Please see the VIGRE website
The Department of Mathematics and the Program in Applied Mathematics have jointly developed a new Professional Master's degree in Mathematical Science, which is intended specifically for individuals intending to make careers in industry and commerce, or in the public sector. The program of study is flexible and tailored to individual candidates' needs, and can be interdisciplinary in nature.
This degree is part of a broader program of Professional Master's degrees in the College of Science at the University of Arizona, with support from the Sloan Foundation. Students in the program will participate, with those from the other Professional degree programs, in a variety of collective training experiences and courses on business basics and intellectual property.
The Graduate Student Colloquium was created and instituted by Barbara A. Shipman in 1993. Barbara who graduated with a Ph.D in Mathematics in 1995, started a tradition from which all of us graduate students benefit today. (Barbara is now at the University of Texas at Arlington.)
The Graduate Colloquium gives graduate students a chance to practice their presentation skills and to advertise their specialties and hobbies. Audience members ranging from undergraduates to the occasional professor observe the breadth of research occurring in our graduate student community.
Topics this spring included: algebraic geometry, polynomial factorization, mathematical biology, surreal numbers, job hunting, and mathematics education.
The Spring 2000 speakers in order of appearance:
Aaron Wootton, Jeff Edmunds, Jeff Cunningham, Christopher
Rasmussen, Thomas Hoffman, Robert Lakatos, Virgil Pierce,
Seog Young Kim, Frederick Leitner, Susan Hammond Marshall,
Jialing Dai, Laura Kondek, Guadalupe Lozano, and Jeff
Selden.
Titles and abstracts are available at
http://math.arizona.edu/~gradcolloq/gradmain.html.
Thank you to all participants and attendees.
Last semester (Fall 1999) saw the creation of a Graduate Student Seminar working on Geometry. This was brought about by a dedicated group of Graduate Students with an interest in things geometric.
To some of us Geometry is our passion, to others our hobby. But regardless we came. The seminar gives graduate students interested in geometry an opportunity to hone their techniques, see new ideas, and present details of their current research. Matthias Lesch also made use of the seminar to advertise his upcoming special topics course.
This Spring (2000) presentations included a series of talks on Sheaf Theory by Jeff Selden and Susan Hammond Marshall, a lecture on Principle G-Bundles by Robert Lakatos, a series on the Riemann-Roch Theorem by Matthias Lesch, a series on Hamiltonian Reduction by Maria Agrotis, and a series on the Motion of Polygons in Space by Guadalupe Lozano.
Organizing this seminar has been a joy. Thank you to all who made this a reality.
The tradition of the Applied Math Brown Bag seminars continued this semester with a wide range of interesting topics from Truck bombs to extra-terrestrial life.
The Seminars are a great opportunity for students to share ideas, tell other students about their research interests and learn more about the breadth of subjects being investigated by members of the Program in Applied Math. They are also a good environment to practice presenting mathematical research and fielding questions from peers.
Not only did we have speakers from the Math Department but several of the talks were given by students in other departments with topics of interest to applied mathematicians. We even had an international speaker who was visiting from the Department in Applied Maths and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University, U.K.
Thanks to all those who gave talks this semester and all who attended them. I hope to see you around next year too.
The speakers for this semester were:
Maggie Turnbull, Kevin Gross, David Ropp, David Marsden, Tyler Mcmillen,
Dan Coombs, Keith Koper, John Costello, Dmitry Kondrashov and Rachel
Bearon.
This section gives information about all students who completed PhD degrees in Mathematics since 1992. Data provided are: year of graduation, student's name, dissertation title, advisor, and initial post-doctoral employment (if available), according to our records.
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
Ph.D.s in Applied Mathemtics can be found at [THIS MISSING LINK].
Lisa Berger
Lisa graduated the University of Arizona in 1992 with a BS in mathematics education. After enjoying her first two years teaching middle school in Phoenix, she fled the country to recover. Lisa spent the next academic year working as an international coordinator for Centro Maya de Idiomas, a Spanish language immersion school in Guatemala. Lisa enjoys traveling; she has studied at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and hopes to soon visit Brougham Bridge in Ireland. Lisa has been teaching mathematics at Desert View High School in Tucson since 1995. She looks forward to continuing her studies in mathematics while teaching next year. Lisa's favorite mathematician is Sylow, who worked as a high school teacher.
David J Kukla
David Kukla was born in New York City and has thought himself a New Yorker ever since. He pursued undergraduate work in History with a minor in Sociology as well as learning to rock climb at Oberlin College. Upon graduation, he fled for a semester abroad learning how to drink beer, telemark ski, and speak German. Upon return to the U.S., David tried his hand with "work". In Massachusetts, he found employment as Assistant Manager at the local convenient store and then as an Assistant Manager at a local Stride Rite (little little kids are not afraid to pee when they are tense about trying on shoes). His big break came when he applied for and was accepted to the Executive Training Program at Macy's New York. For two years he came to understand that Executive success meant being a stockboy, who could crunch numbers whilst wearing a suit. During this time David began to be a Literacy Volunteer at the local library. He soon realized that his hour a week helping Veronica to learn to read was more satisfying than his 60/wk at Macy's. David then left the glamorous world of stock management for grad school at Columbia. There he was a Carnegie Mellon Fellow for Urban Education and did his course work on history education. Upon his Masterment, he found employment at a small public junior high school in East Harlem.
After three years of helping really nice kids in a tremendously underfunded school , Dave decided to find a different concept of winter. Finding himself in Tucson, he went back to school yet again. Pima Community College was more than will to introduce him to the joys of painting, pottery, and MATH! After looking at his transcripts, the Arizona State Department of Education awarded him a certificate to teach Math, Art, and History/Social Studies in the state's secondary schools. He found work at Sabino HS under most curious circumstances (sounding like the principal's best friend scored the interview; willingness to take the dredge schedule combined with his compassion for students and all his qualifications won the job). He has taught there for 4 years and will return for another 21 when his year as a Coop is over.
Math follow-up questions: How old is he? Did he really count all those Jujubes in the polyhedron he built for Math Awareness Week? How many credits has he taken at the undergraduate and graduate levels?
Yvonne Sandoval-Brown
Yvonne Sandoval-Brown was born and raised in Pueblo, Colorado, 103 miles south of Denver (the land of the Denver Broncos). She earned her bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science in 1985 from the University of Southern Colorado. She attended the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, for one and a half years then transferred to the University of Arizona in the fall of 1987. While earning her masters degree she taught part time at Pima Community College while being a teaching assistant. She finished her masters degree and later became a faculty member at PCC. She also coordinates and runs the Tutoring Center at PCC. Yvonne has been married for seven years. She has two wonderful children, Savannah Marie, 3, and Hunter Benjamin, 1, who are also Denver Bronco fans!
The Entry Level Mathematics Colloquium, now in its sixth year of operation, is sponsored by the Entry Level Committee and is presented jointly with the Mathematics Instruction Colloquium. Its purpose is to present mathematical topics that are of interest to, and understandable by, those teaching our lower division courses.
In 1999-2000 the Entry Level Mathematics Colloquium presented a series of ten talks by entry level faculty members, a graduate student, and a regular faculty member. The programs included reports on number theory, game theory, geometry, cryptography, creating stock portfolios, and mathematical history. Several of the talks featured live computer demonstrations. Speakers and topics included the following.
Many of the presentations generated interesting discussions among those who attended. An average of over twenty people came to each colloquium.
David T. Gay
I was born in Liberia, moved to England at the age of six, to Lesotho after a year, and to the U.S. for high school, but I still have dreams of moving back to Africa some day. One of my earliest mathematical influences was my "Uncle" Prasad, an Indian statistician at the National University of Lesotho who fed me with chapatis, Möbius strips and love of mathematics at a young age. One of my goals in life is to provide at least one other person with as positive a mathematical influence as my Uncle Prasad did me.
My bachelor's degree is from Harvard and my PhD is from U. C. Berkeley, both in math, and my specialty is low-dimensional geometric topology; Rob Kirby was my PhD advisor. I have been lucky enough to teach the undergraduate topology course this year, as well as calculus and linear algebra. Another goal in life is to learn how to teach calculus well; I have found that this is not an easy task.
I will be visiting the Mathematics Research Institute at Nankai University in Tianjin, China next year, teaching some differential topology and topics in geometric topology and pursuing my own research, and then I will be returning for two more years in the teaching postdoc position here. This summer I will be working with several talented undergraduate research assistants and am interested in expanding on such projects when I return. My faculty mentor is the other David Gay.
Chris Goff
A native Texan, Chris graduated from the University of Texas in 1993 with degrees in Physics and Liberal Arts. His Ph.D. thesis in representation theory was completed at the University of California in Santa Cruz in 1999 under Geoff Mason. At Santa Cruz, Chris was recognized as an outstanding teaching assistant by both the mathematics department and the university as a whole. On account of his experiences at Santa Cruz, Chris has developed interests in graduate educational issues such as TA training as well as interests in undergraduate issues such as Calculus reform and undergraduate teaching and research assistantships. In addition, he has taught extensively for the Talent Identification Program, which targets academically gifted adolescents and seeks to provide them with a meaningful summer academic experience. And finally, Chris would like to study the relationship between gender and mathematics, hoping one day to debunk the stereotypes that are pervasive in many mathematics classrooms.
Brigitte Lahme
Brigitte was born and raised in Germany. She came to the U.S. in 1993 after completing her undergraduate work in mathematics at the Philipps-Universitaet Marburg. Brigitte earned masters and doctorate degrees from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado (1999). The title of her dissertation is: Karhunen-Loeve Decomposition in the Presence of Symmetry. This research combines methods of representation theory with applications in dynamical systems and was completed under the direction of Rick Miranda. Part 1 of the dissertation has been published in the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing. Brigitte also completed a graduate degree (Diplom) at the University of Hamburg in Germany.
As a graduate student and recently as a teaching post-doc, Brigitte has taught a wide variety of classes from College Algebra and different levels of Calculus to Differential Equations, Linear Algebra, and Engineering Math. During her first year as a teaching post-doc, Brigitte has participated in numerous departmental activities such as outreach projects for teachers, supervision of undergraduate teaching assistants and honor students, the writing of two grants and a summer workshop for middle and high school teachers. This upcoming semester (Fall 2000) Brigitte will be supervising and coordinating the math department's VIGRE undergraduate teaching assistants as well as several research assistants together with her faculty mentor Robert Indik.
Two thousand, two hundred and sixty nine was the most important number of Math Awareness Week at the U. of A. this year, although we also spent a good amount of time trying to convince the general public that mathematics is about more than just numbers and equations. At our first organizational meeting, Dave Kukla, a Sabino high-school teacher visiting the Mathematics Department through the co-op program, made the bold statement that no Math Awareness Week celebration would be complete without a contest. This led to Dave's construction of an irregular stellated dodecahedron filled with Jujubees and a contest to guess the total number of Jujubees in the polyhedron. The polyhedron was prominently displayed behind glass in the main entrance to the math building, and crowds were seen gathered around discussing volume calculations and entering their "guesstimates" for the competition. Dave actually counted all the Jujubees himself and assures us that there were 22,069 of them; Craig Hernandez, a U. of A. freshman, had the closest guess, at 23,230.
The theme of the week this year was "Math Spans All Dimensions", which was conveniently open to a wide range of interpretations. Some of the dimensions represented were artistic: In the display case with the Jujubee polyhedron was a display of ceramic tiles and a display of intricate origami constructed by Yashashwini Mittal of the Mathematics Department. On Thursday, which happened also to be "Daughters on Campus Day", the Mathematics Department hosted the Tucson Symphony String Quartet for a performance of "Arroyo", an interactive math musical. ("Arroyo" is a southwestern retelling of the old graph theoretic riddle concerning crossing a river with a goat, wolf, and cabbage, and only room for two in the boat.) The performance was followed by an hour of math puzzles and games hosted by Linda Griffin.
Every day from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m., Room 401 in the Math Building was taken over by polyhedra, surfaces of constant negative curvature, games and puzzles, tiling patterns, more origami, Möbius strips and Klein bottles, a display on string theory, and interactive computer demonstrations. People from all walks of life came and went, asking questions about the displays and taking away at least some snippets of new mathematical insight. We had scissors, paper, and glue on hand for those who came in and didn't know what a Möbius strip was, or who expected to get two strips after cutting a Möbius strip down the middle. Guadalupe Lozano presented an interactive computer-based workshop on hyperbolic geometry, and Dave Kukla, David T. Gay, and Capt. Mike Critz presented a tape, glue, and paper workshop on polyhedra and negative curvature.
We also presented two lectures and a movie day, focusing on mathematics in dimensions two, three, and four. The keynote lecture, "Cosmology and the Geometry of the Universe" was delivered by Dr. Bill Stoeger of the Vatican Observatory Reseach Group at the Steward Observatory. Dr. Stoeger discussed the role of 4-dimensional geometry in modelling the evolution of the universe, and presented the latest observational data that helps us choose between different geometric models. The movies were "The Shape of Space", on life inside a torus, a Klein bottle, and a 3-torus, "Not Knot", on life inside a variety of hyperbolic 3-manifolds, "Outside In", all about turning spheres inside out, and "Hypercube", presenting rotations of a 4-dimensional cube in 4-space. Alain Goriely and David T. Gay, both from the Mathematics Department, gave a joint lecture on "Knots in Theory and in Reality", presenting knot theory from both a pure and an applied perspective, ranging from knotted inner tubes and telephone cords to DNA and knotted filaments in the solar magnetic field.
During the week, we presented an exciting and dynamic slice of mathematical life and promoted awareness of both the useful and the useless but fun aspects of mathematics. Those who participate in organizing a very successful week included: Cinnamon Hillyard, Chris Mikel, Bill McCallum, Dave Kukla, Jennifer Smith, Aaron Ekstrom, and both David Gays.
Seeks to increase the number of Arizona students with physical disabilities who pursue study and careers in science, mathematics, engineering and technology
Further information on Project ACCESS can be found at this link.
The SWRIMS, established in 1994, is currently sponsoring projects at Northern Arizona University, the University of Arizona, and Utah State University. Together, the mathematics departments at these universities share a common belief that the distance that has developed between teaching and research is artificial, and with the right leadership this great distance can be successfully closed.
Historically, the great diversity in teaching and research responsibilities of the mathematics community has led to fragmentation and poor communication among the many ongoing activities. The glaring separation between research and teaching is evident at institutions worldwide, where traditional "publish or perish" philosophies have greatly exacerbated the divide. This separation is a major roadblock to the desire to communicate the beauty and utility of mathematics to the entire community. The Southwest RIMS plans to consolidate and significantly enhance existing structures, support a new initiative towards the integration of research and teaching in the mathematical sciences, and facilitate the expansion of established core activities into a full scale regional institute in the mathematical sciences with many more universities involved.
The goal of the Southwest RIMS is to expose students of all ages to mathematics as practiced by professionals and to empower them with a feeling that useful information can be gleaned from the simplest of models. Interacting with these professionals, seeing their lifestyles and work habits, becoming involved with the same problems, will yield a much more accurate picture of careers in the mathematical sciences and the rewards, both intellectual and financial, that they bring. It is also necessary to involve instructors of the mathematical sciences in this adventure because it is they who will transmit the excitement and importance of mathematics and science on a day-to-day basis. They, too, must feel comfortable in using quantitative analysis to address real world challenges.
The infrastructure for supporting these educational experiences is already in place at all levels of teaching and research at the universities that are a part of the Southwest RIMS. The many educational activities spawned by dedicated individuals or small groups within the mathematics departments over the years is testimony to our awareness of the seriousness of the educational problem nationwide and exemplify our dedication and our experience in addressing this challenge. The Southwest RIMS and The University of Arizona Department of Mathematics have written this catalog (this catalog represents the first installment of our efforts to describe the outreach activities throughout the region) listing educational activities sponsored by the University of Arizona which encourage students, minorities and native peoples, women, parents, mathematics teachers of all levels, and professionals in the community to recognize the importance of mathematics in society.
Communication is the key to education. The Southwest RIMS hopes that by reaching out to the community and working together we will teach all of our children to become mathematically literate. This is a task that requires not only a rethinking of what it is that we teach, but also how it is that we present the material. With this last thought in mind, I am reminded of a saying that my mother was fond of: "Hablando se entiende la gente" - By speaking, we make ourselves understood.
We, in the mathematics community, study the most fascinating of subjects. It is we who should take a leadership role in communicating this fascination to the community. We can. Listen to my mother.
The purpose of the Whiteriver Junior High School Summer Camp is threefold: i) to enhance the participants' problem solving skills, ii) to acquaint the participants with computers and the latest hand calculators, iii) to enhance written and verbal communication skills. This camp was created to give the Apache students the same opportunities that the brightest students in the city have to explore and create mathematics.
The Whiteriver Junior High School Summer Camp evolved from the University of Arizona Summer Mathematics Camp. Each summer twelve eighth graders from Whiteriver Junior High School on the White Mountain Apache Reservation spend a week at an intensive summer residential program dealing with problem solving and technology.
The format of the two-week University of Arizona Summer Mathematics Camp was adapted to a one-week camp for the Apache students. The students arrive on a Sunday afternoon after a 200 mile trip to Tucson. On Monday, they are introduced to the computer they will be using throughout the week and how to use it. Tuesday, the students are introduced to several exploratory problems, [For examples of exploratory problems refer to: Stevenson, Frederick W.. Exploratory Problems in Mathematics. NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics). 1992.] students team up, choose a problem and work on it the remainder of the day and all day Wednesday. On Thursday the students write up their findings in the morning and in the afternoon give oral presentations to their colleagues, their school principal and teacher, interested parents, and guests from the University of Arizona Department of Mathematics. On Friday morning there is a "graduation" ceremony where each student is presented with a booklet containing the results of their colleague's research activities.
Participants are selected by their mathematics teacher based on their abilities and interests in mathematics. The Whiteriver Junior High School eighth graders have various fundraisers throughout the school year so they can have some spending money when they attend the summer camp.
Primary funding for the Whiteriver Junior High School Summer Camp comes from the Apache Nation and local foundations through the University of Arizona Foundation, a funding arm of the University. Program expenses include student room and board, travel costs, instructor and counselor salaries, computer resources, publicity, and supplies. Future plans include developing similar programs for the high school on the White Mountain Apache Reservation, and for other local reservations such as the San Carlos Apache, Navajo, Hopi, and Tohono O'odham.
The Coalition to Increase Minority Degrees (The CIMD) is an alliance of over 75 institutions of higher education, corporations, government laboratories, educational organizations, and foundations throughout Arizona, New Mexico and Western Texas, Colorado, and Utah. The CIMD has received a $5 million five year cooperative agreement from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to increase the number of underrepresented minority students who receive baccalaureate and doctorate degrees in mathematics, the sciences, and engineering. A significant amount of the NSF funding will be distributed to faculty members, other appropriate professionals, and their students to lead and participate in:
All faculty members at The CIMD institutions in fields under NSF's jurisdiction or other appropriate scientists, administrators or research staff at The CIMD institutions or organizations are eligible to apply for funding of a project satisfying the goals of The CIMD. Funding may be sought to start a new project, or to expand an existing one. There is no limit, per se, on how many applications any one institution or individual can submit during a semester.
For more information on CIMD contact:
Coalition to Increase Minority Degrees
c/o Hispanic Research Center
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ 85287-2702
phone: (520) 965-0840
CIMD has provided Dr. Velez with the funds to be able to hire student help to aid him in his efforts to bring in more minority students to the study of mathematics based careers. He began his program of advising around 1987. He contacted all of the minority students who were enrolled in first semester calculus. There were fewer than twenty such students at the time. Since there were so few students, Dr. Velez was able to interact with them on a weekly basis. Over the years the number of minority students has increased and it has become impossible to spend a weekly hour with each student advisee. With the number of minority students enrolled in the three semester course in calculus numbering about 200 students, Dr. Velez has had to change his tactics.
The contact Dr. Velez has with the students he advises has now become very focused. He attempts to contact minority students early in the semester, preferably before the semester begins. He uses CIMD funds to hire a student to do the phone contacts for him. After appointments have been made, Dr. Velez spends approximately 15 minutes with each student advisee. During this short period of time, he goes over the student's schedule, asks about their career plans, talks to them about the importance of calculus, and encourages them to join minority student scientific organizations. If the student has not declared a major yet, Dr.Velez suggests that she/he become a mathematics major. This is done for several reasons. Students without an advisor can get lost. Because records of mathematics majors are forwarded to the academic advisors, Dr. Velez as the students' advisor will make every effort to open up career opportunities for them. Part of this process is having the students explore their interests. Although many of these undecided students change their major after a semester or two, at least they have taken more mathematics than the average student.
CIMD has provided Dr. Lomen with funds so that he may conduct Faculty- Directed Individual and Group Research Projects. He has worked with fourteen minority undergraduate students on various research projects ranging from developing laboratory experiments to enhance calculus courses to creating a mathematical model concerning blood and oxygen transport in the circulation system.
Dr. Lomen's goal when supervising CIMD Faculty-Directed Individual and Group Research Projects is to join with the students in the excitement and satisfaction that comes from making new discoveries. He believes that the crucial thing in directing student research projects is to find a research topic of interest to the student, and then provide the proper mix of additional mathematical background, guidance, and encouragement so each student is able to progress on his or her own. It is as a student discovers new insights or mathematical properties that they obtain some insight into graduate school. If a creative student gets a taste of the thrill and satisfaction of discovery, there is a better chance of that student taking his or her mathematical education beyond a bachelor's degree.
One such research project involved working with three students on developing explanations for several experiments using the IBM Personal Science Laboratory. These students conducted their own experiments (involving motion, temperature, light intensity, and pH), collected data using the IBM Personal Science Laboratory equipment, and analyzed their data using the University of Arizona Department of Mathematics "electronic classroom." By the end of the semester, the students developed (for each specific experiment) a "Fact Sheet" containing: what mathematical idea is illustrated by the experiment, at what point in the syllabus the experiment is appropriate, what equipment is needed to perform the experiment, a step by step list of how to perform the experiment, a handout containing specific mathematical questions for students to answer concerning this experiment. These "Fact Sheets" were later distributed to other faculty members interested in integrating technology into the classroom.
Dr. Lomen has served as an advisor and a mentor to the students he works with. Having students work on mathematical research projects under the direction of a faculty member is an enormous help in encouraging them to continue their education in graduate school. In accordance with the CIMD's philosophy, Dr.Lomen made arrangements for the students to meet with the University of Arizona Department of Mathematics Graduate Committee Chairman so that they could learn and ask questions about what graduate school in mathematics entails, how to fill out applications, what information to include in a personal statement, and when to apply.
Further information can be found here
The Mathematics Instruction Colloquium meets in room 501 from 4:15 to 5:15 on Tuesdays during the academic year. We discuss topics of interest to teachers of mathematics at all levels from pre-kindergarten through college. Speakers include local school teachers, University of Arizona faculty, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, and visitors from other institutions.
Some of the topics discussed this year were:
Many of the topics discussed are more mathematical than instructional in nature, but are accessible to people with a limited mathematics background and usually provide insights that could help improve instruction. Some of these are described as "Entry Level" topics. Included in such talks were topics such as:
Speakers included
Judith E. Jacobs (Professor of Mathematics and Director
of the Center For Education and Equity in Mathematics,
Science, and Technology, California State Polytechnic
University, Pomona, California);
Annie Selden (Professor of Mathematics, Tennessee
Technological University, Visiting Professor of
Mathematics, Arizona State University);
Marilyn Carlson (Arizona State University);
John Belward (Professor of Mathematics, Australia and
Colorado);
Tanya (Toni) Schmader (UA Psychology Department).
Also among the speakers were people more closely associated with the Department of Mathematics here, including: Dave Kukla, Amy Ram, Jennifer Smith, Steve Willoughby, Cinnamon Hilyard, David Gay, Marta Civil, Dan Madden, Bryce Hanlon. Lisa Berger, Diann Porter, Cecilia Taylor, Chris Goff, Yvone Brown, Mickey Levendusky, Brigitte Lahme, and Carl Lienert.
The first meeting of the Mathematics Instruction Colloquium in the 2000-2001 academic year will take place from 4:15-5:15 on Tuesday, August 22 in room 501. If you are interested in making a presentation or receiving a list of speakers and topics you should attend that meeting or get in touch with Professor Fred Stevenson (frstv@math.arizona.edu). All are welcome to attend any meeting of the group.
http://www.math.arizona.edu/talks/f99/math-colloq.html
http://www.math.arizona.edu/talks/s00/math-colloq.html
http://www.math.arizona.edu/talks/f99/aplm-colloq.html
http://www.math.arizona.edu/talks/s00/aplm-colloq.html
Our seminars this year ranged from introductory lectures to advanced research talks on a variety of topics in Algebra, Representation Theory, Algebraic Number Theory, Arithmetical Algebraic Geometry and (to a smaller extent) Mathematical Physics. Some of the talks were devoted to preparation for the Arizona Winter School on Arithmetical Algebraic Geometry in March.
Besides the ``local'' speakers (Dennis Eichhorn, Nick Ercolani, Chris Goff, Thomas Hoffman, Kirti Joshi, Minhyong Kim, Carl Lienert, Klaus Lux, David Marshall, Susan Marshall, William McCallum, Ken McLaughlin, Justin Miller, Chris Rasmussen, Romyar Sharifi, Dinesh Thakur, Pavlos Tzermias), lectures were also given by Ahmed Abbes, Eyal Goren, Joongul Lee, Yoonjin Lee, Matt Papanikolas and Magdolna Szoke. The visits of some of the latter speakers were supported, in whole or in part, by the GIG grant (the Group Infrastructure Grant from the NSF).
Dates and abstracts of the seminar talks can be found at
http://www.math.arizona.edu/talks/f99/alg.html
and
http://www.math.arizona.edu/talks/s00/alg.html.
The organizer thanks all those who attended or actively participated in the seminar this year.
http://www.math.arizona.edu/talks/f99/geom.html
http://www.math.arizona.edu/talks/s00/geom.html
The theme for this years mathematical physics seminar was the renormalization group. Talks included applications to random resistor networks, random walks with disorder, self avoiding random walks, and universality of the two-dimensional Ising model. The last topic concerned a recent paper of Haru Pinson and Tom Spencer. Pinson will be joining the department's faculty in the Fall. Other topics for the year included Luttinger liquids and percolation.
http://www.math.arizona.edu/talks/f99/pde.html
http://www.math.arizona.edu/talks/s00/pde.html
Currently, the Classified Staff includes
| Department Heads's Office: | Janet Lange, Bernadette Thomas |
|---|---|
| Main Office/Academic Services: | Carole Anderson, Jerrie Bieberstein, Nellie Rios, Brooke Zang |
| Graduate Office: | Charlotte Hamilton |
| Computing: | Rosario Molina, Chris Pelton |
| Research Staff: | Sam Gaxiola, Christa King, Lupe Lopez |
| Business Office/Faculty Services: | Cynthia Downey, Deborah Gaines, Laurie Lefebvre, Sandy Sutton, Evelyn Weissman, Narquita Wright |
Academic Professional Staff are:
| Computing: | Bob Condon |
|---|---|
| Academic Programs: | Marlene Hubbard |
| Operations: | Faye Villalobos |
| Math Center Coordinator: | Chris Mikel |
January 1, 2000 passed with very little impact on the staff. Bob Condon and the computer staff had reviewed all systems and made necessary upgrades. So, we returned after the holidays to "work as usual". Some minor renovations were made to the Main Office area to better serve the faculty and students. Recruitment for faculty, visitors and graduate students and research projects continued at a high level, and the evolution of University and Federal policies continued to seriously increase the complexity and accountability of all business transactions.
There were several changes in the staff this year. Georgine Speranzo left to pursue her education. The Main Office was reorganized with the promotion of Jerrie Bieberstein to Administrative Assistant. Brooke Zang moved from the Business Office to the Main Office to work with the Entry Level program and the Associate Heads. We welcomed Christa King (replaced Leona Puente) in the Arizona Center for Mathematical Sciences office under the direction of Dr. J. V. Moloney, and Lupe Lopez joined the staff as an Administrative Secretary to work with the new NSF-funded MAPPS program under the direction of Dr. D. A. Gay and Dr. M. Civil and other grant/proposal assistance. Other new additions to the staff included Cynthia Downey and Evelyn Weissman in the Business Office, and Nellie Rios as Administrative Secretary in the Main Office. Mark Hays left the computing staff to pursue other interests.
Janet Lange and Brooke Zang served as Department representatives to the College of Science Staff Advisory Council and the Department Committee for Staff Recognition. This year's Department Staff Recognition Award honored the contributions and dedication of Bernadette Thomas. Bernadette works in the Department Head's office with her most cumbersome and complicated task being processing visa applications for visitors and faculty. Nominee's included Sophie Gibson, Janet Lange, Sandy Sutton, Narquita Wright, and Brooke Zang.
The only Department career staff anniversary at the University of Arizona was for Evelyn Weissman (15 years).
The Department of Mathematics' staff work very hard for the 60 faculty, 20-25 temporary faculty, 10-12 visitors, 60 graduate teaching assistants, as well as assisting the 8000-9000 undergraduate and graduate students who enroll in Mathematics classes. Centralized administration of the Department requires a great deal of organizational skill and efficiency in completing all of the required tasks. There is no doubt that the staff work well together as a team to meet these demands and fulfill the needs of this very large department.