FOR ITS MEMBERS AND FRIENDS
NO. 7 UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA - NEWSLETTER OF THE SCHOOL OF MATHEMATICS FEBRUARY 2000
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GRADUATE PROGRAMIn July and August we welcomed 37 new TAs, from all around the world. As usual, the international TAs arrived first, and had a special program conducted by the English as Second Language Department that helped orient them in the ambient language and culture. The ESL people also assess international TAs' communication skills (more than just English fluency itself) and make recommendations about their readiness to work in a classroom. After the ESL orientation was completed, the School of Mathematics conducted its own orientation, introducing students to the mundane but important facts that they'll need in order to function in the School of Mathematics, and having a few videotaped practice sessions in which they practiced presenting material as a TA would. Several senior TAs (M. Boutin, M. Galbraith, T. Garrett, N. Reading, C. Rios, S. Seo, T. Wiandt, N. Wodarz) assisted, lending their insights and perspectives. As is traditional, some mildly farcical play-acting scripted and acted by the grad students made it all more memorable. The Written Preliminary Ph.D. exams were given about the second week of classes, and as expected several students made progress toward completion of this requirement. Apart from making progress toward the Ph.D., TAs also get a modest pay raise for completion of this requirement. We are continuing to refine our special Master's degree with emphasis on Math Education, in addition to our Actuarial Master's and Applied/Industrial Master's degrees. In these and possibly other directions there are opportunities for us to find people interested in studying higher mathematics. Diane Trager, our new graduate secretary, did an excellent job of organizing things for the School of Mathematics picnic. She's also learning the myriad details and undocumented conventions that play a role in running the graduate program. If a few things seem to slip by our office down here, please do be indulgent, and just remind us of what you need.
Outstanding Thesis Prizes
*Pavel Belik, 'Computational Methods for Martensitic Thin Films' (Advisor: Professor Mitch Luskin) *Irina (Berchenko) Kogan, 'Inductive Approach to Cartan's Moving Frame Method with Applications to Classical Invanant Theory' (Advisor: Professor Peter Olver) *Salome Martinez, 'Diffusion and Cross-Diffusion in the Multi-Species Lotka-Volterra Competitive System' (Advisor: Professor Wei-Ming Ni) *Irina Mitrea, 'Spectral Properties of Elliptic Layer Potentials on Nonsmooth Domains' (Advisors: Professors Mikhail Safonov and Carlos Kenig (Chicago)) *Yi Ouyang, 'Group Cohomology of the Universal Ordinary Distribution and its Application' (Advisor: Professor Greg Anderson)
Paul Garrett,
Professor of Mathematics www@math.umn.edu |