David Reimann has been granted tenure. • On the last Friday, April 26, of Mathematics Awareness Month, show your support for mathematics by joining people around the world in wearing plaid during International Plaid Day. • Mark Bollman has been appointed to a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Mathematics. • Tom Sgouros will be performing his play “Judy, or What Is It Like to Be a Robot?” at Albion C on the evening of April 7. He will examine questions such as “Do people with mortgages have free will?” and “If you build a robot smart enough to do the dishes, will it also be smart enough to find them boring?” Section members are invited to attend.
Edward Specht was appointed Professor Emeritus. He served Andrews University from 1947 to 1972 as Chair of the Mathematics Department. • Ted Hatcher was appointed Professor Emeritus. He served on the faculty since 1969 and retired in September, 2000. • Kenneth Franz, Associate Professor of Developmental Mathematics, retired in October, 2001, and was appointed Professor Emeritus. He had served on the faculty since 1987. • Shandelle Henson, formerly of the College of William and Mary, was appointed Associate Professor of Mathematics. She received a BS from Southern Adventist U, an MA from Duke U, and a PhD from the U of Tennessee at Knoxville. Her research interests are Nonlinear Dynamical Systems and applications of Mathematics to Biology. She is a member of the "Beetle Team", a group of mathematicians, statisticians, and biologists studying population dynamics of Tribolium (flour beetles). • Yun Myung Oh was appointed Assistant Professor of Mathematics. She received her BS and MS degrees at Ewha Women's University (Korea) and her PhD from Michigan State University. Her research interest is Riemannian Geometry.
Earl Fife is on sabbatical leave and is spending this semester in the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University.
Faaiz Geerdin of MSU is a new instructor for the spring semester in Math. Ed. • Ivars Peterson spent 2 days on campus speaking on mathematics and art. • On March 18–19, Ed Burger of Williams College will give a series of lectures.
After stepping down as Department Head, Don Lick continues at EMU as an active faculty member. • Bette Warren is serving as Interim Department Head. EMU is one of the stops on Peter Hilton and Jean Pederson’s Michigan Tour. • Joanne Caniglia, Barb Leapard, Irene Duranczyk, and Elaine Richards have been awarded an Eisenhower Grant entitled “Math in the City” in conjunction with the Detroit P. S. and Detroit Historical Museum.
Georgianna and Bruce Klein have retired from the Mathematics and Computer Science Departments, respectively, after lengthy, distinguished careers. • New department faculty include Rebecca Walker (PhD, WMU) and Nance Macky (PhD, U of Wisconsin-Madison). • Frank Morgan (Williams C) will be speaking at GVSU on Friday February 15, one day before his talk at the Michigan Undergraduate Mathematics Conference. • The Department of Mathematics has been awarded a 3-year NSF REU award. Students interested in participating in this summer’s REU program are invited to visit the program’s website at http://sandpiper.math.gvsu.edu/reu. • Jody Sorensen, along with Chip Ross (Bates C), were named by the editors of the College Mathematics Journals as winners of this past year’s George Polya Award. The award, which is given every two years, recognizes articles of expository excellence in CMJ. • Charlene Beckmann and Pamela Wells have been directing a program entitled “Enhancing the Core”, in which they work with other colleagues in the department to infuse intermediate and upper level mathematics courses with activities that are particularly relevant to future middle-school and secondary mathematics teachers. • The department will once again host “Math-in-Action”, which will be held on February 17th. More information may be found at http://www.gvsu.edu/math/MathInAction.
Janet Andersen has been appointed director of the Pew Midstates Science and Mathematics Consortium.
Brian Snyder was selected as a Project NExT National Fellow for the 2001–2002 academic year.
Michael Masterson has been appointed Interim Chairperson of the Mathematics and Computer Science Department at LCC. He has a MS in Physics from the U of Chicago with additional credits earned there toward the PhD degree, and a BA in Physics and Mathematics from MSU. He has also earned an AS in Electronics Technology from Lansing Community College. Our former chairperson, Nan Jackson, has resumed her full-time faculty position at LCC.
Ruth Favro has developed a new course “Geometry and Art” designed for architecture majors, which has been very popular with those students. • Several departmental activities will be featured at LTU’s Annual Open House on April 27–28. Chan-Jin Chung will oversee Robofest again this year. Robofest has become a huge attraction since its inception three years ago. • Mike Merscher will head up LTU’s 33rd Annual High School Mathematics Competition.
Vladimir Peller (Professor), Moxun Tang (Assistant Professor), Michael Shapiro (Assistant Professor), and Kirill Vaninsky (Assistant Professor) have all joined our faculty this year. In addition, there are a number of visitors, including: Zoltan Buczolich (Eotvos U, Hungary), Tomasz Downarowicz (U of Technology, Wroclaw, Poland), Mohamed Elgindi (U Wisconsin–Eau Claire) and Mahmoud Mohseni-Moghadam (U of Kerman, Iran), and Ronen Peretz (Ben-Gurion U of the Negev). • The Richard Phillips Lectures this year will be given by Michael Atiyah (U of Edinburgh). The lecture titled “Polyhedra in Geometry, Physics, and Chemistry” will be given at 4 pm on Tuesday March 26. A lecture titled “A challenging problems in elementary geometry” will be given at 4 pm on Thursday, March 28. The final lecture, “Projective planes and spheres”, will be at 4 pm on Friday, March 29. Further details are available on the website: http://www.math.msu.edu/Lecture_series/2002.html. • Alexander Volberg was named Distinguished University Professor this past fall.
New Faculty: Igor L. Kliakhandler, Assistant Professor (PhD, Applied Mathematics, School of Mathematical Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Israel) and Shuanglin Zhang, Assistant Professor (PhD, Statistics, Peking University, Beijing, China). • Resignations: Tao Jiang accepted a position at Miami University, Alan Ling accepted a position at the University of Vermont, Burlington, Vassil Yorgov accepted a position at Fayetteville State University. • Individuals on leave: Barbara S. Bertram (Sabbatical for 2001–2002 academic year at Signature Research in Calumet, MI and the University of Wisconsin), Russell M. Reid (leave of absence for 2001–2002 academic year at Apple Computer Co.), and Allan A. Struthers (Sabbatical for Spring 2002 at Jafo, Inc. in Baltimore, MD and the Center for Research in Electro-Optics at the University of Central Florida). • Visiting Faculty: Jeffrey T. Bonn and Kathleen L. Bonn, Visiting Assistant Professors, from Mayville State University, North Dakota. • Alexander Kurganov, from Tulane University, gave a colloquium on December 3, 2001: “Central-Upwind Schemes for Systems of Hyperbolic Conservation and Balance Laws”.
Hamza Ahmad (PhD in Algebra/Algebraic Number Theory from Louisiana State University) from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania has joined the faculty as Associate Professor. • Hasan Al-Halees (PhD in Functional Analysis from Central Michigan University) has joined the faculty as Assistant Professor. Zhidong (Patrick) Pan has been promoted to Professor.
Rheta N. Rubenstein retired from our department effective April 30, 2001 after five years at Schoolcraft C, and is now teaching at UM–Dearborn. She has been replaced by Katherine J. Jankoviak, who joins us following eight years of work at MidMichigan CC. • New courses at Schoolcraft this year include a second semester of Mathematics for Elementary Teachers, and a revamped Beginning Algebra/Intermediate Algebra sequence.
The mathematics department received a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for scholarships for qualified students in mathematics, computer science, and engineering. Co-directors of the four year project are Margret Höft and Joan Remski. • The Center for Mathematics Education was officially opened in October. Edward Silver, Professor of Education and Mathematics at UM-Ann Arbor, was the main speaker at the inauguration event. • The Undergraduate Colloquium Series featured a lecture by Bruce Elenbogen (UM-Dearborn, Computer Science Department) entitled “On Edge in Infinite Dimensional Space (on average)”.
Stacy McGaugh, Astronomy Department, U of Maryland, College Park presented the talk “Monkey Wrenches in Gravity and Cosmology” in January. • John Petro of WMU is scheduled to give a presentation on Sierpinski triangles in February.
Janet MacDonald retired in December.
We are in the process of hiring a tenure-track person. • The Owens Memorial Lecture this year will be on Monday, April 1. The speaker will be Michael Waterman (U of Southern California). The department’s colloquium schedule can be found at: http://www.math.wayne.edu/~sarah/colloq/colloq.html.
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