Professor of Mathematics and Assistant
Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Duquesne
University.
Each panelist spent 10-15 minutes talking about her
experiences as a woman in mathematics and as a graduate of our department. Each
woman provided some background as to why she chose mathematics to study, and
how she has benefited from that pursuit.
The overwhelming reasons for going into mathematics were the
encouragement and examples of fathers, uncles or teachers, and the benefits
always included the ability to think critically and logically, and to develop
problem-solving abilities. The audience
asked many questions about the panelists' jobs, about recruitment and retention
of women in mathematics careers, about keeping one's options open even as one
prepares to become a high school teacher, about which mathematics classes would
be most useful to take in college, and about balancing careers with
families. In fact, the conversation was
so lively that we had to interrupt it and request that we continue it in a new
venue -- the Barrett dining room -- where luncheon was arranged for us. We had
arranged the seating so that every table had a mix of high school students,
college students, college faculty and alumni. The conversations at the tables
never lagged. After lunch, most of the
participants attended the Biennial Alumni Seminar and the Annual Schraut Memorial Lecture.
With such a successful first-run, we hope to be able to make this a
biennial event. There certainly seems to
be a need for women in mathematics to get together and celebrate their
connections to each other and to mathematics, and to network with each
other.
20th
Biennial Alumni Seminar:
The format was much the same as in previous
years. We opened with a single session
and then broke to parallel sessions in which students could meet with alumni/ae from particular professions. We broke into 8 parallel sessions this
year. The sessions were:
Mathematics
& Business Mathematics
& Engineering
Coordinators: Coordinator:
Tom
Britt, Teri Trimbach Dean Ed Mykytka
Mathematics
& College Teaching Mathematics
& Statistics
Coordinators: Coordinators:
Paul
Campbell, Kathy Taylor Kristin
Blenk Duncan, Tom Filloon
Mathematics
& Service Mathematics
& High School Teaching
Coordinators: Coordinators:
Susan
Pratt, Charles Stander Becky
Krakowski, Scott Mitter
Mathematics
& Medicine Mathematics
& Others
Coordinator: Coordinator:
Dan
Schauer Nancy
Roderer
An important message to give to students is that a
strong background in mathematics truly opens doors to opportunities. The session, Mathematics & Others, is not
imaginatively named. Hopefully we will
do better by the 21st Alumni Seminar. Nancy Roderer serves as an Associate
Professor in the Division of Health Sciences Informatics and Interim Dean of
University Libraries at Johns Hopkins University. She was a very good sport with the title of
her session; she had much to say about the role of Information Technology in
the world of Library Science.
In the single session that preceded
the parallel sessions, several of the session coordinators gave short
presentations to entice students to their sessions. Due to time constraints, Mathematics &
Teaching and Mathematics & Statistics did not make presentations. The presenters were: Nancy Roderer (see
the above paragraph), Tom Britt,
who is an actuarial scientist with Nationwide in Columbus; Teri Dean, who has
held several management positions with P & G in Cincinnati; Ed Mykytka,
who chairs the Engineering Management & Systems program at UD; Susan Pratt, who works with the
database for a nonprofit organization in Columbus; and Dan Schauer, who is an Outcomes
Research and Clinical Effectiveness Fellow in the Cincinnati College of Medicine. He serves as his research group’s statistician. As we put the day’s events together, we
intended that students see the diversity that mathematics brings. The common themes of statistics and database
management through these presentations were remarkable. The UD faculty has much to learn from these
sessions as well.
Third Kenneth C. Schraut Memorial Lecture:
Following a social break, Dr. Paul J. Campbell (67), delivered the 3rd Kenneth C. Schraut Memorial Lecture.
After receiving an M.S. in algebra and a Ph.D. in mathematical logic
from Cornell University, he taught at St. Olaf
College in Minnesota before settling at Beloit College in Wisconsin where he is
currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer
Science. He has been the Reviews Editor
for Mathematics Magazine since 1977,
editor of The Undergraduate Mathematics
Applications Project (UMAP) Journal since 1984, and author for many years
of annual articles on mathematics for Encyclopædia
Britannica yearbooks. Paul delivered a
very enjoyable lecture on How to Keep Up with
Mathematics. The slides and references
for his talk can be found at
ftp://cs.beloit.edu/math-cs/Faculty/Paul%20Campbell/Public/Schraut
FACULTY UPDATE
Full Time Faculty
Atif Abueida, 2000 Peter Hovey, 2001 Shirley Ober,
1977
Wiebke Diestelkamp, 1998 Muhammad Islam, 1985 Darren
Parker, 2001
Shannon
Driskell, 2003 John
Kauflin, 1966 Youssef Raffoul, 1999
Stephanie
Edwards, 2001 Becky Krakowski, 2000 Paula
Saintignon, 1983
Paul
Eloe, 1980 Glen
Lobo, 1999 Qin Sheng, 2001
Bob
Gorton, 1969 Joe Mashburn, 1981 Gerry
Shaughnessy, 1967
Aparna Higgins, 1984 Harry
Mushenheim, 1965 Les
Steinlage, 1969
Part Time Faculty
Eric
Cheney, 1989 Robert
Finnegan, 1985 Scott Mitter, 2001
Cheryl
Edelmann, 1999 Karen
Mickel, 1992 Betty
Schneider, 1989
Professors Emeriti
Stanley
Back, 1998 Jerry Neff,
1999 Carroll Schleppi, 2001
Bill
Friel, 1999 Richard
Peterson, 1998 Ralph Steinlage, 2001
Tom
Gantner, 2001 Ben
Rice, 1998 Jerry
Strange, 1999
Jack
McCloskey, 2001
FACULTY ACTIVITIES
Publications:
Wiebke S. Diestelkamp and Jay H. Beder: On the
decomposition of orthogonal arrays, Utilitas
Mathematica, Vol. 61 (2002), 65-86.
Stephanie
Edwards and
S. Hellerstein:
Non-real zeros of derivatives of real entire functions and the Polya-Wiman conjectures, Complex Variables, 47, (2002),
25-57.
Paul Eloe, Yang Gao (01): The method of quasilinearization
and a three-point boundary value problem, J. Korean Math. Soc. 39 (2002), No.
2, 319-330.
Paul Eloe, J. Ehme,
J. Henderson: Upper and lower solution methods for
fully nonlinear boundary value problems, J. Differential Equations, 180 (2002),
51-64.
Paul Eloe, F.M. Atici,
B. Kaymakcalan: The
quasilinearization method for boundary value problems
on time scales, J. Math. Anal. Appl.
276 (2002), 357-372.
Aparna Higgins and Joseph A. Gallian: Research by Undergraduates is Hot!, FOCUS, Newsletter of the MAA, March 2002, 16-17.
Darren
Parker: On the coradical filtration of pointed coalgebras, Journal of Algebra, 255 (2002), 121-134.
Youssef Raffoul:
Uniform
asymptotic stability in linear Volterra systems with
nonlinear perturbation, Int. J. Differential Eqns, 6
(2002), 19-28.
Youssef Raffoul:
Positive
Solutions of three-point nonlinear second order boundary value problems, Elec.
J. Qualitative Theory of Differential Eqns., 15
(2002), 1-11.
Youssef Raffoul:
Positive
periodic solutions of nonlinear functional difference equations, Elec. J.
Differential Eqns., 2002 (2002), 1-8.
Youssef Raffoul, and Touhid M. Khandaker (01): Stability properties of
linear Volterra discrete systems with nonlinear
perturbation, J. Difference Eqns. and Appls., 8
(2002), 857-874.
Qin Sheng, and A. Khaliq,
Modified arc-length adaptive algorithms for degenerate reaction-diffusion
equations, Appl. Math. and
Comp., 126 (2002), 279-297.
Qin Sheng, R. D. Sudduth
and P. Yarala, Comparison of induction time and
crystallization rate for syndiotactic polystyrene,
Polymer Eng. Sci, 42 (2002), 694-706.
Qin Sheng and H. Cheng, On monotone adaptive algorithms for solving singular
reaction-diffusion equations, Proc. Second International Conf. on Neural,
Parallel, and Scientific Computations, 2 (2002), 233-236.
Qin Sheng, R.D. Sudduth,
R. Dugyala, J. Garber and K. Nichols, Computer
simulation of syndiotactic polystyrene
crystallization during injection molding, J. Injection Molding Technology, 6
(2002), 120-142.
Conferences and Other
Activities:
Atif Abueida organized a
Special Session in Graph and Design Theory 2003 Spring Central Section Meeting
of the AMS at Indiana University. Wiebke Diestelkamp, Darren Parker, and R. Sritharan
of the Department of Computer Science delivered invited talks. Atif has been
sponsored to participate in two separate DIMACS programs this summer, one at
Rutgers University and the other at the Illinois Institute of Technology. DIMACS is the Center for Discrete Mathematics
and Theoretical Computer Science; it represents a collaboration between
Wiebke Diestelkamp gave
a colloquium talk at
Stephanie Edwards
delivered a lecture in the Function Theory Seminar at Purdue University in
November 2002. Stephanie won an
Association for Women in Mathematics Mentoring Travel Grant for the Summer 2003. She will
visit her collaborator, Dr. Enid Steinbart, of
Georgia Tech University.
Aparna Higgins was an invited speaker at the Awards Day for the Michigan Mathematics
Prize Competition in March 2002, at Miami University’s Summer Undergraduate
Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in June, at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Undergraduate Conference in
March 2003, at Student Scholarship Day at Grand Valley State University and at
Calvin College in April 2003 on pebbling, demonic graphs and line graphs. She was also invited to present at the 5th
Annual Legacy of R. L. Moore Conference where she spoke on possible connections
between Project NExT, the Moore Method and
undergraduate research; she was invited to present one of the Honors Seminars
of Metropolitan Dayton in October; she was an invited speaker at the Ohio NExT meeting, where she spoke on recommending, refereeing
and reviewing. Aparna
and Joe Gallian presented their minicourse
on undergraduate research at the Joint Meetings of the AMS-MAA in San Diego in
2002 (with Stephen Hartke (99) joining them as
co-presenter) and in Baltimore in 2003. Aparna presented her annual course on undergraduate
research to the Project NExT Fellows during the Mathfest in Burlington in August 2002. She spent a week at the Park City
Mathematical Institute in July 2002, presenting a five-lecture sequence on
undergraduate research.
Pete Hovey
delivered papers at the 2002 Spring Research Conference on Statistics in
Industry in Ann Arbor and the 2002 Joint Statistics Meetings in New York. He is currently organizing an ASA conference
at UD in June 2003.
Muhammad Islam gave talks at Differential
Equations conferences at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in May
2002 and at the University of Tennessee in October 2002.
Becky Krakowski
as PI, won a $200,000 award from the Ohio Board of
Regents. She has coordinated a partnership
with UD, Wright State, the Dayton Public Schools, and the Springfield Public
Schools in the program Mathematics and
Physical Science Professional Development Project for Secondary Teachers. A partial list of the goals
of the program are to enhance teacher understanding of content in
mathematics and science, of research-based methods to improve student
achievement, of effective use of technology in teaching, and of integration of
mathematics and science.
Darren Parker has
lectured in the Discrete Mathematics Seminar at Wright State and he has
delivered talks at a Special Session of the AMS in Madison in October 2002, at
the Midwest Graph Theory Conference at Illinois State in September 2002 and at
Southeastern International Conference on Combinatorics,
Graph Theory and Computing at Florida Atlantic University in March 2002.
Youssef Raffoul gave a talk at a Special Session of the
American Mathematical Society in Portland in June 2002 and he delivered a colloquium
presentation at Wright State University in January 2003. He also organized a Special Session on
Difference Equations and Applications at an International Conference on
Dynamical Systems and Differential Equations at the University of North Carolina,
Wilmington in May 2002.
Qin Sheng
delivered
colloquium presentations at Western Illinois University, the University of
Louisiana, Lafayette, and the National University of Singapore. He was an invited speaker at the Second
International Conference on Neural, Parallel and Scientific Computations in
Atlanta as well. Qin
co-organized with Paul Eloe a Special Session in Nonlinear Analysis and
Computation, Bloomington, Indiana, April 2003.
Qin, Muhammad Islam, Mariette Maroun, and Youssef Raffoul gave
talks. Eric Kauffmann (91),
currently an associate professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock,
also delivered a lecture in this session.
Departmental
members continue their service to the mathematics community. Bill Friel continues as Secretary-Treasurer of the Ohio
Section of the MAA, and Tom Gantner served as the Ohio Section’s Past-President and
Chair of the Teaching Awards committee. Aparna Higgins continues as a co-director of Project NExT, and serves on several committees of the MAA, including
the Committee on Site Selection, the Committee on Professional Development and
the Alder Awards committee. She was
elected to the Nominating Committee of the MAA, and completed her term on the
subcommittee on undergraduate research.
SABBATICAL: Gerry Shaughnessy spent the entire 2001-2002 academic year on
sabbatical leave. Gerry spent a large
part of time on sabbatical working as a statistician for UDRI. He worked with a team on a project that is
developing procedures for Retrogression and Re-Aging (RRA) of corrosion prone
aircraft parts. His efforts focused on
statistically designing experiments to support the project. He developed a model to predict tensile strength
from an in-situ RRA treatment; he presented these results at a meeting of the
Canadian Research Council.
Now
that Gerry has returned to the classroom, he incorporates this experience to
participate in a large experimental project into the statistics classroom. He worked on another project on sabbatical
that he incorporates into the classroom.
He employed the Visual Basic Macro language within Excel to “unconfound” effects from experimental data generated by an
orthogonal array with a small number of experimental runs. Gerry is head coach for the UD handball
team. This has nothing to do with his
sabbatical, but it is certainly newsworthy.
UNDERGRADUATE ACTIVITIES (during the 2001/2002 and the 2002/2003 years)
Putnam Exam
Mark
Burky and Gayatri
Gunda participated in the
William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition in both 2001 and 2002. They were joined by Joel Helton and James Goodman in 2001 and by Steven Abrams, Steven Buck,
Kari Blaeser, and Christopher Ryan in 2002.
Mathematics Modeling Competition
A
team of Mark Burky,
Michael Grote, and Gaytri Gunda spent a weekend in February 2002
to participate in the UMAP Mathematical Modeling Competition. In this competition, the team is given two
problems on Friday at noon. The team
then chooses one problem and must complete the work with the envelope dated
midnight, on the following Monday. This
year’s team produced “The Development of a Mathematical Model to make the
Height of the Water Output of a Fountain a Function of Wind Velocity to Prevent
the Spraying of Those Walking Nearby.”
High School
Mathematics Competition
The MAA Student Chapter and the Pi Mu
Epsilon chapter organize an annual high school mathematics competition. This is an impressive undertaking. In addition to writing the questions and
checking the answers, the UD students seek sponsors to support lunch and
T-shirts for the high school participants, and arrange an awards ceremony. Julia Tosi coordinated The Sixth Annual University of Dayton
High School Math Competition in March 2002, in which 140 high school students
on 47 teams from 10 schools participated.
Kolleen Hryb
coordinated the Seventh Annual Competition in 2003, which had 115 high school
students on 39 teams representing 7 schools.
In 2002, students who wrote problems and prepared for the contest
included Chris Bomba,
Marcy Carew, Chuck DeRee,
Shelly Franz, Gayatri Gunda,
Mike Grote, Kolleen Hyrb, Stephanie Lindsey, Susan Pratt, and Chunlei Zhang. In 2003, these tasks were
performed by Suzanne Dietz, Alisa
Godfrey, Jason Inkrott, Stephaney
Lindsey, Melissa Lovesky, David Martin, Peri Shereen, and
Becky Snyder. Joining these students to help out on the day
of the contest were David Martin and
Tara Bertke
in 2002, and Tony Ball, Gayatri Gunda, Laura Riepenhoff and Emma
Stull in 2003. David Martin designed the T-shirt each year, and in 2003 he also
designed a logo for the Department of Mathematics. Becky Krakowski (in 2002) and Stephanie Edwards (in 2003) were invited to address the
participants. Over the two-year period,
the following organizations have provided their generous sponsorship of this
competition: the Department of
Mathematics, the Honors and Scholars Program, the Office of Admissions, Food
Services, the Bookstore, the Student Alumni Council – all from UD, and the Day Air Credit
Union, The Greek House, Jimmy John’s, Papa John’s and United Dairy Farmers.
SUMMER PROGRAMS
Gayatri Gunda participated in the
George Washington University Summer Program for Women in Mathematics (SPWM) in
the summer of 2002. This is a five-week
intensive program for mathematically talented undergraduate women who are
completing their junior year and may be contemplating graduate study in the
mathematical sciences. During the summer
of 2003: Peri Shereen
will participate in the SPWM at GWU; Pam Smith obtained
an internship at Mission Research Corporation to work on parallel processing
problems; Ben Johnson will attend an
NSF-Research Experiences for Undergraduates program in physics at the
University of Toledo; Kolleen Hyrb will be a resident
assistant at the Pre-College Programs at Wright State University; Gayatri Gunda will study in Spain and compare K-12
education in the USA and Spain.
MATH CLUB Guest
Presentations
Dr. Tom Filloon
(82) spoke
on career opportunities for statisticians on October 25, 2001. Tom works as a statistician for P & G in
Cincinnati.
Dr. Hans Fischer, Katholische Universitat
in Eichstatt, Germany, on leave at Xavier University,
spoke on the History of the Normal Distribution on November 12, 2001. Earlier
that day, Hans gave a lecture entitled Quality Management in Mathematics Education
that was well attended by pre-service teachers.
Julia Tosi
(02) spoke
on her experiences related to a summer internship at P & G prior to her
senior year on November 29, 2001. Tom Filloon (82)
was instrumental in arranging the internship and served as Julia’s supervisor.
Dr. Rich Stankewitz, Pennsylvania State
University at Erie, spoke on Fractal Image Compression on January 3, 2002. (Rich is now at Ball State University,
Muncie, IN)
Honors Program
Chris Bomba
worked with
Joan Hart on a project entitled
“Weak Associative Laws in Quasigroups.” In August 2001, Chris attended the MathFest of the MAA in Madison, Wisconsin.
Marcy Carew
double
majored in mathematics and electrical engineering. She worked with Dr. Malcolm Daniels of the
Department of Electrical Engineering; she wrote a thesis entitled “Transform Methods and Induction Machine
Analysis.”
Susan
Pratt majored in applied mathematical economics. This is a fairly recent program that combines
the strengths of mathematics and economics.
She worked with Dr. Barbara John of the Department of Economics &
Finance; she wrote a thesis entitled “Is Forgiveness the Cure? An Empirical Analysis of
External Debt in Sub-Saharan
Julia
Tosi double majored in
mathematics and economics. She worked
jointly with Paul Eloe and Dr. Marc Poitras of
the Department of Economics & Finance; she wrote a thesis entitled “Results in Social Choice
Theory, and a Mathematical Framework in Which They Can Be Viewed.”
Gayatri Gunda is double majoring in
mathematics and chemical engineering.
She is working with Aparna Higgins on pebbling in directed graphs.
The Bro. Joseph W. Stander
Symposium for Undergraduates
Several
posters were presented by mathematics majors at the 2002 Brother Stander Symposium. Chris
Bomba, Marcy Carew, Susan
Pratt, and Julia Tosi each presented posters
related to work in their respective Honors Theses. Mark Burky, Mike Grote and Gayatri Gunda presented a
poster related to their work in the Mathematics Modeling Competition. In last year’s letter, we mentioned that
Awards for Excellence would be given to outstanding posters in honor and memory
of Brother Stander. Susan Pratt earned the Award for Excellence in Interdisciplinary
Studies.
Several
posters were presented by mathematics majors at the 2003 Stander Symposium. Steve Buck, Gayatri Gunda, and David Martin each
presented posters. Steve, who double majored
in International Studies, presented
a poster entitled “Ethics and Sustainable Developments.” Gayatri, who double majors in Chemical Engineering, presented a poster
related to her work in the Honors Program with thesis advisor, Aparna Higgins. She is working on problems in pebbling on
directed graphs. David, who double majors in Computer
Science, presented a poster as part of a team developing softbots
(software robots) that play soccer.
Ohio Section Meeting of the MAA
The Ohio Section Meeting of the Mathematical
Association of America (MAA) held its spring meeting Friday-Saturday 4-5 April
2003 on the campus of The Ohio State University. Six undergraduate students delivered
15-minute talks. The speakers and titles
of talks are:
Patrick Berarducci,
“Modeling viral diseases using differential equations;”
Diana DeOnofrio,
“Modeling infectious diseases using differential equations;”
Nicholas Elam,
“Becoming a paper, rock, scissors champion;”
David Martin,
“Teaching softbot agents to think;”
Christopher Ryan,
“A comparison of models for falling objects;”
Peri Shereen, “Product graphs
and sum graphs.”
Kolleen Hryb, Jason Inkrott,
Benjamin Johnson, and Pamela Smith attended
the meeting.
Academic Honor Roll
Andy Bentley was named to the Pioneer
Football League Fall 2002 Academic Honor Roll.
This Honor Roll consists of student-athletes who participate in football
and post a 3.0 GPA or higher while enrolled full-time in accordance with NCAA
rules. Andy was one of the 48 Football
Flyers on the Honor Roll.
Long Distance
Learning Initiative
Don Jurick
(82),
before his sudden death, was leading the way in the department with respect to
long distance learning initiatives. He
worked closely with Gayatri Gunda to
develop online tutoring
capabilities. With the use of software
packages, smartboard technology, and learning spaces
in the UD Lotus Space environment, Gayatri would
tutor students who were studying in their dorm rooms. A full length article appeared in the UD
Quarterly to highlight their activities.
The department’s long distance tutoring efforts are currently on hold,
but we have plans to continue developing them in the near future.
AWARDS
Christopher Bomba won the 2002 Faculty Award for Excellence in
Mathematics. This award goes to a
graduating student and is determined by the faculty in the Department of
Mathematics.
Gayatri Gunda won the
2002 Pi Mu Epsilon Award. This award goes to a second year student and
is determined by the faculty in the Department of Mathematics.
Christa Marie Hemmelgarn won the 2002 Brother Joseph W. Stander, S.M., Award
of Excellence in Mathematics Education.
This award goes to a graduating student and is determined by the faculty
in the School of Education.
Julia Marie Tosi won the 2002 Dr. E.B. O’Leary Award of Excellence
in Economics. This award goes to a
graduating student and is determined by the faculty in the Department of
Economics & Finance.
Mark Burky won the
2003 Faculty Award for Excellence in Mathematics.
Pamela Smith won the 2003 Pi Mu Epsilon Award.
GRADUATE ACTIVITIES
Youssef Dib earned an MS degree in applied mathematics in May
2002. Youssef worked
with Youssef
Raffoul for his
Math Clinic project. He wrote a paper,
joint with Raffoul, entitled “Boundedness
and stability in nonlinear discrete systems with nonlinear perturbation.” This work will appear in Difference Equations
and Applications. Mariette Maroun earned an MS degree in May 2003. Mariette worked
with Youssef Raffoul on “Periodic solutions in neutral nonlinear
difference equations with delay.” She
presented her results at a Special Session of the American Mathematical Society
in Bloomington Indiana April 6 2003 .
Muhammad Mia and
Ghazi Al-Eid are
working with Muhammad Islam on “Boundedness and Stability in nonlinear Volterra
integrodifferential equations” for their Math Clinic
projects. They will present a joint talk
at the 4th International Conference on Dynamic Systems and
Applications in Atlanta University of Tennessee Knoxville University of North
Carolina
RECENT GRADUATE ACTIVITIES
2002 GRADS
Christopher
Bomba is enrolled in the Ph.D. program
in mathematics at
Michelle
Franz teaches mathematics at
Susan
Pratt works
for Americorps *