NEWS ABOUT THE GRADUATE PROGRAM
This year there were 22 new
students: eleven from the U.S.,
five from P.R.C., two from India,
one from Saint Lucia, one from
Germany, one from France, and
one from Russia.
In addition to the traditional
orientation, the Director of
Graduate Studies, Professor
Paul Garrett, administered a
six-hour "assessment/placement"
exams to incoming students.
These exams asked about basic
abstract analysis, algebra,
and topology, in addition to
more concrete linear algebra
and advanced calculus. The purpose
of these exams was both to provide
advice to new students and their
advisors about the right level
for their course work, as well
as to gain insights into the
relation between GRE (and other
similar exams) scores and the
actual knowledge that students
have when they arrive here.
The Eugene Fabes Memorial Thesis
Prizes
This year (February 2004) the
recipients are:
Anton Leykin (Gennady Lyubeznik,
advisor), "Algorithms in
computational algebraic analysis".
Anton is now a Research Assistant
Professor in Mathematics at
University of Illinois at Chicago.
Seick Kim (Mikhail Safonov,
advisor), "On the regularity
of solutions to second-order
equations and systems".
Seick is presently a Postdoctoral
Fellow in Mathematics at University
of Missouri.
They have both received a cash
prize of five hundred dollars.
The thesis prize committee consisted
of Professors Paul Garrett,
Peter Webb, and Ofer Zeitouni.
Other students who earned their
Ph.D.'s in 2003 were:
Feryal Alayont (Paul Garrett,
advisor), "Meromorphic
Continuation of Eisenstein Series",
currently at the University
of Arizona;
Ryan Berndt (Max Jodeit), "Singular
Integrals with New Singularities",
currently at Ohio State;
Grant Erdmann (Fadil Santosa,
advisor), "A New Minimax
Algorithm and
its Application to Optics Problems".
currently research staff at
Brooks
Air Force Base.
Alejandro
Lopez (Gennady Lyubeznik, advisor),
"Homological Algebra for
Graded-commutative Rings",
returned to Chile;
Gerardo Ortigoza (Fernando Reitich,
advisor), "The Runge-Kutta
Discontinuous Galerkin Method
for Maxwell Equations";
Seung-Suk Seo (Vladimir Sverak,
advisor), "Regularity theory
for Landau-Lifschitz equations",
returned to Korea;
Gabe Soto (Hans Othmer, advisor),
"An integrated model for
calcium dynamics during synaptic
transmission", currently
at the Center for BioDynamics,
Boston University.
The following students have
earned Master's Degrees in 2003:
Lin Fan (Steve Agard, advisor)
Jiseon Lee (Steve Agard, advisor)
Paul Macklin (John Lowengrub,
advisor)
Junhyuck Park (Steve Agard,
advisor)
Michael Weimerskirch (Harvey
Keynes, advisor)
Departmental TA Awards for Teaching
Excellence, June 2003
The department and our undergraduates
are blessed with many dedicated
and talented Teaching Assistants.
This makes it always a difficult
task for the departmental teaching
evaluation committee to choose
the small group for special
distinction. In June 2003, the
recipients of the departmental
awards for Teaching Excellence
were the following graduate
students: Steven Firchow, Ryan
Gantner, Min Gao, Nicolae Tarfulea,
Nicoleta Tarfulea, Muge Taskin,
Michael Weimerskirch, Todd Wittman,
and Jinjun Xiao. We congratulate
them all.
The Institute of Technology
Student Board Best TA Awards,
June 2003
Three of the department's Teaching
Assistants have earned this
recognition: Saleh Abudayeh,
Todd Wittman, and Javier Zuniga.
Our congratulations to all of
them for this achievement.
John Bowers Excellence in Teaching
Assistance Award, June 2003.
The recipient of this IT-wide
Award was Todd Wittman.
The department Head at the time,
Professor Naresh Jain, wrote
to Todd as follows: "We
in the School of Mathematics
are very proud of you for this
recognition. In fact, such individual
honors for members of the School
bring credit to the School as
well."
In light of Todd's recognition
for his excellent teaching we
asked him about his approach
to instruction. As a fifth year
graduate student, Todd has had
a lot of experience in combining
the hard work of teaching math
with the intense concentration
of graduate study. For him,
a key goal in teaching is motivation,
giving students a reason to
learn beyond just getting a
good grade. He decided to follow
his instincts in the classroom.
Todd tells us, "Rather
than doing homework-like problems
in class to reinforce the material,
I would work out more interesting
problems and applications related
to the material. I relied more
on analogy than concrete math
to prove theorems and illustrate
ideas. Instead of giving quizzes,
I would have quiz shows, like
Jeopardy with calculus questions.
Weather permitting, we would
have class on the lawn outside."
"Sometimes while doing
a problem on the blackboard,
I would intentionally make a
mistake just to see how far
into the problem I could go
before one of the students would
catch it. Whenever my wrist
was sore from writing on the
chalk board, I would force the
students to put problems on
the board. As the year went
on, my recitation sections got
progressively goofier. While
preparing the students for an
upcoming exam, one student suggested
that I bring them cupcakes if
the class mean was above a certain
score. I said OK and set the
bar higher than I thought they
could attain. [They] actually
did it. This became an ongoing
bet through the year and I found
myself constantly running to
the grocery store to buy cookies
and milk for 60 students."
Todd concludes, "It seems
strange, but putting in extra
effort to make your workload
fun will actually make the workload
easier. Two of the greatest
philosophers and social commentators
of our time, Ben Cohen and Jerry
Greenfield, once postulated:
"If it's not fun, why do
it?" It's tough to argue
with them when they make such
a fine Chocolate Chip Cookie
Dough ice cream."
We congratulate Todd on his
outstanding work with the students!
JUNIOR COLLOQUIUM
From undergraduates to full
professors, the mathematics
community is coming together
in the Junior Colloquium. This
is the second full year of existence
for the Junior Colloquium, inaugurated
in April 2002 with a talk by
Ordway Visitor Mikhail Kapranov
of the University of Toronto,
entitled "Amoebas, power
series, and hypergeometric functions."
This seminar continues the work
of the former ATaC seminar,
offering a forum for graduate
students, postdocs, faculty,
and visitors to address the
entire department on topics
of general interest.
Attendees have enjoyed more
excellent talks than it is possible
to mention here. Memorably,
Prof. Markus Keel studied the
shape of a breaking wave and
gave an intriguing introduction
to nonlinear partial differential
equations. Graduate student
Leonard Blackburn (now of Knox
College) familiarized his audience
with transfinite ordinal numbers
on the way to a spectacular
number-theoretic result called
Goodstein's Theorem. And IMA
Visitor John Dennis, of Rice
University, entertained his
audience with stories and problems
from his industrial experience
in nonlinear optimization.
The initial faculty advisor
for the Junior Colloquium, Prof.
Victor Reiner, was instrumental
in making the Junior Colloquium
a valuable counterpart to the
traditional Colloquium. Jon
Rogness and James Swenson, who
had served as organizers for
the ATaC seminar, served as
the initial student organizers.
In fall 2003, John Hall replaced
Jon Rogness as an organizer,
and Prof. Richard McGehee took
over Prof. Reiner's role as
faculty advisor. As of spring
2004, James Swenson was replaced
by Vasfiye Hande Tuzel.
This spring, the Junior Colloquium
meets at 3:35 P.M. each Tuesday
in Vincent 16, and is preceded
by a tea in Vincent 120. The
schedule is available online
at a new location: http://www.math.umn.edu/jrcoll/
We invite you to join us at
an upcoming talk!
James Swenson, Graduate Student
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