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Myron began teaching at Westark Community College in 1992 after graduating from the University of Alabama. As Westark evolved into the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, Myron shared with his colleagues the unique pleasures and challenges of developing a baccalaureate program in mathematics from scratch. Before Westark, Myron taught at Nabua Secondary School in Fiji (as a Peace Corps volunteer), the University of Alabama, and Troy State University at Dothan (where he met the love of his life, Carolyn Holdsworth, who taught English down the hall). So Myron has taught at the high school, community college, and university level. Also, Myron has been involved in multiple professional development activities with secondary mathematics teachers. Between them, Carolyn and Myron have 5.0 children and 3.4 grandchildren. Besides his family and teaching mathematics, Myron’s favorite activities are watching Alabama football, eating chili, and backpacking.
The following appear in the order in which they were submitted.
Jeanine Myers
Mr. Ken Shores retired December 2017, and Dr. Vrege Armirkhanian will retire May 2018.
Duff Campbell
At Hendrix College, we have hired a new tenure-track mathematics professor, Carol Ann Downes, who just finished her Ph.D. at Rice University. She was also chosen to be part of Project NExT (2017 “Blue Dot”). Carol Ann’s specialty is geometric measure theory.
We are in the process of starting a new minor in Data Analytics.
In February, we will host the Arkansas Undergraduate Competition in Mathematics and try to repeat our dominance.(We had the top two teams last February). As we do every year, we will have students take part in the Virginia Tech Regional Mathematics Contest, the Putnam competition, the Mathematical Contest in Modeling, and the Hendrix-Rhodes-Sewanee Mathematics and Computer Science Symposium (held at Rhodes College this year).
This past summer, seniors Candyce Sarringar and Travis Howk attended and gave talks at the MAA MathFest in Chicago, along with Chris Camfield. In January, Duff Campbell gave a talk, “Using Projects to Teach Number Theory,” at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in San Diego.
Darryl Linde
Northeastern State University is looking forward to hosting the Oklahoma-Arkansas Section in the spring of 2019. Steven Wilkinson retired as Professor of Mathematics after 31 years of service. Demitri Plessas and Nathan Bloomfield departed for the greener pastures of the private sector. We are a little understaffed in these tough budgetary times, but we managed to hire Joshua Graff on a temporary basis for the year. Best wishes to you all.
Sarah Marsh
Our department was excited to welcome Janette (Barnes) Wilson to our faculty in Fall 2017. Mrs. Wilson comes to OBU most recently from Western Kentucky University, but she has previously served as Instructor and Lecturer at OSU and as Assistant Professor at OBU. She is also an alumna of both of those universities.
In other personnel news, then-Department-Chair Dr. Sarah Marsh was awarded both Senior Faculty Status (OBU’s tenure equivalent) and promotion to Associate Professor during the 2016-17 academic year. Dr. Cherith Tucker is now serving as Department Chair.
In July 2017, our department received national recognition from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics for our Specialized Professional Association report as part of our accreditation by the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation. Dr. Krista Hands and Dr. Sarah Marsh coauthored that report.
In Fall 2017, OBU officially launched a BA degree option in Mathematics to complement our existing BS and BSE options. We are thrilled about the opportunities this opens up for our students!
James Fetterly and Ramesh Garimella
This past year, Dr. Jason Martin was tenured and promoted to the rank of Associate Professor; along with other colleagues, he also secured an NSF grant, “Investigating Student Learning and Sense-making from Calculus Video Lessons,” for $53,531.
Three new faculty members were welcomed to the department. Assisting the applied mathematics program is Dr. Yinlin Dong. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Arlington. Coming from Appalachian State University is Dr. Todd Abel, a mathematics educator; he received this Ph.D. from the University of New Hampshire. Also joining in the area of mathematics education is Dr. Kansas Conrady. She previously worked at the University of Oklahoma and earned her doctorate from Oklahoma State University.
With over two decades in the department, Dr. Jean McGehee retired as a mathematics educator.
Dr. R.B. Lenin, Associate Professor, resigned his tenured position to take a position in industry.
The Department of Math is saddened to report unexpected passing of Dr. Pat Carmack, Associate Professor, in January 2018. Dr. Carmack, who joined the department in August 2008, had been a valuable member. He will be greatly missed.
The Mathematics Department honored several students for their outstanding achievement in various areas. Cyrus Koch, who graduated with a BS in Pure Mathematics, received the O.L. Hughes Award for his math achievement, GPA, and leadership. The outstanding junior, Andrea Weaver, was presented the Dorothy Long Award. She is a Noyce Scholar who presented “Nonlinear Elliptical PDEs” at AMS and MAA meetings and researched Nonclassical Symmetries of Dispersion Equations with Dr. Danny Arrigo. The Outstanding Graduate Student Award was received by Katie Burden; her thesis title was “Case Studies of Virtual Manipulative and Static Derivative Images.” Her mentor was Dr. Jason Martin.
With new demands from industries and businesses, our faculty designed and initiated a new Data Science Track for mathematics majors.
Academic and professional activities are invigorating to faculty and students alike. In April this past year, three faculty members (Ramesh Garimella, Jason Martin, and Jeffrey Beyerl) and six students (Azaryah Wilson, Connor Wilson, Lindsey Hazeslip, Andie Weaver, Katie Burden, and Kayla Waters) attended the Mathematical Association of America sectional conference at the University of Oklahoma. At the conference, Dr. Beyerl presented “Typing Math in Real Time on a Computer While Teaching”, and graduate student Katie Burton presented “Case Studies of Virtual Manipulative and Static Derivative Images.” In November 2017, several faculty and students presented at the Arkansas Curriculum Conference: Drs. James Fetterly and Long Le presented “Modeling Mathematics: Driven By Activities,” Drs. James Fetterly and Nesrin Sahin presented “(Mis)Understanding Fractions: Taking a Closer Look,” Dr. Fetterly and Grace Delph presented “Exploring Problem Posing: A Mathematical Project,” Dr. Fetterly and Bryan Jones presented ”Thinking Algebraically: From Patterns to Polynomials,” and Dr. Fetterly and Lucas McEntire presented “Delving into Fibonacci: Formulas, Fascinations, and Fun.”
In conjunction with the Math Club, Mrs. Loi Booher participated in a STEM Fair on March 11, 2017. Using curiosities in mathematics along with games, they enticed middle school students with mathematical content. In April, Dr. Fetterly and one of his classes partnered with Carl Stuart Middle School to present a parent STEM Night that focused on hands-on mathematical activities. The summer workshop, “Blending Mathematics and Science in Middle Grades,” was assisted by Dr. Charles Watson and others outside of the department.
Noel Brady
Dr. Kyung-Bai Lee, a topologist and geometer who specializes in Seifert fibered manifolds and infranil manifolds, retired at the end of spring 2017 semester after over 30 years of service. He served for over twenty years as the chair of the department computer committee and as the department computer systems administrator.
OU Math major, Sawyer Robertson, received an award for an outstanding poster presentation at the 2018 Joint Mathematics Meetings, placing in the top 15% of over 400 presentations. Sawyer has been working on the research for this poster presentation with our colleague, Dr. Alejandro Chavez-Dominguez. The title of his presentation was “Boundary Value Problems and Green’s Functions on Magnetic Graphs.”
An OU Math team was awarded a SEMINAL grant to promote an “active learning” model of instruction in calculus courses. This builds on the momentum of the team‘s efforts to convert the Pre-Calculus sequence for STEM majors to an active learning model. Our Pre-Calculus classes are capped at smaller sizes than normal and classes are run by a team consisting of an instructor and an undergraduate Learning Assistant. This Chronicle article gives some information about the SEMINAL award.
OU Math Assistant Professor, Dr. Ying Wang, received an NSF CAREER award to investigate “Mathematical Analysis and Numerical Methods for Underground Oil Recovery Models.” Dr. Wang is an applied mathematician who works on a broad range of interdisciplinary projects. This award brings the number of CAREER recipients in our department to two. Last year, Assistant Professor Dr. Jing Tao, who works in Geometry and Topology received an NSF CAREER award to investigate “Coarse geometry and quasimorphisms.” This is very exciting news for us and is a testament to the excellent research programs of Dr. Wang and Dr. Tao.
Assistant Professor Dr. Ying Wang’s proposal for an OU Presidential Dream Course was recently awarded. Dr. Wang plans to offer a Dream Course on “Numerical Analysis” in fall 2018. Dream Course instructors receive up to a maximum of $20,000 in one-time funds to bring in about 3-5 experts in the field during the semester to interact with the students enrolled in the course and to give a lecture open to the public. Here is more information about the OU Presidential Dream Course. Dr. Wang is the second math faculty member to run a Presidential Dream Course.
Math majors Amanda Ahadizadeh and Olivia Conway, and mathematics graduate student, Erin Hausmann, traveled to the 20th annual Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics (NCUWM) on January 26-28, 2018 at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. The faculty chaperone was Gary Barksdale.
A group of 10-12 OU math undergraduate students is traveling to the 12th Annual Texas Oklahoma Regional Undergraduate Symposium (TORUS) this Saturday, Feb 10, 2018, in Wichita Falls, Texas. They are being driven there by Math Advisor Dr. Catherine Hall and a faculty member, Dr. Pengfei Zhang.
Narayan Thapa
The Department of Mathematical Sciences at Cameron University has actively been involved in numerous activities during the 2017-2018 academic year. This report highlights and documents accomplishments of our faculty and students.
In 2017, some undergraduates actively involved in several undergraduate research projects and showcased their research outcomes at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in San Diego, CA. The student researchers, topics of their research, and their advisors are listed below.
The year 2017 was very productive for our faculty members. Some of their accomplishments are listed below:
Dr. Ioannis Argyros coauthored in following books:
Dr. Argyros also contributed the following book chapters:
Dr. Argyros also published 24 papers in national and international refereed journals. Selected papers are listed below.
Dr. James Dover coauthored the paper, “Homeomorphism Types of Restricted Configuration Spaces of Metric Graphs.” (with M. Özaydın) International Mathematics Research Notices, rnx061, (2017), 17pp. Also, Dr. Dover supervised a student on a project titled, “Stirling Number of analogs for Counting Graph-Type Partitions,” and the student is scheduled to present the research outcomes at NCUR at UCO in April.
Dr. Narayan Thapa coauthored in the following books:
Dr. Parshuram Budhathoki, Assistant Professor, presented on “Quantum Circuits for Multiplication Operation” at the Joint Mathematics Meeting in San Diego, CA.
Ms. Irene Corriette codirected, “It’s MathE: Middle School Enrichment Program” for about 100 middle school students, including students from underrepresented groups. Similarly, Ms. Corriette co-directed the CU Engineering and Applied Mathematics Summer Academy. Also, she created a seven-day project-based STEM learning experience for high school students and supervised participants and counselors during the summer academy period. Ms. Corriette successfully received the following grants as a primary investigator:
In 2017, the department of mathematical sciences was awarded some funding listed below:
Mr. Christopher Sauer joined the department of mathematical sciences as an Instructor of mathematics in 2017. Mr. Sauer came to Cameron from Texas Tech University, where he served as a Graduate Part-Time Instructor. He received his M.A. in mathematics in 2016 from Texas Tech University.
Our student organization, MathCom, with faculty advisor Dr. Gregory Herring was involved in the following activities: During the Halloween week, MathCom participated in October Halloween carnival where a game booth was set up for children. Furthermore, MathCom launched a Math Jeopardy competition for algebra edition. In addition to this, MathCom volunteered Hurricane Maria Relief event and organizing Valentine Bash Party.
Nicholas Zoller
In March 2017, the Southern Nazarene University (SNU) Math Club held its annual Pi Day party. They enjoyed a meal of pizzas and ice cream pies. Several students put together questions for a game of Math Bingo. Winners received math-themed prizes.
In August 2017, Dr. Nicholas Zoller (department chair) traveled to Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts for the first conference put on by the Metric Geometry and Gerrymandering Group. The week-long conference included public lectures for three days, followed by two days of specialized tracks for invited participants only. Dr. Zoller was selected for the teaching track. At the conference, he learned about what how congressional districts are apportioned, how congressional districts maps are drawn, common gerrymandering practices, mathematical measures of the fairness of districts and election outcomes, and research trajectories that support the involvement of mathematicians in the study of gerrymandering. Dr. Zoller shared his newfound knowledge in a lecture at Cameron University in September 2017 and a lecture at SNU in November 2017. Dr. Zoller and his SNU colleagues Dr. Nathan Drake (math) and Dr. Anthony Rodin (political science) look forward to learning more about gerrymandering and efforts to combat it in Oklahoma. They are especially interested in ways to involve students, e.g., a public redistricting competition after the 2020 congressional elections.
During the Fall 2017 semester, Dr. Zoller and Dr. Nathan Drake supervised four senior research projects: Elyse Mendoza studied the earth-moon coloring problem; Mark Lawrence studied the number of opening moves in the board game Settlers of Catan; Kriston Shumaker applied two different team rating systems to Great American Conference softball teams using data from the 2017 season; and Samantha Stitt studied whether or not college students hold transitive preferences among life outcomes.
In December 2017, Joshua Crouch, Mark Lawrence, and Joshua Lessner participated in the annual William Lowell Putnam Exam. It was just as challenging as they thought it would be. They are eagerly awaiting the results later this year; at least one of them thinks that he scored higher than zero.