ISMAA - 2022 Annual Meeting

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The 2022 Annual Meeting of the Illinois Section of the MAA

The ISMAA is pleased to announce that its 100th meeting will be March 25 & 26, 2022 at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. In addition to the traditional in-person experience, we will also have a virtual option for those wishing to participate remotely; registration for the virtual alternative will be at a reduced rate. This option will include live-streams of the plenary presentations and the business meeting.

Meeting Highlights

This year's conference will include:

Please check back soon. Additional information will be posted as it becomes available.

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Meeting Schedule & Abstracts

The conference will take place on Friday, March 25 and Saturday, March 26. The detailed meeting schedule and abstracts are available in PDF format:

Below is an overview of the meeting schedule.

Friday, March 25, 2022

Saturday, March 26, 2022

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Plenary Talks

Sumanth Swaminathan
Co-founder of Vironix
Opening Plenary, 1:00pm - 1:50pm on Friday, March 25
Machine-learning methods and patient data generation schemes for remote detection and monitoring of Health Deterioration due to Lung & Heart Illness

The 2020 Covid-19 pandemic heavily accelerated the adoption of telemedicine and remote care services to reduce infection spread and protect essential workers. This has created a new climate of remote-care opportunities to tackle long-standing public health problems endemic to respiratory illness. Acute health deterioration events (exacerbations) due to chronic lung disease account for ~200,000 annual deaths and $70 billion of an astounding $130 billion in annual US direct costs. Hospitalizations from heart failure exacerbations account for 6.5 million hospital days, the leading cause of hospitalization in the USA and Europe. The lack of accurate, automated, and personalized approaches for self-identification and early care of these illnesses has led to unnecessary healthcare utilization, increased morbidity, and missed opportunities for timely therapeutic intervention. Moreover, at present, there are no scalable technologies for identifying early-onset illness at home.

Here, we describe a machine-learning approach to classifying and triaging health deterioration events due to chronic and infectious illness. Algorithms are trained to consume patient health data inclusive of symptoms, consumer-available biometric data, and patient profile/demographic info. Novel simulation schemes are used to generate clinically diverse, statistically comprehensive patient scenarios that form the train and test datasets for machine-learning classifiers. Classifiers take an input of patient health data and return an assessment of both the existence and severity of health downturns. Performance studies on the machine-learning classifiers indicate superior accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity in making predictions when compared to standard-of-care.

Talithia Williams
Harvey Mudd College
Evening Plenary, 7:50pm - 8:45pm on Friday, March 25
Power in Numbers: The Rebel Women of Mathematics

The movie "Hidden Figures" brought visibility to the lives of African American women who served as NASA "human computers" in the 1960s, women who dreamed the impossible in a field where their presence was lacking. When it comes to inspiring the future productivity and innovation of our nation, women mathematicians are on the front lines. In this talk, I'll discuss my personal journey as a woman of color in mathematics and share ways we can excite public interest in mathematics, building upon the rich legacy of the Hidden Figures that have come before us. As we shift the fixed mindset around mathematics ability, we can begin conversations that improve public perception of STEM and bring people from all backgrounds into this important work.

James Sellers
University of Minnesota Duluth
Morning Plenary, 8:30am - 9:30am on Saturday, March 26
On Euler's Partition Theorem Relating Odd-Part Partitions and Distinct-Part Partitions

In the mid-18th century, Leonhard Euler single-handedly began the serious study of integer partitions and made fundamental contributions to the area for the next few decades. In particular, he proved a remarkable result which says that the number of partitions of the integer n into distinct parts equals the number of partitions of n into odd parts. My goal in this talk is to discuss Euler's impressive work on partitions, including snapshots of historical (original) publications of Euler, and then to describe numerous 20th and 21st century results which spring from Euler's original result. The talk will be self-contained and geared for both students and faculty alike.

Brittany Stephenson
Lewis University
Closing Plenary, 12:00pm - 1:00pm on Saturday, March 26
Mathematical Modeling: Finding A Balance Between Reality and Utility

In the study of disease transmission, mathematical modeling has become an important practical tool. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have used models to predict the course of the Ebola epidemic and now that of COVID-19. What are mathematical disease models and how are they created? In this talk, I will begin with an overview of the modeling process and then describe the creation of different types of models, including both differential equations models and agent-based models. We will discuss the pros and cons of modeling and learn what George Box means by "All models are wrong, but some are useful."

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Conference Workshop

This year's pre-conference workshop, titled "Advising Mathematics Students Academically and Professionally", will be led by James Sellers from University of Minnesota Duluth at 10:00am - 12:00pm on Friday, March 25. Dr. Sellers's abstract can be found below:

For many mathematics faculty members, advising is a fundamental task. Yet, there is usually no training in this area for graduate students while they are earning their degrees. This was my personal experience as I left graduate school and became a college professor. With this in mind, my goal is to discuss a variety of issues surrounding advising of undergraduate students. This includes "pre-advising" (such as working with high school students and parents), advising of undergraduates considering a change to the mathematics major, advising of mathematics majors, and professional advising of mathematics students (as they look to their future after graduation). I will also share a variety of resources that will hopefully prove useful to you.

Please note that advance registration is required for participation in this workshop. Please select this option when completing your conference registration.

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Registration Information

We will stream the plenary talks and the business meeting for those of you who prefer to attend online. This option costs $10. Early registration for in-person attendance is $40, the workshop is $20, and the banquet is $30. On-site registration is $45. Banquet tickets and workshop tickets may not be available to onsite registrants.

If the meeting changes from in person to virtual, all talks will be online. Those who registered for in-person attendance will be switched to virtual attendance. You'll receive a link shortly before the conference, and you will receive a refund for all payment above $10.

Online registration is through EventBrite. If you choose to register online, you will need to pay by credit card. When you register, you will need to choose the appropriate ticket from EventBrite. Before you go to the registration site, decide whether you're attending the workshop and/or banquet in addition to the meeting. You should also check with your department to see whether your institution is planning to be an institutional sponsor of the MAA this year. Once you know these things, you can choose the ticket type that fits your situation. You will also be asked to confirm that you will follow the MAA Code of Conduct and the MAA Covid Safety Protocols.

If you prefer to pay by check, you can mail your registration form and payment to Pat Kiihne, ISMAA Secretary/Treasurer, Illinois College, 1101 West College Avenue, Jacksonville, IL 62650.

The last day for early registration is Friday March 4. If you mail in your registration form and you're worried it might not arrive in time, email Pat Kiihne (pkiihne@ic.edu).

Please note that all conference participants are expected to adhere to the following MAA policies:

If you have any questions about registration, please contact Pat Kiihne (pkiihne@ic.edu).

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Section NExT

Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching) is a professional development program of the MAA. This program is designed to support new college faculty in their teaching, scholarly, and professional activities and to help these new faculty members to get involved in the mathematical community beyond their own institutions. The success of Project NExT on the national level has prompted some MAA sections, including the Illinois section, to organize their own local versions of this program, called Section NExT.

The annual ISMAA Section NExT Program will be held in conjunction with the ISMAA Annual Meeting, this year held at Millikin University in Decatur on March 25-26, 2022. Anyone within their first four years of teaching mathematics (after finishing a master's or doctoral degree) at any two or four-year college or university in Illinois is eligible, as well as any graduate students at universities in Illinois who are completing their PhD this year and have a position in Illinois for the upcoming academic year. Newly selected ISMAA Section NExT Fellows will have their meeting registration, pre-conference workshop registration, banquet fees, and Friday lunch paid for by the ISMAA for the 2022 and 2023 ISMAA Annual Meetings.

The Section NExT Program will begin on Friday morning (March 25, 2022), with the pre-conference workshop. This year's workshop "Advising Mathematics Students Academically and Professionally", will be led by James Sellers from University of Minnesota Duluth. The workshop is followed by an opening lunch during which new ISMAA NExT Fellows will have an opportunity to get to know one another as well as other Section NExT Fellows and national NExT Fellows. The ISMAA Section NExT program will conclude on the morning of Saturday, March 26, 2022, preceding the closing address of the ISMAA meeting. The topic for the Saturday morning round table discussion will be determined by interest of the Fellows.

Please send your application to Emily Olson at ejolson@millikin.edu Application materials for ISMAA Section NExT Fellows can be accessed via the links below.

ISMAA Section NExT Application (MS Word)
ISMAA Section NExT Application (pdf)

For further information, please contact the Coordinator for the ISMAA Section NExT Program:

Emily Olson
Department of Mathematics and Computational Sciences
Millikin University, Decatur, IL
Email: ejolson@millikin.edu

The application deadline for the 2022 ISMAA Section NExT Fellows is March 4, 2022.

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Business Meeting

The annual business meeting of the section will be held at 5:00pm - 6:00pm on Friday, March 25 in University Commons Ballroom B (3rd floor). Conference participants may attend the business meeting in-person or virtually.

The business meeting agenda includes approval of the minutes of the 2021 meeting and election of board members. A copy of the unapproved minutes of the 2021 meeting is available for review.

The section must also vote on the Statement on the Geometry Requirement for the Mathematics for Elementary Teaching Sequence as well as the updated course descriptions for College Algebra, Trigonometry, and College Algebra/Trigonometry for the articulation guide.

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Local Information

Parking & Directions

Hotels

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