Welcome to the home page of the
Mathematical Association of America
Southern California-Nevada Section
Recent Postings
- Brian P Katz recieved the 2025 Section's 2025 Teaching Award
- Read our section's past history! Help write the history of the past 25 years!
- The Fall Meeting at CSU Fullerton is hosting both a Contributed paper session and a Student Poster Session (registration for the meeting is separate and needed for all presenters). Calls for papers and posters are open. Registration for the meeting will be opening in September.
- It was great to see you at our Spring Section Meeting at Pepperdine University! We look forward to seeing you on Saturday Oct 18, 2025 at CSU Fullerton for our section meeting celebrating our section's 100th anniversary!
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Contributed Paper Session Accepting Applications
for Fall 2025 Section Meeting at CSU Fullerton
You are invited to submit abstracts for the Contributed Paper Session of the Fall 2025 Section Meeting of the MAA, taking place on Saturday, October 18, 2025 at CSU Fullerton. The talks will take place in either the late morning or the early afternoon and will each be 15 minutes with a 5-minute question and transition period.
These sessions accept contributions in all areas of mathematics, including research and pedagogy, and all complete proposals will be considered. The selection of talks will be based on interest to the expected audience, on common themes with other submissions, and on scheduling constraints.
Applications to present in the contributed paper session are submitted online and are due by 5pm on Wednesday September 24, 2025. Applications include submitting an abstract (max 180 words) preferably using the specified LaTex template given in the example below. Only the items between \begin{document} and \end{document} need to be submitted.
\documentclass{article}
\newcommand{\presenter}[1]{\par\textbf{Presenter(s):}\ #1}
\newcommand{\others}[1]{\par\textbf{Other Author(s):}\ #1}
\renewcommand{\title}[1]{\par\textbf{Title:}\ #1}
\renewcommand{\abstract}[1]{\par\textbf{Abstract:}\ #1}
\newcommand{\theme}[1]{\par\textbf{Talk theme(s):}\ #1}
\newcommand{\audience}[1]{\par\textbf{Audience:}\ #1}\begin{document}
\presenter{Esteban Ayala, Evelyne Knight, and Chloe Marple, Pomona College}
\others{Research advisor: Dr. Konrad Aguilar, Pomona College} %if applicable
\title{Contractivity of Quantum Channels with respect to Quantum State Induced Norms}
\abstract{Quantum Channels (QCs) are used to send quantum information in the form of quantum states and are major objects of interest in Quantum Information Theory and Quantum Computing. Some desirable QCs are non-expansive, meaning they don’t add superfluous information, or “noise,” to the quantum information. This noise can be detected using various metrics, functions which quantify a notion of distance. One specific metric we use is the Bures metric. While it is known that a given QC is Bures-nonexpansive, our study seeks to classify Bures-contractive QCs and estimate their Lipschitz constants. Another way to measure distance between matrices is using norms. We have classified several specific QCs as contractive with respect to the 1-,2-, and infinity-operator norms. We also generated matrix norms using quantum states and found sharp two-sided norm equivalence constants for them, which were computationally tested. A key application of our work is the ability to detect contractivity of QCs with respect to new norms of interest by utilizing our work with these well-established norms and our newfound equivalence constants.}
\theme{Analysis}
%Choices include Education/Pedagogy, History/Philosophy of Mathematics, Interdisciplinary Topics, Probability/Statistics, Geometry, Analysis, Number Theory, Graph Theory/Combinatorics, Algebra, Applied Mathematics, Topology, Linear Algebra, etc.
\audience{Linear Algebra (some analysis knowledge will help)}\end{document}
Need access to latex to see if your abstract compiles? Overleaf.com is a cloud based latex program with a free registration. There are other options as well.
The application to present DOES NOT constitute registration for the conference. Presenters will be notified of their acceptances by Monday October 6, 2025. Once registration for the conference opens, presenters should register for the meeting online before the conference by Friday October 10, 2025 at 5pm.
Direct questions to the Program Board: Bahar Acu (Bahar_Acu@pitzer.edu), Amelia Stone-Johnstone (astonejohnstone@Fullerton.edu), and Christina Edlholm (CEdholm@Scrippscollege.edu)
Student Poster Session Fall 2025 --Call for submissions
Students (undergraduate and graduate) are invited to submit short proposals for the Poster Session of the Fall 2025 Section Meeting of the MAA, taking place on Saturday, October 18 at CSU Fullerton.
Here are some ideas of what students can present:
- Results of masters thesis, honors, senior, or independent study projects
- Results of classroom projects or modeling contests
- Results of REUs or other summer research programs
- Historical investigations in pure or applied mathematics
- Solutions of problems from the Putnam Exam or from the Monthly or other journals
Applications to present in the poster session are submitted online. Applications include submitting an abstract (max 150 words) and are due by 5pm on Mon October 6, 2025.
The application to present DOES NOT constitute registration for the conference. Once registration for the conference opens, presenters should register for the meeting online before the conference by Friday October 10, 2025 at 5pm.
The MAA Mathematical Communication website has useful articles about giving an effective talk, including poster presentations (scroll down to that heading) and also writing an abstract. Be sure to check out their helpful tips!
Direct questions to the Program Board: Bahar Acu (Bahar_Acu@pitzer.edu), Amelia Stone-Johnstone (astonejohnstone@Fullerton.edu), and Christina Edlholm (CEdholm@Scrippscollege.edu).
Brian P Katz (BK) wins the Section's 2025 Teaching Award

Dr. Brian P Katz (BK) of California State University Long Beach is the winner of the 2025 Section Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics and our Section's nominee for the national MAA's Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics.
Quoting from his nomination, "BK is an exceptionally skilled educator whose writing, editorial work, and leadership work has had a tremendous positive impact on the mathematical community – both locally and nationally" and "BK is driven by a conviction that many common teaching practices cause epistemic harm to our students and he has written extensively to the mathematics community with the goal of shifting the norms and expectations for college mathematics classrooms." Moreover, from his work with Inquiry Based Learning and his work in his role as the MAA Project NExT Associate Director as well as his editorial work for PRIMUS among many other contributions, it is an honor to be able to bestow BK this award.
We congratulate BK for this award and look forward to his plenary talk at our 100th anniversary Fall 2025 MAA SoCal/Nev section at California State University Fullerton on October 18, 2025!
Did you know...
...that the SoCalNv Section of the MAA had its first meeting in 1925? Read about SoCalNv MAA Section History (pdf) in this article written for the Spring 2000 meeting program by Ernie Solheid.
Help Write Our Section History!
Do you have a special memory of an MAA Southern California Section meeting, event, or personality? Please share it with Karrolyne Fogel kfogel @ callutheran.edu.