Adrian College
[reported by Cindy Bosio]Teresa Swindle has joined the department as the developmental mathematics instructor. [cbosio@adrian.edu]Albion College
[reported by Robert Messer]Kristen Schemmerhorn and Jason Williford are Visit. Assist. Profs. at Albion C during the 2004–2005 academic year. Kristen received her bachelor’s degree from Dordt C in Sioux Center, Iowa and recently finished her Ph.D. in algebraic topology from Northwestern University. Jason earned his undergraduate degree from the U of Pennsylvania and received his Ph.D. from the U of Delaware with a specialization in graph theory. • Visit www.albion.edu/MathCS/Colloquium.asp for a schedule of upcoming speakers in the weekly colloquium series. [ram@albion.edu]Alma College
[reported by Mel Nyman]Aklilu Zeleke has returned from sabbatical. He spent a productive year working on his research in the Probability and Statistics Department at MSU. • Our department will host the Michigan Section annual meeting Friday–Saturday, 29–30 April 2005. [nyman@alma.edu]Alpena Community College
[reported by Dan Rothe]We have begun another busy semester in the Math/Science Department at ACC. We are pleased to announce the hiring of Jennifer Maki as a new chemistry instructor. From time to time, her teaching load may include some math classes. • Three new engineering classes are running this year: Engineering Graphics Communication (a combination of two former engineering drawing classes), Mechanics of Materials, and Dynamics. We look forward to a rewarding semester. [rothed@alpenacc.edu]Calvin College
[reported by Daryl Brink]Gerard Venema is on sabbatical for this academic year at MSU. Mike Bolt has joined the department as Assist. Prof. Randy Pruim is continuing his sabbatical at UM-Ann Arbor. Gene Klaasen has rejoined the department after 14 years as Visit. Prof. of Mathematics at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. [brkd@calvin.edu]Central Michigan University
[reported by Ahmed Assaf]Katrina Piatek-Jimenez is a new faculty member in mathematics education. Her Ph.D. Is from the U of Arizona. She also was named a Project NExT Fellow for 2004–2005. Azita Manouchehri received her tenure, and Peter Vermiere was promoted to Assoc. Prof. Sid Graham is on sabbatical. He is at the American Institute of Math in Palo Alto, CA for the Fall. Siviram Narayan is one of the two winners of the Distinguished Teaching Award in the college of Science and Technology. • The following are the outside speakers at the colloquium: Peter Hilton and Jean Pederson, Roger Hoerl, statistician from GE, Sylvia Hobert from the U of Wyoming. [assaf1am@cmich.edu]Eastern Michigan University
[reported by Tim Carroll]John Curran has joined our faculty as an Assist. Prof. and will coordinate our actuary program. Chris Hee, Dave Johnson, and Karen Holmes have retired. • Peter Hilton (“Breaking Codes in WWII”) and Jean Pederson (“How Polya Viewed His Own Enumeration Theorem”) spoke in October. • Barb Leapard received the University Teaching Excellence Award. • A graduate interdisciplinary program in Bioinformatics has been created. • A Lecture series in Mathematics across the Disciplines continues into its second year. • Joanne Caniglia and Elaine Richards have received a Michigan Department of Education Teacher Quality Grant. [timothy.carroll@emich.edu]Ferris State University
[reported by Jim Howard]Last spring Bakodirzhon Siddikov was promoted to Assoc. Prof. Art Sherwood was awarded a merit raise and Joseph Tripp received tenure. [JamesHoward@ferris.edu]Grand Valley State University
[reported by Paul Fishback]Matt Boelkins was awarded tenure and promoted to Assoc. Prof. Karen Novotny was promoted to Prof. Sabbaticals have been granted to Steve Schlicker (Fall, 2004), Jane Mays (Winter, 2004), and Matt Boelkins (2004–2005 Academic Year). The department welcomes four new faculty to its ranks: as Assist. Prof., Steven Blair (Ph.D. in Mathematics Education, Portland State U); Shelly Smit (Ph.D. in Mathematics, Arizona State U); and Manish Chakrabarti (Ph.D. in Mathematics, U of Wisconsin-Madison); and as Assoc. Prof., Matt Wyneken (Ph.D. in Mathematics, UM-Ann Arbor). Matt was formerly a faculty member at UM-Flint. • GVSU hosted an NSF-sponsored REU program during summer 2004. The program joined with the REU programs at CMU and at Hope C for the Michigan Summer Undergraduate Conference, hosted by Hope in July. The REU program will run again at GVSU in 2005, funding pending. For more information, see www.gvsu.edu/mathreu. • Two students who conducted research at GVSU this past summer were recognized by the MAA at MathFest for their presentations. They were Nate Burch (GVSU Student Summer Scholars Program) who spoke on Lanczos’ generalized derivative and Matthew Katschke (GVSU Mathematics REU) who spoke on spherical and hyperbolic geometry. The students’ mentors were Paul Fishback and Will Dickinson, respectively. • Student Micah Terhar was one of only 70 students nationwide selected to present his research at the 2004 Posters on the Hill session, sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research and held on Capitol Hill this past spring. This annual event is designed to showcase outstanding undergraduate research projects and to encourage legislators to fund programs that support this type of research. Micah’s research, which was conducted under the supervision of Jon Hodge, focused on the mathematics of voting referendums. • Student Kris Lund, president of the GVSU Mathematics and Statistics Club, has been awarded a Goldwater Scholarship. • Charlene Beckmann has been awarded the GVSU Distinguished Contribution to a Discipline Award. This award is presented annually to a member of the university faculty whose performance in scholarly or creative activities or whose contributions through service to professional organizations are clearly outstanding. [fishbacp@gvsu.edu]Hope College
[reported by Todd Swanson]Diana Harrelson has resigned her position. Janet Andersen is on sabbatical this year at the U of Utah. Jill Vanderstoep joined the department on a full-time basis for the year. Matt Boelkins, on sabbatical from GVSU, has also joined the department on a part-time basis this year. • Darin Stephenson is now chair of the Mathematics Department. [swansont@hope.edu]Kalamazoo College
[Michele Intermont]This fall, we welcome David Murphy, David Hervas, and Valentina Aguilar to our department. David M. has just completed his Ph.D. at U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and will be joining us for two years. David H. and Valentina join us for the year from Quito, Ecuador, where they teach at the U of San Francisco. Kalamazoo sends students abroad to USF, and sometimes faculty—John Fink spent last fall as a visitor there. We are happy to welcome all of them to the department. Eric Barth is currently on sabbatical, and Michele Intermont will be on sabbatical beginning in January. Eric Nordmoe currently chairs the department. [intermon@kzoo.edu]Lake Superior State University
[reported by Brian Snyder]We are happy to welcome two new faculty members to our department. Collette Coullard (Ph.D. Northwestern U, Operations Research) joins us as a Prof. of Mathematics and Business. Kimberly Muller (Ph.D. U of North Texas, Real Analysis) joins us as an Assist. Prof. of Mathematics. They are replacing Janina Gutowska and Mieczyslaw Gutowski, who have retired. [bsnyder@lssu.edu]Lansing Community College
[reported by Jing Wang]Anand Ramaswami is our new chairperson. Homa Ghaussi and Dan Harned have joined the faculty. • The department is going to develop an Honors Calculus sequence and plans to offer Honors Calculus I in Fall 2005. [wangj@lcc.edu]Lawrence Technological University
[reported by Mike Merscher]Jon Brewster has joined the MCS faculty. • Robofest, a project headed by CJ Chung, was held in April at four venues throughout the USA. Plans are to expand internationally. Details at www.robofest.net. • The winner of the 35th annual LTU High School Mathematics Competition in April was Vivek Bihera of Detroit Country Day School. The competition is headed by Mike Merscher. • We are sad to report the death of Gloria Rivkin, a member of our department for more than 35 years. She is greatly missed. [merscher@ltu.edu]Michigan Technological University
[reported by Lynn Murphy]Huann-Sheng Chen was promoted to Assoc. Prof. with tenure. Igor Kliakhandler was promoted to Assoc. Prof. Shuanglin Zhang was promoted to Assoc. Prof. Juergen Bierbrauer is on Leave of Absence for Fall 2004. Mark S. Gockenbach is on Sabbatical 2004–2005. Donald L. Kreher is on Sabbatical for Spring 2005. Vladimir D. Tonchev is on Sabbatical for Fall 2004. Jadamba Baasansuren and Teresa L. Peterson are Visiting Instructors. • Charles Groetsch, from the U of Cincinnati, gave a colloquium for the Math Department on Friday, October 29, 2004. He is an expert on ill-posed problems. [murph@mtu.edu]Oakland University
[reported by Jerry Grossman]Anna Spagnuolo achieved tenure and was promoted to Assoc. Prof. Babette Benken, who has an unofficial joint appointment between the Mathematics and Statistics Department and the School of Education, completed the requirements for her doctorate from UM-Ann Arbor and was promoted from Visit. Instruct. to Assist. Prof. Harvey Qu has joined the faculty as Assist. Prof.; he is a statistician with a degree from UM-Ann Arbor and experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Bo-nan Jiang has an NSF grant to support his research and is on sabbatical leave for this academic year. Kevin Andrews and Subbaiah Perla are on leave for the Fall; and Theo Ogunyemi, Jack Tsui, and Wen Zhang are on leave for the Winter. • Research collaboration between faculty member Eddie Cheng and undergraduate student Dan Steffy (who is now a graduate student here) resulted in a new formulation of the problem of determining when a sports team has been “mathematically eliminated” from making the playoffs, so that it can be solved using integer programming algorithms. Their work was cited in the popular press. • The Summer Mathematics Institute has reached the 10-year mark. This very popular program for bright local high school students, completely funded by an anonymous donor, attracts many students who do well on the MMPC. See www.math.oakland.edu/ousmi.html for details of the 2005 program when available. • We are pleased that the MMPC will come to OU for 2005–2008, under the direction of Eddie Cheng. • Fiki Shillor has coauthored a book in the Lecture Notes in Physics series by Springer; Models and Analysis of Quasistatic Contact: Variational Approach appeared this Fall. • The mathematical genealogy of the faculty is displayed on a large poster in the hallway outside the departmental office. Ancestors include Chebyshev, Euler, R. A. Fisher, Gauss, and Leibniz. The poster was purchased from the Mathematical Genealogy Project (www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu). [grossman@oakland.edu]University of Detroit Mercy
[reported by John O’Neill]Abhijit Dasgupta has joined our faculty this term. He got his Ph.D. from U of California-Berkeley and specializes in Real Analysis and Set Theory. He has taught at a number of schools and recently worked in industry as a network engineer. On October 22 we held our 14th annual “Science and Engineering” day. Over 700 high school students attended. On Saturdays throughout the winter term we have math-science enrichment classes for about 700 students from the Detroit grade schools. [oneilljd@udmercy.edu]University of Michigan-Flint
[reported by Steven C. Althoen]The 38th annual Math Field Day, a team competition for high school students from throughout Michigan, will be held on Tuesday, March 1, 2005, on the UM-Flint campus. Thirty-four teams participated in 2004; the team from Detroit Country Day won the championship. For more information, visit the event’s web site www.umflint.edu/departments/math/Field_Day. UM-Flint will be hosting the Lower Michigan Mathematics Competition on Saturday April 2, 2005. For more information, please contact Ricardo Alfaro at ralfaro@umflint.edu. [salthoen@umflint.edu]Wayne State University
[reported by Daniel Frohardt]Pei-Yong Wang (Ph.D., Courant Institute, New York U) is a new Assist Prof. Rebecca Morgan (Ph.D. in microbiology, WSU) is a new lecturer. She will direct the department’s new computer laboratory. Ziqing Xie (Hunan Normal U, Hunan, China) is visiting this year. • Robert Berman is still on a leave of absence to work in the provost’s office. Pao-Liu Chow and Choon Jai Rhee are on sabbatical this semester. John Klein and Jose-Luis Menaldi will be on sabbatical leave in Winter, 2005. Rafail Khasminskii has been named Distinguished Professor. Boris Mordukhovich has been elected to the WSU Academy of Scholars. He is also the recipient of the Distinguished Graduate Faculty Award. Claude Schochet has received a Faculty Recognition Award. • The department has opened a new computer laboratory to teach MAT 0993, Beginning Algebra. Lowell Hansen has been re-appointed department chair for a second four-year term. Daniel Frohardt will continue to serve as associate chair. WSU enrollment is up again this year. A new high-rise dormitory is rising rapidly a short distance from the department’s offices. [danf@math.wayne.edu]Western Michigan University
[reported by Paul Eenigenburg]We have four new Assist. Profs. in the department: Jon Davis (Mathematics Education), Melinda Koelling (Computational Neuroscience), David Richter (Mathematical Physics and Geometry), and Lixin Shen (Wavelets and Image Processing). Srdjan Petrovic is on sabbatical. Gary Chartrand is retiring after 40.5 years in the department. • Recent department speakers include Brian Parshall (U of Virginia), Fan Chung Graham (UCSD), and John Petro (WMU). Allen Schwenk has been named Editor of Mathematics Magazine. [paul.eenigenburg@wmich.edu]
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