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Iowa Section of the Mathematical Association of America |
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| Call for papers | Elections | Campus Information | Lodging | Schedule and Abstracts | Preregistering |
The fall meeting of the Iowa Section of the Mathematics Association of America will feature Carlos Castillo-Chavez as our Polya Lecturer. Carlos is a mathematical epidemiologist at Arizona State and will give the Friday evening talk from 7-8pm. Michael Dorff will be our Section Visitor from the MAA and will speak on Saturday morning.
Carlos Castillo-Chavez
Arizona State University
Regents Professor
Director Simon A Levin Mathematical, Computational and Modeling Sciences Center
Epidemiology: Role of dynamic individual decisions during ongoing epidemic outbreaks
The lecture begins with a historical review of epidemic models and the concept of tipping point. We then revisit phenomenologically inspired modeling frameworks that account for the impact that single disease outbreaks have on the decisions that individuals make in response to real or perceived risk of infection. Finally, a behavioral framework where individual decisions are modeled as a function of tradeoffs made in response to self-assessed costs tied to present or future risks of infection, including those resulting from potential loss of benefits due to risk aversion decisions is introduced and implemented on a simplified population-level epidemic model. The impact of these decisions is illustrated in the context of a single influenza outbreak.
Michael Dorff
Brigham Young University
President-elect of the Mathematical Association of America
How Mathematics Is Making Hollywood Movies Better
What’s your favorite movie? Star Wars? Avatar? The Avengers? Frozen? What do these and all the highest earning Hollywood movies since 2000 have in common? Mathematics! You probably didn’t think about it while watching these movies, but math was used to help make them. In this presentation, we will discuss how math is being used to create better and more realistic movies. Along the way we will discuss some specific movies and the mathematics behind them. We will include examples from Disney’s 2013 movie Frozen (how to use math to create realistic looking snow) to Pixar’s 2004 movie The Incredibles (how to use math to make an animated character move faster). Come and join us and get a better appreciation of mathematics and movies.
As usual, we hope for a wide variety of talks from our own members. If you have something interesting to say about mathematics or teaching, contribute a talk and share with the rest of the section. Students (both undergraduates and graduates) are encouraged to participate.
Note: We are hoping to hold a special student session and we need your help! Please encourage your students to submit an abstract for a talk about their favorite problem, theorem, or mathematician. We do not expect work to be original to the student, but the presentation should be. We are especially interested in talks focused mathematicians who are minorities and their math.
Proposals for talks are due by September 21. Please use the electronic submission form, if at all possible. (Logging in first will make it easier, so you are encouraged to do so.) If you are unable to use the submission site, please send the following information to Angela Kohlhaas at Loras College - angela.kohlhaas@loras.edu:
Contact information for Angela Kohlhaas: Angela Kohlhaas, PhD Loras College 1450 Alta Vista St Dubuque, IA 52001 563.588.7152 angela.kohlhaas@loras.edu
We will be holding elections for a new vice-chair elect at the meeting. The candidates for vice-chair elect are Steve Butler (Iowa State) and Melissa Lindsey (Dordt).
Ross Sweet (Simpson) is the candidate for secretary.
Here is a link to a map of the Morningside College campus: https://www.morningside.edu/about-morningside/maps-and-directions/.
Parking is available at the Walker Science Center and Grace United Methodist Church parking lot (SE corner on the campus map), as well as the Garretson Lot, if needed.
Registration, concurrent sessions, and plenary addresses will be held in Buhler Rohlfs Hall, #19 on the campus map.
Iowa-NExT will be in the Maud Adams Conference Room in the Olsen Student Center, #6 on the campus map.
Hotel options: (Remember to tell them that you are with the Iowa Section of the MAA.)
A block of rooms has been reserved at the Comfort Inn, Wingate by Wyndham, and Delta Hotels by Marriott for Friday, October 5. There are many other hotels in town, including Holiday Inn, Hampton Inn, Days Inn, Super 8, etc. if you prefer different accommodations.
Comfort Inn Sioux City
4202 S Lakeport St, Sioux City, IA 51106
(712) 274-1300
$65.00 per night
Rooms in the Iowa MAA meeting block will be held until September 21.
Wingate by Wyndham Sioux City
4716 Southern Hills Dr, Sioux City, IA 51106
(712) 276-5600
$79.00 per night
Rooms in the Iowa MAA meeting block will be held until September 21.
Delta Hotels by Marriott South Sioux City
385 E 4th St, South Sioux City, NE 68776
(402) 494-4000
$104.00 per night
Rooms in the Iowa MAA meeting block will be held until September 21.
Here is a link to the schedule: Schedule
If you have questions, please contact the
Chair, Sergio Loch sloch@grandview.edu (for general issues);
Vice-Chair, Angela Kohlhaas angela.kohlhaas@loras.edu (for program issues);
Vice-Chair Elect, Chris Spicer spicer@morningside.edu (for local, on-site issues);
or Secretary, Susan Crook at susan.crook@loras.edu (for registration or other issues).
Thank you for considering preregistering for the upcoming meeting. This will save you time at the meeting, make it easier for our secretary at the meeting, and increase the efficiency in gathering the data that the MAA headquarters asks of us for each meeting (including gender, whether you are a presenter, and student/faculty/other status). When you come to the registration table at the meeting, indicate that you have already preregistered. Your name will be looked up from the list gathered from this registration tool and you will only need to pay the registration fee ($15) to complete the process. If you want to prepay using PayPal, this is done in the paragraph below. Preregistration takes place here. Note that you can use this page whether you are currently in our database or not (see below), but the process will be much easier if you already are.
The registration fee for those who have to pay (people who aren't students or invited speakers) is $15 and can be paid below. Note that this is a second step to the registration process.
We are trying to maintain an up-to-date database of all section members to provide better communication, save expenses on mailings, and help with the registration and proposal process. If you have not already updated your information, you may do so by using the log in page here. The credentials that you need here are your email and your password. If you forgot your password, you can always have it sent to by using the "I forgot my password" link on the log in page (log in). This assumes that you are in the system. If you are not sure if you are or not, check here. If you are not in the system, use the Contact menu there to send a message to request to be added.