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Mathematics Association of America
Southern California-Nevada Section
Newsletter Fall 2009
Table of Contents
Message from the Chair:
Come join us for invited addresses on the Monty Hall Problem, hyperbolic space, and the mathematics of swarming!
Art Benjamin, Section Chair,
Harvey Mudd College
Fall 2009 Meeting
You may ask, who has the time to come to a math meeting? For many of us, the school year has just begun and we are busily preparing and teaching classes. Or we are working on an interesting mathematical problem and we are trying to find the time to write up the results. So why should you go to a section meeting? Let me list a few reasons. It's an opportunity to:
Section Chair Art Benjamin presents the MAA Student Lecture “Secrets of Mental Math” at MathFest in Portland, OR, in August of 2009
- Hear great talks
- Give a contributed talk
- Make new friends
- Renew collaborations
- Discover new ideas
- Hear what's happening at other schools in our region
- Buy new and discounted books at the MAA book table
Our program committee has lined up some exciting speakers for the Fall Meeting. Andrea Bertozzi (UCLA) will speak about the mathematical biology of swarming. Jason Rosenhouse (James Madison University) is flying across the country to tell us about the Monty Hall Problem, its variations and applications. Curtis Bennett (Loyola Marymount U), our section's Distinguished Teaching Award winner, will show us a simple model for hyperbolic space. In addition, we expect lots of interesting contributed talks (perhaps given by you?), and Janet Beery (U of Redlands) and Bruce Yoshiwara (Pierce College) will hold a workshop on using the digital library resources of MathDL. More...
If you haven't come to a math meeting yet, the Fall Meeting is the time to do it. The food is good, and the talks and camaraderie are even better. And if you don't know anyone, just introduce yourself. It's a very friendly group. I look forward to “meeting” you there!
MAA MathFest in Portland, OR
And speaking of meetings, the MAA MathFest in Portland was a whole lot of fun. There were great talks, minicourses, exhibitors, and I enjoyed seeing lots of old friends. One of the highlights was the MAA Invited Address “Cryptography: How to Keep a Secret” by our own Alice Silverberg of UC Irvine, introduced by Ron Graham
of UC San Diego. (Thanks to MAA FOCUS Editor Fernando Gouvea for his photos of MathFest.)
Future Meetings
Mark your calendars for the Spring Meeting, to be held at Harvey Mudd College on April 10, 2010. We have another great lineup of speakers planned for that event. And the annual Joint Meetings of MAA and AMS will be held in San Francisco January 13-16, 2010. With an expected attendance of 6000 math enthusiasts so close to us, how can you resist?
Message from the Governor: News and highlights from Mathfest
Ken Millett, Section Govenor,
UC Santa Barbara
The 2009 MathFest in Portland, Oregon was the largest, attracting more than 1,500 attending. High lights and photos are reported in the October/Novermber 2009 Focus available at http://www.maa.org/pubs/focus.html. For me, the highlights were the wonderful series of lectures given by Ravi Vakil (Stanford) and Joan Ferrini-Mundy as well as the sessions and poster sessions. While this is my last year as your Governor (my term ends with the January 2010 meeting), I have agreed to chair the MAA’s Committee on the Mathematical Education of Teachers (COMET) through 2012.
For me, one of the most exciting news of MathFest is that The Board of Governors approved the creation of an all-electronic membership beginning in January 2010 providing members access to MAA publications without having to receive their print versions. This option will move the MAA to a greener operation and will eliminate the burden that many of us face in handling the print versions. These will, however, continue to be available to members who desire them. More information can be found at http://www.maa.org/pubs/octnov09pg3.pdf.
I would like call your attention to the MAA Congressional Briefing on September 22, 2009 will stress the importance of diversity in undergraduate opportunities in mathematics. Speakers are MAA President David Bressoud (Macalester College), Sylvia Bozeman (Spelman College) and Carlos Castillo-Chavez (Arizona State University) for this congressional briefing organized by Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX) and the MAA. More information can be found at http://www.maa.org/news/091009congress.html.
Mario Martelli explains “Chaos in the Solar
System.” Photo by Ernie Solheid, CSU Fullerton
Annalisa Crannell delivers “Math and Art:
The Good, the Bad, and the Pretty." Photo by Ernie Solheid, CSU Fullerton
Spring 2009 Meeting Featured a Salute to Mario Martelli
If we could use just one word to describe the Spring Meeting of the MAA Southern California-Nevada Section March 21, 2009, at California Lutheran University, it would be mARTelli.
The meeting featured a presentation by internationally renowned origami artist and mathematician Robert Lang; talks by our own Mario Martelli and by his former student, Annalisa Crannell, on the geometry of art; a student poster session, an event long championed by Martelli at both local and national meetings; and a tribute to Martelli for his excellent and exemplary service to the MAA Southern California-Nevada Section, the national MAA, and the three Southern California institutions he has served during his career, Cal State Fullerton, Claremont-McKenna College, and Claremont Graduate University. Section Governor Ken Millett “unveiled” onscreen the brick the section has dedicated to Martelli in the MAA Carriage House River of Bricks in Washington, DC, and meeting participants donned red, green, and white “Italians make better professors, eh?” T-shirts.
Next time you are in Washington, DC, be sure to visit the River of Bricks at the MAA Carriage House! Photo by Michael Frantz, University of La Verne
Curtis Bennett of LMU Wins Section Teaching Award
Art Benjamin, Section Chair and Chair of Distinguished Teaching Award Committee,
Harvey Mudd College
The Southern California-Nevada Section of the MAA is pleased to announce that Professor Curtis Bennett of Loyola Marymount University has received its 2009 Distinguished Teaching Award. Dr. Bennett's students describe him as energetic and enthusiastic, passionate, selfless, sincere, and patient. They often credit him not just for increased mathematical skills, but also for increased self-confidence.
Dr. Bennett's reputation as an excellent teacher extends well beyond the boundaries of LMU. He has gained national and international prominence as a two-time Carnegie Scholar, has led two PMET Workshops (Preparing Mathematicians to Educate Teachers), and has presented the mini-course, A Beginners Guide to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in 2006, 2007, and 2008.
Dr. Bennett received his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1990 in the area of groups and geometries. Since then he has held positions at Michigan State University, The Ohio State University, and Bowling Green State University, and he is currently Professor and Chair of the Mathematics Department at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He has published over 30 articles in mathematics and in the scholarship of teaching and learning mathematics. Dr. Bennett was the co-editor of the book Starting Our Careers with Annalisa Crannell and was a founding editor of the Young Mathematicians Network.
Bennett will receive
the prestigious Franklin and Deborah Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching, awarded to three MAA members each year, at
the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Francisco in January of 2010.
 
Call for Nominations for 2010 Section Teaching Award
by Shawn McMurran, Section Secretary,
Cal State San Bernardino
Preliminary nominations for the 18th annual MAA Southern California-Nevada Section
Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics are now being
accepted. The initial nomination consists of a one-page form and a 1-2 page description of the candidate's qualities and
teaching successes. From the initial nominees, the selection committee will choose two to
three semi-finalists. Each nominator will then be asked to complete a full nomination for
the semi-finalist. Upon receipt of the full nomination, semi-finalists will automatically become finalists. Each finalist will receive an official letter of commendation from the
Chair of the Section, which will be copied to the candidate's department chair and dean. The selection committee will choose the winner from the pool of finalists. Finalists who are not selected will automatically have their full applications considered the following year for the Section award.
The winner of the award will be recognized at the Spring 2010 Meeting of the MAA Southern California-Nevada Section. The awardee will also be the official Section nominee for the MAA Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. Successful nominees are individuals who are widely recognized for their extraordinarily successful teaching effectiveness and for teaching that has had influence beyond their own institutions.
To be eligible, nominees must
- be current MAA members,
- teach mathematical science courses at least half-time during the academic year, and
- have at least seven years experience teaching at the college or university level.
If you have an eligible and qualified colleague in your department, we urge you to nominate her/him so that s/he may be considered for the award.
Initial application deadline is Wednesday, November 4, 2009.
Questions? Contact Shawn McMurran at smcmurra@csusb.edu.
Include your news...
Send email to our newsletter editor Janet Beery to share news from your department in the next newsletter.
News of the Section
The CSU Channel Islands Mathematics Program welcomes two additional faculty members: Brooke Ernest, most recently of Modesto Junior College, and Delil Martinez, whose previous position was at the Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Hidalgo. Jorge Garcia and Jesse Elliott have been awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor.
Ivona Grzegorczyk of CSU Channel Islands, in partnership with Honde Hu
(CSU Monterey Bay) and Dale Oliver and Jeff White (CSU Humboldt), has been awarded a $899,670 Noyce grant from the NSF to increase the number of students interested in mathematics and mathematics education. The grant will provide funds for several scholarships for Noyce fellows, as well as for research and conference participation, educational network building among the three campuses, collaboration, visits and seminars.
California State University, Los Angeles, welcomes back new faculty member Melisa Hendrata. Hendrata earned her PhD at UC Santa Barbara in optimization and modeling of biological systems after completing bachelors and masters degrees in mathematics at Cal State LA. Also at Cal State LA, Gary Brookfield received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor and Andrei Verona changed his status from semi-retired to retired.
Harvey Mudd College congratulates Professor Darryl Yong for his promotion to Associate Professor with tenure. Congratulations also to Professors Dagan Karp and Talithia Williams for surviving their first year as Assistant Professors of Mathematics. Dr. Karp earned his PhD from University of British Columbia, and is interested in Algebraic Geometry. Dr. Williams earned her PhD from Rice University and is interested in Statistics. We
welcome Dr. Ursula Whitcher, who begins a 2-year postdoc at HMC, after finishing her PhD from University of Washington.
Professor Emeritus Alvin White (left) of Harvey Mudd College passed away on June 2, 2009. A program honoring his life will be held at HMC on September 23, 2009. The program for Alvin White Memorial can be found here. For information about White’s career, please see this article in the
News and Events from Harvey Mudd College.
Loyola Marymount University welcomes two visiting assistant professors this year,
Emek Köse Can and Natalie Rivetti-Ortiz. Emek Köse Can received her B.S. in
Mathematics from Middle East Technical University, Turkey, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in
Mathematics from Drexel University. Her research area is Image Science with a focus on
catadioptric sensors. Natalie Rivetti-Ortiz received her B.A. in mathematics and her M.A.
in education from LMU.
Blake Mellor of LMU, Erica Flapan (of Pomona College), and Ramin Naimi (of
Occidental College) received a 3-year NSF grant for their work on topological
symmetries and intrinsic properties of graphs embedded in 3-space. Alissa Crans of
LMU received a 2-year NSA grant for her work on categorified 2-quandles. Herbert
Medina is the principal investigator for the Descartes Scholars program NSF grant at
LMU, a grant that gives scholarships and other support to undergraduate students from
underrepresented groups in math and science. Thomas Zachariah won the first annual
LMU Seaver College Rudinica Teaching and Advising Award. In addition, Jackie
Dewar, Suzanne Larson, and Zachariah were named national SENCER (Science
Education for New Civic Engagement and Responsibilities) teaching fellows.
The University of Redlands welcomes Assistant Professor of Mathematics Joanna
Bieri, who completed her PhD in Applied Mathematics at Northwestern University, and
Lecturer Wendy Peske, a University of Redlands (BS) and Cal State San Bernardino
(MS) mathematics graduate who last taught at Redlands High School.
Please send news from your institution to janet_beery@redlands.edu
Southern California-Nevada Section at Mathfest
Janet Beery, University of Redlands
CSU Fullerton Professor Scott Annin Wins Alder Award at 2009 MathFest
Alder Award winner Scott Annin and his student MyViet at Mathfest 2009
Scott Annin of Cal State Fullerton won the prestigious Henry L. Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Beginning College or University Mathematics Faculty Member at the MAA MathFest August 6–8, 2009, in Portland, Oregon. Meanwhile, other members of the MAA Southern California-Nevada Section were busy making presentations, leading sessions, and enjoying people and place at MathFest.
Annin has taught at CSU Fullerton since 2002, the same year he earned the PhD in Mathematics from UC Berkeley, and has received numerous teaching awards at both Berkeley and Fullerton. According to MAA Online, he received the MAA Alder Award for “his passion for teaching mathematics and his inspiration of students to major in mathematics.”
Alice Silverberg presenting at Mathfest. Photo by MAA FOCUS Editor Fernando Gouvea
Presenters and Organizers
Alice Silverberg, UC Irvine, at right, gave an MAA Invited Address on “Cryptography: How to Keep a Secret,” and Kate Okikiolu, UC San Diego, delivered the AWM-MAA Etta Z. Falconer Lecture on “The Sum of Squares of Wavelengths of a Closed Surface.” Art Benjamin, of Harvey Mudd College, presented “Secrets of Mental Math” as the MAA Undergraduate Student Activity.
Jackie Dewar, Loyola Marymount University; Michael Orrison, Harvey Mudd College; and Art Benjamin led the minicourses, “A Beginner’s Guide to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Mathematics,” “Preparing Students to Communicate Mathematics,” and “Combinatorially Thinking,” respectively.
Janet Beery, University of Redlands; Art Benjamin, Harvey Mudd College; and Mario Martelli, Claremont Graduate University, organized Invited Paper sessions on, respectively, History of Mathematics, Gems of Combinatorics, and Research with Undergraduates. Janet Beery and Stacy Langton, University of San Diego, spoke in Beery’s session. Ali Nadim, Claremont Graduate University; Cindy Wyels, Cal State Channel Islands; and Ami Radunskaya, Pomona College, spoke in Martelli’s session. Ken Millett, UC Santa Barbara; David Bachman, Pitzer College; and Thomas Ferguson, UCLA, spoke in other Invited Paper sessions.
Stacy Langton of University of San Diego, Silvia Heubach of Cal State LA, and Jenny Quinn of University of Washington, Tacoma, and formerly of Occidental College, enjoy the MathFest Opening Banquet in Portland, OR, in August. Photos by MAA FOCUS Editor Fernando Gouvea
Todd CadwalladerOlsker, Cal State Fullerton, helped organize a Contributed Paper Session on Fascinating Examples from Combinatorics, Number Theory, and Discrete Mathematics, and Janet Beery helped organize a CPS on History and Philosophy of Mathematics and Their Uses in the Classroom. Several MAA So Cal-Nev Section members presented talks in these and other CPSs.
Meeting attendees also found time to walk along the Willamette River, explore Portland’s famous rose gardens, and taste the local seafood and other specialties.
MathFest 2010 will be held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 5-7.
Students' Column
Cindy Wyels, Student Chapters Coordinator,
Cal State Channel Islands
“A poster session – outdoors?!”
Here in the Southern California-Nevada Section of the MAA we think nothing of scheduling our spring Student Poster Session for an outdoor venue, much to the amazement of a judge visiting from Ohio. While a fine mist did close out the hour-long session, it did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the student presenters, judges, and other participants. Numbers were up slightly for the Spring ’09 edition, with 26 students teaming up to present 19 posters – some accompanied by physical models or interactive computer programs. The level of accomplishment was quite high, and seven posters were determined by the judges to be exceptionally distinguished; these won Meritorious Poster Awards. (See the list at the end of this column.) As always, the poster session relied upon the efforts of many dedicated organizers, judges, and faculty mentors: all are heartily thanked. (Thanks also to Ernie Solheid for photos of the 2009 Spring Meeting!)
Meritorious
Poster Award winners Felix Ortiz and Eduardo Calles of Bakersfield College present their project “Bridge of Success” at the 2009 Spring Section Meeting at Cal Lutheran.
Consider a Conference
Many student members of our section of the MAA made a trip to Portland for MathFest in August. Students presented the results of their research projects and participated in or observed a variety of sessions. This year, a multitude of conferences appropriate for students are in the works. The Fall Meeting and Spring Meeting of our MAA section provide great introductions to conference-going, as each are relatively inexpensive one-day affairs, with programs guaranteed to educate and entertain. Gather a group from your school and attend! (This newsletter has all the news about the Fall Meeting; the Spring Meeting – April 10, 2010, at Harvey Mudd College – will be featured in the winter newsletter.) See the following list for other conferences to consider.
- October 17, 2009: Fall Meeting of the So Cal-NV Section of the MAA, CSU San
Bernardino (Meeting website)
- November 21, 2009: Southern California Conference on Undergraduate Research
(SCCUR), CSU Dominguez Hills (www.sccur.org)
- January 13 - 16, 2010: The Joint Mathematics Meetings, San Francisco, CA
(www.ams.org/amsmtgs/2124_intro.html)
- March 13, 2010: Pacific Coast Undergraduate Math Conference, Pepperdine
University, (www.pcumc-math.org)
- April 10, 2010: Spring Meeting of the So Cal-NV Section of the MAA, Harvey
Mudd College in Claremont (http://www.maa.org/socal)
Other ways to enhance your education (and your career or grad school prospects)
Meetings and seminars, extra-curricular mathematics projects, the Putnam Exam and the
Mathematical Modeling Competition, summer research opportunities, mathematicsrelated
internships: these are just a few of the ways you can broaden your thinking, put
your classroom learning to use in new situations, enhance your resume, and learn new
mathematics. Talk to more experienced students, recent graduates, and your professors,
and look for information on the web, at your school’s Career Center, and anywhere you
can find it. Online, start with http://www.maa.org/students/reustuff/pages/REU.html for
paid summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REUs),
http://www.maa.org/students/career.html for lots of career information, and
http://www.maa.org/awards/putnam.html to learn about the Putnam Exam.
Jennifer Bonsangue of CSU
Channel Islands answers questions about her poster, “Mathematics and Forgery Analysis: The Dutch GoldenAge,” for which she received a Meritorious Poster Award at the 2009 Spring Section Meeting at Cal Lutheran.
Student Poster Sessions: San Francisco (January) and Claremont (April)
Join 6000 mathematicians at the Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) … and share your
research project by participating in the national Student Poster Session. (To enter see
www.maa.org/students/undergrad/jmmposterindex.html Deadline is Nov. 6, 2009.) The
JMM also includes technical research presentations, survey talks, poster sessions, movie
showings and musical performances, and much more. Information on all student
activities will be posted in September at www.ams.org/amsmtgs/2124_intro.html.
Your research project isn’t quite ready to submit now? Enter it in the section’s Student
Poster Session! You’re just thinking about starting something? That’s fine – you have
until April 5 to enter. The So Cal-NV MAA section’s Spring Meeting will be held on
April 10, 2010, at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont. Detailed information and abstract
submission information will be in the February section newsletter. But start planning
now: your poster could feature the results of any individual or group mathematics project.
Need ideas? See below, and ask a professor.
- Results of 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.
Student Poster Session Organizer
Cindy Wyels announces the award
winners at the Spring 2009 MAA
Section Meeting at Cal Lutheran.
Spring 2009 Meritorious Poster Awardees
Frosh/ Soph Category
- Eduardo Calles and Felix Ortiz, Bridge of
Success, Bakersfield College, Advisor:
Rebecca Head
Junior/ Senior Category
- Jennifer Bonsangue, Mathematics and Forgery
Analysis: The Dutch Golden Age, CSU
Channel Islands. Advisor: Ivona Grzegorczyk
- Sonia Chauhan, Bipartite at its Best!!!, Cal
Poly Pomona. Advisor: Berit Givens
- Benjamin Fogelson, Survival and proliferation
of chronic lymphocytic leukemia in lymphoid
tissue, Harvey Mudd College. Advisor: Lisette
dePillis
- Aileen Gaudinez, Lisa Brown, Michelle Creek,
Derivatives and Gradients as Tools in Digital
Image Processing, Chapman University.
Advisor: Mohamed Allali
- Kristina Klug, Rank Analysis of NASCAR, California Lutheran University.
Advisor: Chris Brown
- Sarah Lauff, Institutional Research – Freshmen Retention and Cafeteria Patterns,
Point Loma Nazarene University. Advisors: Greg Crow and Maria Zack
- Alana Nichol, PLNU Student Entry, Exit, and Reentry Points, Point Loma
Nazarene University. Advisors: Maria Zack and Greg Crow
Masters Category
- Brian Chen and Hernan Oscco, Angle Constructability on Lattices: Why a dog
and cat lattice can make the same angles, Cal Poly Pomona. Advisor: Greisy
Winiki-Landman
Register
Click here to register on-line, and pay by credit card (deadline 5 pm, October 13th).
Click here to register by mail, and pay by check (deadline October 13th).
Fall 2009 Section Meeting
California State University, San Bernardino
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Meeting web site
The Fall Meeting of the Southern California-Nevada Section of the MAA will feature
three exceptional speakers on three exciting mathematical topics:
- Jason Rosenhouse, who “wrote the book” on the Monty Hall Problem, revisits
the famous problem;
- Distinguished Teaching Award Winner Curtis Bennett explains Thurston’s simple
yet elegant model of hyperbolic space; and
- World-renowned applied mathematician Andrea Bertozzi explains how to model
the natural phenomenon of swarming.
The meeting also will feature a Contributed Paper Session, organized by Min-Lin Lo of Cal State San Bernardino (call for Contributed Papers), and a workshop on the MAA Mathematical Sciences Digital Library (MathDL), led by Bruce Yoshiwara of Pierce College, Janet Beery of the University of Redlands, Robert Baker of University High School, and Kirby Baker of UCLA. The MAA Book Sale, offered throughout the day by Michael Hoffman and Richard Katz of Cal State Los Angeles, will have a large selection of new MAA books, along with almost all of the other titles in the MAA booklist.
See you at Cal State San Bernardino!
Meeting web site
Great Books, Great Bargains at MAA Book Sale!
The 2009 Spring Meeting at California Lutheran University will include the ever-popular MAA Book Sale. Book prices at the meeting will be about 10% less than the already discounted MAA member prices. Almost all of the books in the MAA Catalog will be on display, including a number of brand new titles. Among the new MAA books are A Radical Approach to Lebesgue’s Theory of Integration, by MAA President David Bressoud, Biscuits of Number Theory, co-edited by MAA Southern California-Nevada Section Chair Art Benjamin; and Uncommon Mathematical Excursions: Polynomia and Related Realms, by former MAA Southern California Section member Dan Kalman. Again, prices of books bought at the Spring Meeting are about 10% less than the already discounted member prices in the MAA Catalog. Book Sale organizers are Michael Hoffman and Richard Katz of California State University, Los Angeles.
Save these dates for future national MAA meetings
| Winter 2010 | San Francisco, CA | January 13-16 |
| Summer 2010 | Pittsburgh, PA | August 5-7 |
| Winter 2011 | New Orleans, LA | January 5-8 |
| Summer 2011 | Lexington, KY | August 4-6 |
| Winter 2012 | Boston, MA | January 4-7 |
| Summer 2012 | Madison, WI | August 2-4 |
| Winter 2013 | San Diego, CA | January 9-12 |
| Winter 2014 | Baltimore, MD | January 15-18 |
| Winter 2015 | San Antonio, TX | January 9-12 |
| Summer 2015 | Washington, DC | August 5-8 |
| Winter 2016 |
Seatle, WA |
January 6-9 |
| Winter 2017 |
Atlanta, GA |
January 4-7 |
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