Newsletter #2, September 2007
Department News
Our annual student awards banquet was held
on April
11, 2007. Four
students received awards based on their overall Mathematics
achievements at
UTC: congratulations to
Candis Manns, Robert Griffin,
Marie-Christine Labrie,
and Shaun Walker
(pictured from left to right with Dr. Van der Merwe).
Robert Dacus won the Freshman Mathematics Exam. Two
incoming freshmen were awarded the Marjorie
Watson Mathematics
Scholarship: congratulations to Sarah Nelson and Bailey Touchton.
The Dorothy Dean
Shelton Mathematics Scholarship was renewed for Caitlin Harwood.
BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee
recently made some generous donations to our department. They are
co-sponsoring
the first UTC Mathematics Poster
Competition. This competition
for area high school students will be held on January 26, 2008 and
feature cash prizes in the ninth/tenth and eleventh/twelfth grade
levels. Additionally, this Chattanooga based insurance company
established a scholarship
valued at $16,000 (awarded as $4000 per year
for 4 years) for an incoming freshman to major in Mathematics at UTC.
Application information will be available shortly.
The Department recently hired a new full-time faculty member. We wish
to welcome Melissa Laeser who comes to us with an MS degree from the
Colorado School of Mines.
Three distinguished European professors graced our Colloquium
series: Dr. Miroslav Bartusek from the Czech Republic, Dr. Gennaro
Infante from
Italy and Dr. Jeff Webb from Scotland. All spoke on Differential
Equations.
Faculty News
Dr.
Ron Smith and Dr. John Graef spoke at international conferences this
past year. Dr. Smith gave the invited talk "Schur Complements and
Eigenvalue
Inequalities" in the mini-symposium "Schur Complements and Their
Applications" held in honor of Hans Schneider on his eightieth birthday
at the annual meeting of
the International Linear Algebra Society, July 16-20, in Shanghai,
China. His trip was supported by the Department, the Provost, and the
Faculty Development Committee. Photographs from China.
John Graef gave the invited lecture "Existence and Nonexistence of Positive Solutions of a Nonlinear Third Order Boundary Value Problem" at the Eighth Colloquium on the Qualitative Theory of Differential Equations that was held at the Bolyai Institute of Mathematics of the University of Szeged, in Szeged, Hungary, on June 25-28, 2007. The results presented were joint work done with Professor B. Yang of Kennesaw State University.
Several faculty members attended the Joint Mathematics Meetings in New
Orleans this January: Drs. David Ashe, Sharon Brueggeman, Betsy Darken,
John
Graef, and Irene Loomis. Drs. Aniekan Ebiefung, Lingju Kong, Mark
Loizeaux, Ronald
Smith,
and Lucas Van der Merwe also presented at national conferences.
The Mathematics Department faculty have been very prolific lately. So
far in 2007,
10 different faculty members have published a total of 21 papers. Please
see our publications
list.
Dr. Ron Smith and Dr. Ossama Saleh received a THEC Improving Teacher
Quality
Grant for $73,000 called Applications of Algebra and Statistics III.
During a five-day workshop, conducted this summer by Dr. Ron Smith and
Dr. Francesco Barioli, 24 in-service teachers were provided with the
methodology to enhance the teaching of algebra/statistics via real
world applications.
Student
News
Seven students were inducted into Pi
Mu Epsilon, Tennesse Beta Chapter, this April. The new members of this
national
honor society are: Casey Anderson, Isaac Antanaitis, Kristi Barker,
Nettie Halcomb, Ulyana Pugina, Daniel Varnell and Shaun Walker. Dan
Veal serves as the President and Robert Griffin as the President-Elect.
Dr. Lucas Van der Merwe is the faculty sponsor. At right is a picture
of
some of the PME members (Tony McDaniel, Dan Varnell, Nettie Halcomb,
Robert Griffin, and Shaun Walker).
On
31 March 2007, Samuel Chill presented the results of a semester
research project, titled "Radial Stress and Velocity for Granular Flows
in Hoppers", at the Fifth Annual Harriett J. Walton Symposium on
Undergraduate Mathematics Research at Morehouse College in Atlanta,
Georgia. Mr. Chill, a Chemistry major who is also working toward a
minor in Mathematics, conducted his research with Dr. John "Matt"
Matthews during the Spring 2007 semester.
Alumni News
Vincent Betro (BS 2001) finished his Master's degree at the UTC Sim
Center. He defended his thesis, "Parallel Hierarchical 2D Unstructured
Mesh Generation with General Cutting," on July 16.
Tracy Poole (BS 2002) married Adam Hughes on March 20 in St.
Thomas,
USVI. The couple boarded a Carnival Cruise ship from Port Canaveral and
sailed to Nassau, St. Thomas and St. Maarten. While docked in St.
Thomas, they were married at the Seacliff Terrace overlooking the ocean
at the Marriott Frenchman's Reef resort. Twenty-two close friends
and
family were in attendance.
Tony McDaniel (BS 2007) opened a portrait photography studio in
Cleveland, Tennessee. His website is http://www.tonymcdanielphoto.com/.
Alumni, if you have not yet done so, please fill out and submit
our
Alumni
Information Form.
Questions or comments about the Department may be
addressed to Math-mail@utc.edu .
This Newsletter was created by Sharon Brueggeman (September 2007).
