Texas Eta Chapter Report

Institution: Texas A&M University

Reporting Year: 2013-2014

Advisor: Dr. Philip Yasskin

Advisor's Email Address: yasskin@math.tamu.edu

Has There Been a Change in Chapter Advisor During the Past Year?: No

Permanent Faculty Correspondent: 

Permanent Faculty Correspondent's Email Address: 

Officers: President: Kristi Board kboard@tamu.edu Vice President: Brent Tucker brent.tucker2014@tamu.edu Treasurer: Ernesto Calleros erny74@tamu.edu AWM Chair: Tracy Aguilar agui_trace91@tamu.edu Web/Tech: Oliver Garcia ogarci5@tamu.edu

Chapter Website: http://mathclub.tamu.edu

Number of New Members: 37

Number of Continuing Members: 81

Activities: In our February meeting, Dr. Ulrica Wilson of Morehouse spoke at our induction meeting. She spoke to the inductees and shared her reflections on her path from her own Pi Mu Epsilon induction ceremony to a career doing mathematics, teaching mathematics, and serving the mathematics community. She then included a mathematical talk on eventually properties of matrices. Her abstract is below. Abstract: An eventual property of a matrix $Minmathbb{C}^{ntimes n}$ is a property that holds for all powers $M^k, kge k_0$, for some positive integer $k_0$. Eventually positive and eventually nonnegative matrices have been studied extensively since their introduction by Friedland in 1978. Eventually positive matrices are characterized by Perron-Frobenius properties and while there is no such characterization for eventually nonnegative matrices, there is much that can be said. For instance there is a subclass of eventually nonnegative matrices called strongly eventually nonnegative matrices that have nice characterizations. Eventually $r$-cyclic matrices were introduced to study SEN matrices. In this talk we discuss the spectral structure of eventually $r$-cyclic matrices and some other eventual properties of matrices. On March 28th, Pi Mu Epsilon participated in Texas A&M University’s largest service project, Big Event. Members came together for an entire day to volunteer and serve the citizens of Bryan-College Station. Together we cleaned and renovated a local church, while spreading the word of our chapter’s involvement at Texas A&M.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present at the PME National Meeting this year? Speakers at MathFest: Nathan LaFerney, William Linz, Daniel Miller

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduations? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences, etc.
Ernesto Calleros – beginning PhD in Mathematics at Rice University Vannessa Jreij – beginning PhD in Statistics at Texas A&M University Daniel Miller – beginning PhD in Electrical Engineering at Stanford

If you were awarded a PME Lectureship, Conference, or Prize Grant within the past year, please briefly describe the results.