NES MAA

From the Colleges

Bowdoin College (reporter Jim Ward) Mary Lou Zeeman has joined the department this fall as a professor. She earned her B.A. from Oxford and her Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, and she has spent the last 15 years at the University of Texas at San Antonio. For the next few years she will spend the fall semesters at Bowdoin and the spring semesters at Cornell where she will continue her research in endocrine biology using mathematical models. The eventual goal is to involve both Bowdoin and Cornell students in this research as Bowdoin develops a program in mathematical biology.

Connecticut College (reporter Kathy McKeon) Sanjeeva Balasuriya has joined the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Connecticut College. Sanji received his Ph.D. in Applied Math from Brown University. He has taught at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka, Oberlin College and, most recently, the University of Sydney.

Dartmouth College (reporter Carl Pomerance) Our big news is Kemeny Hall, the new math building that has been under construction for about 2 years. Faculty, grad students, and staff have just moved in, and our classroom space should be ready a bit later in the fall. A novel feature is subject-area laboratories which will be magnets for students interested in these areas. Seminars will be held in them, some will have some interesting computing machinery, others interesting books, and some both. In particular there are two geometry labs, a number theory/cryptography lab, two applied math labs, a discrete math lab, a pedagogy lab, and a lab supporting the Chance newsletter. If you're in the area, please stop by and see our gorgeous new building---someone will be happy to show you around. We have three new faculty this fall. Owen Dearricott is a John Wesley Young Instructor in differential geometry working with Craig Sutton (who joined us as an assistant professor a year ago). Owen received his PhD in 2002 from SUNY Stony Brook. Stephanie Treneer is also a John Wesley Young Instructor. She is in number theory and working with Dorothy Wallace. She received her PhD this year from U. Illinois in Champaign--Urbana. Sean McGuinness is visiting the discrete math group this year (Sergi Elizalde, Rosa Orellana, and Pete Winkler). Dan Rockmore was recently named the John G. Kemeny Parents Professor of Mathematics. Dan holds a joint position with the Computer Science Department. Rosa Orellana was just promoted to associate professor with tenure, plus she won the Huntington Award for teaching this past spring, and she is also a recent recipient of a McLane Family Fellowship supporting teaching and research. Carl Pomerance was elected as the Mathematics Section chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Two John Wesley Young Instructors finished their terms here last spring: Ryan Daileda took a tenure track job at Trinity U. in Texas and Rob Hladky took a postdoc at U. Rochester. Last June we had one graduating PhD, Lee Stemkoski, who took a tenure track job at Adelphi U. The year before we had 3 graduating PhD's who have all landed good postdocs. This academic year we should have a bunch (or is it a gaggle?) of new PhD grads. Overall, our department has been building some strength in applied math (both traditional and non-traditional), and to reflect this we have retooled the undergrad curriculum with new applied math courses as well as financial math.

Fitchburg State College (reporter Claire McAndrew) For the 26^th year the Fitchburg State Department of Mathematics has held the Elizabeth Haskins Mathematics Contest for 500 regional high school students. Gerry Higdon has organized the day of mathematics contests, talks, lunch, and the Awards Ceremony for the last quarter century. The department has welcomed two new faculty members in the last two years. Dr. Amy Wangsness joined the department from Iowa State in 2005 and Peter Staab, Ph.D., University of Colorado at Boulder, has recently arrived via Tufts and Colorado College. The Mara Award for Teaching Excellence at Fitchburg State was won by Gerry Higdon for the year 2005-2006. Assistant Professor Amy Wangsness will be one of the invited participants in a workshop on Spectra of Families of Matrices Described by Graphs, which will be run through the American Institute of Mathematics Research Conference Center (ARCC) in Palo Alto, CA, October 23-27, 2006. The organizers are Richard Brualdi, Bryan Shader, and Leslie Hogben, all known for work in the field of combinatorial matrix theory. The goal of this workshop, sponsored by the American Institute of Mathematics (AIM) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), is to bring together researchers in the fields of matrix theory, graph theory, and combinatorics to make progress in the investigation of the following problems: 1) The 2n-conjecture for spectrally arbitrary sign patterns. 2) Determination of the minimum rank of symmetric matrices described by a graph. 3) The energy of graphs.

Framingham State College (reporter Sarah Mabrouk) Mohammad Salmassi was promoted to Professor effective September 1, 2006. Sarah Mabrouk was promoted to Associate Professor effective September 1, 2006. Eileen Lee was awarded tenure effective September 1, 2006. Robert Page joined the Mathematics Department at Framingham State College in Fall 2006. Before coming to Framingham, he held a visiting position at Bennington College and, for the three years prior to that, he taught Mathematics at South Panola High School in Datesville, Mississippi. Robert earned his Ph.D. at the University of Mississippi. Our friend and colleague Anita Goldner died on December 30, 2005. To honor and to celebrate her life, the College held a memorial service on March 8, 2006. During the memorial service, organized and lead by Mo Salmassi, some of Anita’s many friends shared how she had enriched and brightened their lives. Anita inspired her students, guiding them in their education and in life. She was a wonderful colleague and a great supporter and encourager of junior faculty. She always made new colleagues feel immediately welcome and at home at the College and in the Mathematics Department. Anita loved Framingham State College and its students, and she included a bequest for the creation of an endowed scholarship for students majoring in elementary mathematics education in her will. It is our hope that you can join us on Tuesday, October 17^th at 1:00 pm when the College will unveil a memorial bench in Anita’s honor in front of Hemenway Hall at Framingham State College.

Keene State College (reporter Dick Jardine) Vince Perlini finished his sabbatical. Mike Cullinane is on sabbatical and Dick Jardine will be on sabbatical in the Spring. The Department is converting its current 3-credit based curriculum to a 4-credit based curriculum, and at the same time, participating in the revision of Keene’s general education program. The general education program is now called the Integrative Studies Program (ISP), very different in philosophy and implementation from the old general education program. Part of the ISP is a quantitative literacy (QL) requirement, which the Mathematics Department is taking a leadership role in developing but that other departments are heavily involved in implementing. Mathematics Department faculty and staff are presently conducting a QL Institute, a faculty development initiative to prepare a broad spectrum of KSC faculty to teach QL in the context of their disciplines or interests.

Lyndon State College (reporters Susan Gallagher and Kathy Armstrong) Dr. Jeffrey Green, Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, has been hired as a one-year replacement for Professor David Mellor, who is on a leave of absence. Dr. Green has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Clemson University in South Carolina and an M.A. in Computer Science from the University of Texas in Austin and a B.S. in Physics from Carnegie-Mellon University. Most recently he served as network administrator at Karme Choling in Barnet, Vermont.

Manchester Community College (reporter Kathy Bevelas) Manchester CC hired Paul Edelen and Catherine (Kate) Lombardi to fill two positions. Paul was an adjunct in the MCC Mathematics Department since fall 2004. He received a bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, an M.S. in Mathematics and an M.A. in Mathematics Education, both from UConn, and an M.D. from the UConn School of Medicine. He has taught mathematics at the high school and college level (including at Gateway C.C. and the University of Hartford), and was an Assistant Clinical Professor at Yale and UConn Schools of Medicine. Kate Lombardi recently received her M.S. in Mathematics from UConn.

MATYCONN (reporter Kathy Bevelas) The Fall 2006 MATYCONN meeting will be held Oct 20th at Norwalk Community College. It will focus on Mathematics Across the Community College Classroom and math folks are being encouraged to bring a nonmath faculty to the meeting.

Norwich University (reporter Ernie True) Professor Cathy Frey has recently been named Head of the Mathematics and Sciences Division. Professor Gerard LaVarnway has assumed the duties of Chair of the Mathematics Department. In addition, the department has added three new faculty on the tenure track. We are please to have Dr. Susan Diesel who has been visiting for two years now in a tenure track position. Susan also is the Director of our Developmental Mathematics Program. This year we also hired Dr. Elizabeth Mathai and Dr. Darlene Olsen at the rank of Assistant Professor. In addition, Dr. Jeffrey Olson is fulfilling a one year visiting position. We also have two new members of the department at the rank of Lecturer, Sandy Desorda and Hung Kim. Professor Steve Wiitala is on independent study leave for the fall semester and Dr. Rob Poodiack is on independent study leave for the spring semester.

Rivier College (reporter Teresa Magnus) Dr. Darien Lauten retired from the department this spring. During her tenure here, she developed and directed the MAT in Teaching Mathematics program which continues to thrive. Dr. Teresa Magnus has assumed the role of MAT-Math Director for Fall 2006, but is looking forward to a sabbatical in Spring 2007 in which she plans to study the mathematics of voting. Dr. Stephan Ehrlich, Dr. William Bonnice, and Dr. Vladimir Riabov are also fulltime faculty currently teaching mathematics at Rivier College.

St. Francis Xavier University (reporter Tara Taylor) Two faculty are on sabbatical: Ping Wang and Ping Zhou. Wendy MacCaull is part of an interdisciplinary research team that received an award to help build capacity in Nova Scotia's health research community. Tara Taylor received a service learning grant to help bring math to the community. Tao Li received an NSERC discovery grant.

St. Michael’s College (reporter George Ashline) Jo Ellis-Monaghan was tenured and promoted to associate professor in the Spring of 2006. Another large group of students and faculty participated in the Hudson River Undergraduate Conference in April of 2006 at Westfield State College. There were eight Saint Michael’s student presentations. Jim Hefferon is currently on sabbatical, in which he is focusing on web services for CTAN. Zsu Kadas is ably serving as department chair in his absence.

Salem State College (reporter Mary Platt) Students Dan Kirkorian and Misook Wood won the Lathorop Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Joseph Ngenga won the Lathrop Award for excellence in Computer Science. The Department has two new assistant professors: Joe Fox with his Ph.D. from Western Michigan University who was a visiting instructor at Grand Valley State University last year, and L. Pedro Poitevin with his Ph.D from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Julie Belock received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor. Kenny Ching is on sabbatical for Fall 2006.

Three Rivers Community College (reporter Kathy Bevelas) Three Rivers Community College, has a new math instructor is John Wengertsman. He did adjunct work at Capital CC while he was an actuary at Travelers Insurance (now Travelers/ St Paul).

Tufts University (reporter Eric Todd Quinto) Fulton Gonzalez was promoted to full professor and received tenure. Eric Todd Quinto received the Robinson Chair in Mathematics.

University of Massachusetts-Boston (reporter John Lutts) Karen Ricciardi is on maternity leave until the spring. Catalin Zara is a new hire. (He was formerly at Penn State.) Alfred Noel received tenure last year. Maura Mast has been elected chair of SIGMAA-QL, the special interest group of the Mathematical Association of America in Quantitative Literacy and she continues to serve as Clerk of the Association for Women in Mathematics. She is also a mentor/consultant for Project NExT. Several members are National Project NExT fellows: Karen Ricciardi, Steven Jackson and Catalin Zara. Geza Schay retired at the end of the spring semester.

Westfield State College (reporter Phil Hotchkiss) On April 8, 2006 Westfield State College hosted the 13th annual Hudson River Undergraduate Mathematics Conference. This was the first time a public institution of higher education hosted the conference. By all accounts it was a tremendous success. There were about 650 attendees from New England, New York and Ohio. There were approximately 220 talks, the vast majority of which were given by undergraduates. Mary Ann Connors (Mathematics Department) participated in the First National Summit on The Advancement of Girls in Math and Science May 15th. She was among approximately 100 invited participants selected from academia, public affairs, advocacy, and the STEM professions. Mary Ann was excited and honored to participate with enthusiastic leaders in this groundbreaking national event on a crucial topic. She looks forward to seeing the realization of the goals set forth at the summit and to continuing to contribute to Westfield State College’s historic role in the education of women and all students in the fields of mathematics and science. Mary Ann has also received and accepted an invitation from the National Science Foundation to read and evaluate proposals submitted to the National Science Foundation's Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Expansion Program (STEP) and then serve on a panel that will convene November 13-14, 2006.